Heather Heyer Way is an example of an existing honorary street. PC: Staff photo
Sign of the times
After months of debate over Charlottesville’s honorary street name policies, City Council unanimously approved two requests last week recommended by the Historic Resources Committee: Black History Pathway and Byers-Snookie Way.
Black History Pathway, located on Fourth Street NW between West Main Street and Preston Avenue, pays homage to the city’s rich Black history. It will cut through a former Black neighborhood known as The Hill, which was razed—alongside Vinegar Hill—during urban renewal in the 1960s.
Meanwhile, Byers-Snookie Way, located on 10th Street NW between Preston and Henry avenues, will honor Black community leaders, William “Billy” Byers and Elizabeth “Mrs. Snookie” Harrison. After becoming Charlottesville’s first Black aquatics director in the 1980s, Byers helped create the school division’s swim program, teaching many low-income Black children how to swim. Harrison worked alongside Byers and managed the Washington Park pool for decades.
Out of the dozen proposals sent to the HRC last fall, the committee also recommended that council approve street names honoring Black activist Gregory Swanson, enslaved laborer Henry Martin, and Charlottesville’s sister city Via Poggio a Caiano, Italy.
The committee turned down requests for Tony Bennett Way (and Drive), largely due to the UVA men’s basketball coach’s “previous substantial national and community recognition.”
However, council decided to hold off on approving additional proposals until March. The HRC is also still ironing out the details of the honorary street names policy.
The committee recommends waiving the application fee, substituting the application’s essay section with simple short questions, allowing applicants to choose between a temporary or permanent street marker, requiring two to three letters of support per nomination, and providing historical context on honorary street signs and a website.
To better handle future honorary street name proposals, the committee advises City Council to create a special naming commission that includes members from related committees.
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Quote of the week
“We’ve come to a strong compromise that reimagines our criminal justice system…to provide a clean slate for Virginians who have paid their debt to society.”
—Virginia House Majority Leader Charniele Herring (D-Alexandria) on the passing of legislation automatically sealing the criminal records of people convicted of certain misdemeanors
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In brief
City offers rent relief
The City of Charlottesville has distributed $181,000 in rent relief funds in recent weeks, according to City Councilor Michael Payne. The program, initiated to combat the effects of the pandemic, was put together in a short period of time and has already helped 467 local households.
Credit where it’s due
Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania has confirmed that Mayor Nikuyah Walker is not under criminal investigation for her use of city credit cards. Speculation about a possible investigation arose in recent weeks after acting City Attorney Lisa Robertson sent a memo to City Council reminding the mayor that “Even a small unauthorized purchase can have serious legal consequences.” However, Platania wrote in a February 22 letter that he has long been “extremely concerned about the lack of consistency and clarity surrounding the city’s credit card policy,” and that he won’t prosecute any cases of potential violations until the policy is rewritten. The credit card policy is just another thing on the already long to-do list of new City Manager Chip Boyles.
Joe Platania PC: Supplied photo
Picture this
Earlier this month, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 99-0 to make the “dissemination of unsolicited obscene images of self to another” a misdemeanor—in other words, they made it illegal to send dick pics without consent. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, not to the Virginia Senate, where eight male senators in a 14-person subcommittee killed the legislation, citing constitutional and enforcement concerns.
Wine diplomacy: If you’re interested in celebrating presidents, pairing them with wine may be the way to go. In a nod to Presidents’ Day, the second installment of Monticello’s History in a Glass series explores Thomas Jefferson’s passion for wine and the influence it had on diplomatic relations and social entertaining at the White House. Author Fred Ryan will discuss his book, Wine and the White House, in a virtual presentation that includes special guests. Participants will also receive a curated selection of Jefferson-era recipes from Monticello’s Farm Table Chef David Bastide.
Slow cookin’ to victory: As every child knows, there’s more than one way to eat your greens (or accidentally spill them to a pet under the table). Lucky for all of us, the chefs at the annual Greens Cookoff know how to tantalize taste buds with greens and two other ultimate homestyle comfort foods: mac ‘n’ cheese and pound cake. Cook along while you watch the pros from Angelic’s Kitchen, Pearl Island, Royalty Eats, Soul Food Joint, Chimm, Bizou, Blue Moon Diner, Maya, and The Whiskey Jar battle for the crown in a virtual competition.
When JBD Event Catering & Soul Food owner Jeanetha Brown-Douglas saw a need in the community, she filled it with her own homecooked meals. As others witnessed her generosity, contributions came in to support her Free Meal Friday program.
Photo by Tom Mcgovern
If times of hardship reveal the character of a person, then Jeanetha Brown-Douglas is a testament to kindness and charity. In the middle of the pandemic, facing a slowdown in her own business, the owner of JBD Event Catering & Soul Food teamed up with her family to feed community members in need.
Brown-Douglas, her daughter Dejua, and sister Ruth Turner created Free Meal Friday to provide gratis meals and desserts once a week at JBD’s new location in the former Wild Wolf Brewery spot at 313 Second St.
“When COVID hit, we had to shut down for months, and we had to find a space that was able to conform with all of the safety guidelines,” says Brown-Douglas. “We were fortunate to find that in our new location, our space is large enough for social distancing and also has a large patio for outside dining.”
This setup also allowed her to invite those who needed a hot meal to come in from the cold to eat, or grab some food to take away.
“The idea for Free Meal Friday was born out of the love for our community,” says Brown-Douglas, who had been delivering meals to the Salvation Army and UVA students in the early months of the pandemic through St. Paul’s church. When that stopped, she joined forces with Dejua and Turner, whose business, Hands of Favor, creates customized wigs and provides hair therapy for people in need. “We decided to continue feeding and protecting the community. We also offer masks and hand sanitizer for everyone who comes in to get our free meals.”
Since starting Free Meal Friday, the team has averaged 25 meals per event. Brown-Douglas says food options include baked spaghetti, cheesy mac, and sandwiches. She pairs these with desserts made by her daughter and a bottle of water.
As word got out, others have come forward to help make Free Meal Friday happen. “I am so thankful for the heartfelt donations that have been offered to our cause,” says Brown-Douglas.
She says they’re planning to continue the program at least until the end of March. “Hopefully we will be in a better place with the pandemic, but if not, we will continue offering our help to the community.”
As for her business, which Brown-Douglas says is a “concept of restaurant-event space and catering combined” it’s getting by. “Though business is up and down, we still manage to do okay,” she says.
“We have our regulars that stay with us, which is a blessing. We currently offer indoor dining and takeout.
And we’ll offer small events as the governor allows.”
JBD Event Catering & Soul Food is open 12:30-8pm every day but Monday and Wednesday. The donated meals are available at its storefront on Fridays from 2-4pm, with extended hours as needed. Brown-Douglas welcomes donations to defray the cost of the meals. Checks made out to JBD Event Catering can be dropped off at the restaurant.
When live gigs went dark, The Judy Chops’ guitarist William Howard launched his own Facebook series “Reverend Bill’s Confessional: Music, Spiritual Guidance & Whiskey,” in which he takes requests and communes with fans and fellow musicians. publicity photo
By Shea Gibbs
The “Reverend” Bill Howard found his calendar wide open when the pandemic hit last year. The musician and hospitality industry worker had been gigging regularly with his beloved Americana band, The Judy Chops, and had some free time to fill when the live shows abruptly ended.
Howard’s solution? Weekly livestreams on Facebook with up to two hours of music and conversation. Every Sunday at 7pm “Reverend Bill’s Confessional: Music, Spiritual Guidance & Whiskey” goes live. Without fail.
Howard recently posted his 46th episode, complete with its old-timey church background, on February 7—not even the Super Bowl could stop the streaming. He says he was by some measures slow to react to the pandemic, though. “It took me a while last year to come to terms with the hole in my schedule,” he says. “I didn’t write my first new, post-COVID song until halfway through the year.”
Once the Reverend opened the pearly gates of songdom, a flood of tunes followed. That means plenty of new tracks, like the cautiously optimistic “I Can Be the Light,” grace the Sunday night show. But Howard also includes lots of old songs from the Chops catalogue—such as the bluesy wailer “Drugs” from the band’s first album—not to mention that spiritual guidance and brown liquor sampling.
“It’s become a wonderful community, and I’ve picked up fans from all over the world,” Howard says.
Each show features a theme that often veers toward music—favorite bands, vocalists, and songs—but it also occasionally brings home the guidance element of the confessionals. During Howard’s January 24 stream, for example, he asked folks to take a moment for reflection.
“Tonight, we are talking about things that make you hopeful,” he said during the production. “It’s been kind of a funny week that way. It feels like a different timbre in our national dialogue. It seems like a little bit of a stress has been relieved. So, it got me feeling a little hopeful this week.”
Joining Howard during the digital concerts is his girlfriend and partner Brittany Dorman, who handles the comment board and assists on production.
Howard says the confessionals have come a long way on production quality over the year of shows. The first steps were simply improving their internet capacity in semi-rural Harrisonburg, and finding the right webcams. The Judy Chops sound engineer (and Howard’s roommate at the time) took care of the tech in early days, but he’s since moved out of the pod. Howard and Dorman’s new roomie is another serial livestreamer, and he’s brought green screen technology to the team.
“We would like to get to a point where we can do a real concert experience,” Howard says. “I don’t know if we will ever be back to the same kind of live shows, so I’m trying to figure that out.”
Howard has also partnered with Harrisonburg concert venue The Golden Pony to produce a few confessionals alongside a larger, socially distanced group. The musicians have been forced to stop the semi-monthly on-site shows with the ebbs and flows of the coronavirus, but Howard hopes they’ll be back soon.
“I would really like to take this concept on the road, eventually,” he says. “If I’m on tour with another band, we might do a confessional with a couple of their members.”
On top of his weekly Sunday session, Howard hosts the Socially Distant Fest’s Wednesday Night Devotional, which has become his outlet for cover songs that sometimes also make their way to Sunday nights (many are in response to email requests).
Howard says he doesn’t see livestreams going away even post-COVID—for his confessionals, as well as for the music industry as a whole. According to data from Twitch, music and performance arts category viewers increased from an average of 92,000 last February to 574,000 in March. And while Howard says his video audiences fluctuate from week to week, the shows have raised a fair amount of money via their “virtual collection plate,” and he believes the medium has room to grow.
“I do think the market is a little saturated…but the more you can make your streams efficient and look good and sound good, the more people will come back,” Howard says.
Whatever the role of livestreams going forward, Howard says COVID has changed his approach to music in serious ways. He had been considering doing more solo work prior to the pandemic, and the new normal has accelerated his plans.
“I noticed that, for years, I was writing with horn…and bass parts in mind,” he says. “But now I’m here with my acoustic guitar, feeling contemplative. It seems to lend itself to more singer-songwriter type stuff. I definitely have a solo album in me. We will see.“
The Judy Chops won’t be going anywhere, either. The band recently wrapped a new four-song EP, recording the final vocals on February 6 at Poetown Music with Gordon Davies. Howard expects the album to drop “in the next couple months.” The tracks may have been part of a full-length record if not for the pandemic, Howard says, but he and his bandmates decided not to push things and let the music come as the spirit moved them.
“We have nothing but time,” he says.
Laura Lee Gulledge (left) added LaQuinn’s lyrics to her pop-up gallery exhibition on the Downtown Mall. “Learning someone’s story turns strangers into friends,” says Gulledge in her artist’s statement.
Photo by Jill Mumie
By Alana Bittner
Just steps away from Heather Heyer Way, the faces of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sage Smith, and others look out from the Silverchair office windows on the Downtown Mall. Painted with India ink on cardboard, 12 portraits comprise the series “Say Their Names: a BLM Tribute,” artist Laura Lee Gulledge’s homage to victims of police brutality and racial injustice. Interwoven among the portraits are the subjects’ biographies, as well as information on how to help their families.
The series began with a portrait of George Floyd that Gulledge carried to a Black Lives Matter protest in June. The work has remained connected to current events: as she was writing the subjects’ bios, white supremacists stormed the U.S. Capitol. Soon after, Gulledge collaborated with local rapper LaQuinn to create a large-scale composition book that incorporates lyrics from his song “Black Lives Matter”—only hours after they completed it, an encounter with local police left LaQuinn battered and bruised and leveling accusations of police brutality against the Charlottesville Police Department. The incident is currently under investigation.
Creating art that captures moments so immediate and devastating is difficult. “Writing out everyone’s stories for this exhibit was very challenging to process,” says Gulledge. “Plus this was the same time of the Capitol attack, which retriggered memories of the Charlottesville attack literally right next to the exhibit. It all felt very potent. Very real. Very now.”
In the face of these tragic events, honoring the memory of those lost can provide a sense of refuge and hope. “As an artist I feel that one of the best things I can contribute at this moment to my community is love,” Gulledge says. “This installation is an expression of love. It felt like a gift.”
To complement “Say Their Names: a BLM Tribute,” Gulledge is creating another series honoring those who are “Living in Peace.” She will be painting the portraits in the windows of the Silverchair building on February 19 and 20. Community members are welcome to drop by and say hello.
The Corner Juice’s PSW Smoothie and California sandwich are a healthy, tasty takeout option. Staff photo
In an ongoing effort to support local dining establishments during the pandemic, our writers have been enjoying a variety of takeout meals from some of their favorite restaurants. Contribute to this ongoing series by sending your own delicious experiences to living@c-ville.com.
Mas Tapas
While carryout can’t quite compare to dining in, to me it’s nothing short of a civic duty to support my favorite restaurants by ordering to-go, in the hopes of helping them weather the pandemic storm and survive till “normal” resumes. Mas has long been one of my go-to restaurants in town, and I feel lucky to still be able to enjoy its food. Online ordering is easy, with pick-up in designated parking spaces behind the restaurant.
My Mas must-haves did not disappoint, starting with the warm, smoky, rich Tomates Asados—tender, Roma tomatoes smoked with herbs and sea salt in olive oil. I can eat these straight up or atop a slice of Pan Casero—a wood-fired, hearth baked bread I could never replicate at home (I order extra to have the next day). The Queso y Alcachofa, a warm roasted artichoke and goat cheese spread blended with onions, garlic, and herbs is the perfect tangy, creamy garlicky accompaniment on bread as well.
I can’t order Mas without getting a Bocadillo, the simple yet perfect sandwich of air-dried, cured Spanish serrano ham and manchego cheese, smeared with a garlic aioli on a crusty roll, and I save the best for last: Gambas a la Parrilla, Catalan-style shrimp grilled in the shell with garlic aioli and gray sea salt. A mess to eat, but every bite is simply divine.
In the before times, getting a table at Mas could require one to be a little cutthroat—especially once it got too cold to dine on the patio. I’m going to take the optimistic view that takeout is the next best thing to being there for the time being: the chance to eat some of the finest food in town, in the comfort of my home, minus the wall of bodies all waiting for the rare table opening. —Jenny Gardiner
Milan Indian Restaurant
In this foggy and raw pandemic winter, my household has returned again and again to a restaurant with food that is indulgent and comforting, but also fresh and zesty enough to blast through the haze—Milan Indian Restaurant on Route 29.
The Charlottesville staple offers a wide variety of vegetable dishes, and the Chana Masala is a standout. The chickpeas have a satisfying bite, and they’re served in a tangy tomato-based sauce with a gentle sweetness and layers of spice.
I am also particularly fond of the Baingan Bahaar, a melty eggplant-based vegetable stew. Eggplant is a delicate flavor but this is not a delicate dish; the mixture is oily and rich, and the vegetable’s flavor comes through with plenty of authority.
The chicken Tikka Masala is lighter and less creamy than at some other Indian restaurants. The flavorful sauce, rather than the meat itself, is the star of the show here. It’s especially tasty with a dollop of roughly chopped mint chutney on top. The cool clarity of the herbs multiplies the warmer flavors of the main course.
Milan is a popular spot, and its to-go pickup operation isn’t quite as seamless as some other local restaurants, so it’s wise to order a little before you plan to tuck in.
When the food arrives, it’s plentiful—all the more important in these times of takeout, when there’s special joy in leftovers. I love to follow an evening Milan dinner with a daytime Milan lunch, dumping all of the quarter-tubs of this or that into a pan and sliding the stew onto a bowl of rice. The flavors blend together, but the mixture loses none of its components’ sharpness or fragrance, and the afternoon’s work is always easier after a warm midday meal. —Ben Hitchcock
Corner Juice
Corner Juice is like Bodo’s healthier, trendy sister, and I find myself craving it almost as much as a bagel these days. The menu offers a variety of light, fulfilling options, and provides more than the name suggests: Corner Juice offers sandwiches, toasts, coffee, and oats in addition to cleansing juices, smoothies, and smoothie bowls. Both locations (the Corner and the Downtown Mall) aren’t allowing customers inside due to COVID concerns, but they offer online ordering for pick-up.
I ordered from the Corner shop, which has a QR code to scan to view the menu, so you can order without contact, and I felt immensely safe getting my takeout.
I chose a PSW smoothie, with pineapple, mango, spinach, mint, and coconut water. This was a first, as I usually opt for the Corner Colada or the Green Bowl. I realize there are greens in these smoothies, but I promise you can hardly taste the vegetables. I also added the California sandwich to have for lunch later in the day. It’s a combination of avocado, hummus, carrot, cucumber, red onion, and alfalfa sprouts on organic wheat Pullman bread. Most of Corner Juice’s sandwiches are made on MarieBette bread, which has had my heart for a while, so I was really looking forward to this one. It was a bit dry, so I would recommend adding the herb mayo or basil pesto to it, but other than that, it was fresh and filling, without making me feel sluggish. The coffee with house cashew milk is another great energizer. Overall, Corner Juice helps you get past those early morning or midday blues—in a healthy, delicious way. —Madison McNamee
The Warminster Baptist Church, in Buckingham County, is at the center of a community that could be destroyed if a gold mine were established.
By Amelia Delphos
The Warminster Baptist Church sits on the corner of Warminster Church and Sycamore Creek roads in Buckingham County. The historic Black church was established in 1866; the congregation has worshiped in three different buildings, but never strayed far from the plot of soil where their traditions began.
Across the street, multiple generations of the Wayne family own land and live next to each other, as they have their entire lives. Their family members are buried down Sycamore Creek Road, less than a mile away, where they will one day be buried themselves.
The property that sits directly next to both the Wayne family and the church is owned by Weyerhaeuser, a timber and wood products company that grows and harvests forests. For the past four years, Weyerhaeuser has partnered with Aston Bay Holdings, a Canadian gold exploration company, which has quietly conducted exploratory drilling on the Weyerhaeuser land. The companies are searching for gold deposits beneath the forest.
An extractive gold mining operation could spell trouble for the people and environment of rural Buckingham County. But the area is no stranger to an environmental fight. Last year, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled in part due to the dedicated organizing of Buckingham’s activists. Now, those organizers once again find themselves defending themselves and their environment from big business.
High price
Buckingham County, Virginia, was the leading producer of gold in the United States prior to the California Gold Rush in 1849. A belt of gold and pyrite runs through the foothills of Virginia, from Fairfax, through Buckingham, and down to Appomattox. In the 19th century, gold mining was done with a pickaxe and shovel. Miners dug down until groundwater filled the mine and would move on to the next one.
Things have changed since the 1840s. Today, multinational companies swoop in to areas with historic gold mining success and set up huge mines. Open-pit gold mines look like craters left by asteroids, dents in the earth hundreds of feet deep and hundreds of thousands of feet wide.
Gold mines decimate local ecosystems. A 2017 study conducted by environmental groups found that “Gold mines almost always pollute water—74 percent of operating gold mines polluted surface and/or groundwater, including drinking water.” That’s a particular problem in Buckingham County, where residents are almost entirely reliant on groundwater. The small town of Dillwyn has a water treatment plant, but the rest of the county’s 17,000 residents drink from the deep wells on their properties.
Aston Bay’s exploratory drilling is taking place very close to the James River, which provides drinking water for over three million Virginians.
“All of the streams are heading downstream from that location to the James,” says Chad Oba, president of Friends of Buckingham, a local group of citizens “united to work with our county leaders to attract economic investment opportunities that benefit all of our residents, and that contribute to a sustainable healthy environment.”
Oba’s group first coalesced in opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in 2014. That project, too, would have had dangerous impacts on local watersheds. If a gold mine comes, “The James, very definitely, would be impacted,” says Oba.
Mining town
A couple years ago, Paul Barlow, a resident of Buckingham County, had two Canadian geologists approach him and ask to take samples from his creek. The geologists were not affiliated with Aston Bay, but had heard there was exploratory core drilling happening nearby, and they hoped to locate the source that had drawn their countrymen. Barlow agreed, and the geologists took samples and sent them back to their lab in Canada.
About eight months later, they told Barlow they found no gold in his creek, but they did find indications that gold could be close to Barlow’s property. Casually, Barlow asked the geologists what would have happened if they had found a deposit on his land.
“‘Would you guys dig a pit? Would you guys tunnel for it?’” Barlow asked. “They both laughed and said ‘Oh no, no, no, it would be an open-pit mine. You would have to move, we would completely destroy your 27 acres, and up your house that you would have to move. All these trees and all these hills would be leveled with huge, open pits.’”
The geologists told Barlow he wouldn’t have to sell or lease his land, but he wouldn’t be able to live there because of the mining operation. It’s a timeworn Appalachian tale: community members presented with a choice to sell their land to the arriving industrialists and have it decimated, or stay, and watch their property value dwindle to nothing.
Paul Barlow. Photo: Amelia Delphos
After Barlow’s encounter with the geologists, he traveled south to learn more about what it’s like to live so close to a gold mining operation. About five hours from Buckingham, Kershaw, South Carolina, contains the largest gold mining operation on the East Coast. The Haile Mine sits three miles northeast of Kershaw, where the Australian company OceanaGold mines between 146,000 and 175,000 ounces of gold per year.
Barlow hoped to talk to the people who lived around the mine.
“I was driving around and it was just empty driveway after empty driveway,” he says. “You could see where a house foundation used to be, and it was just miles of empty driveways.”
Eventually, Barlow found someone who lived close to the mine. In 2012, OceanaGold approached the man and offered to buy his property. The man refused, but his sister, who lived next door, was offered $300,000 for her property, 40 acres and a single-wide trailer. According to local real estate trends, she made a profit.
“The mine will spend a lot of money to displace people.” Barlow says.
Nowhere to go
In 2018, Buckingham’s Warminster Baptist Church’s well went dry. The neighbors down the street began having problems with their well, too. After years of heavier-than-average rainfall, there’s no obvious reason for the wells drying up.
“Our neighbors to the church, [they] can wash one load of clothes and they have no water,” says Deacon Bill Perkins, who is a Wayne on his mother’s side. He’s concerned that more industry nearby could further disrupt the community’s delicate ecosystem.
“If they was to do the mining in the Warminster Baptist Church neighborhood, it would affect the whole neighborhood,” Perkins says “It would affect our water table, our air, and then bring all of this heavy equipment in and it will destroy our roads.”
Deacon Bill Perkins. Photo: Amelia Delphos
Should a gold mine be established, it would be difficult for the Wayne family to relocate. The family has been on that land for at least five generations and most of the current residents are elderly. They have grown up together and plan on dying together.
“We have nowhere to relocate to,” Perkins says. “Most of the people who live in this neighborhood have been there all their life. It’s disturbing that they’re doing this, and we have nowhere else to go.”
On top of that, members of the Wayne family and other church family members are buried in a cemetery on Sycamore Creek Road, less than a mile from the church. “I’m concerned about our cemetery,” says Perkins. “It’s real near where they’re drilling at. What would happen to that? They’re not going to drill around it.”
“It’s a problem,” he says. “A terrible situation.”
Laws of the land
The possible gold mine has already led to changes in local law, and could soon bring about change at the state level, too.
State geologists say the current exploration is nothing to worry about. At the moment, Aston Bay Holdings is in Buckingham just to perform exploratory drilling. According to David Spears, a state geologist for the Department of Mining and Mineral Energy, core drilling primarily involves collecting rock samples.
“They drill a hole, they collect the samples, they plug the hole with cement, and then they go away. That’s it,” Spears explained at a November Buckingham County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission work session. A few weeks later, the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors voted to make core drilling allowable by-right on private property designated for agriculture and industry. That means Aston Bay can proceed without any other special permissions.
Friends of Buckingham responded to the board’s decision by working with the Virginia League of Conservation Voters to draft a new piece of state legislation. House Bill 2213, introduced in this winter’s General Assembly session, proposed establishing a commission to study the effects of gold mining in the state and imposing a two-year moratorium on large-scale commercial gold mining in Virginia in the meantime.
“This will extend,” says Oba. “There are 13 counties that the gold-pyrite belt runs through, so, stop it here, you stop it there.”
“Sometimes people think this is an issue that is limited to Buckingham County, and it’s not,” says Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, a Prince William County Democrat and chief patron of HB2213. “So we have the chance to take this question seriously and examine the issue before opening the door for gold mining that could have long-term impacts on our commonwealth.”
On February 5, HB2213 passed the House on a straight party-line vote. After the bill passed, Stephanie Rinaldi, a community member who lives near the potential mining property, stated, “When I heard they found gold a mile from my house, I panicked. A gold mine here would upend my entire life…We at least need to study and understand this industry before permits are issued.”
A week later, an amended version made it out of the state Senate Rules Committee. The revised bill, which will be presented to Governor Ralph Northam for his consideration this summer, includes the work study group but eliminates the proposed two-year moratorium on gold mining.
“It’s really disappointing that some of the bill was removed,” Oba says of the decision, though she’s glad the whole bill wasn’t killed. “There still is the study, which is absolutely necessary to protect our water, our air, our land-use, and our history, not only here in Buckingham, but throughout the state.”
“What’s the big deal? We’re not talking coal mining,” says Democratic Senator Dick Saslaw, one of the members of the rules committee who passed the revised bill, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Barlow lives about two miles from the exploratory drilling site. He and his wife have lived in Buckingham since 2012, and built the cabin on their property themselves. “We’re just so happy out here,” he says. “Nice and quiet. We don’t want anything to change out here.”
Says Perkins, “We love our church, we love our neighborhood, we love everybody that’s in the neighborhood. It’s not a neighborhood that gets a lot of disturbance. It’s a quiet, country neighborhood.”
In an ongoing effort to atone for its racist history, the University of Virginia could provide scholarships to descendants of enslaved laborers as soon as 2022. PC: Eze Amos
For nearly a year, Isabella Gibbons has peered over Charlottesville. Inscribed into the rough-hewn granite of the University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, her eyes not only draw attention to the cruel realities of slavery—but ask what we are going to do to rectify them.
As UVA continues to atone for its racist history, a form of reparation may finally be on the way for the living descendants of enslaved laborers like Gibbons, who helped build and maintain the university for decades.
On February 5, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill that would require five state colleges established before 1865—the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Military Institute, Longwood University, and the College of William & Mary—to offer full four-year scholarships to descendants of enslaved laborers, allowing them to attend the school of their choice.
“When you think about the centuries of legacy admissions that have occurred, this is really just the bare minimum that could be done for a community of people who are responsible for these institutions existing,” says Justin Reid, manager of the General Assembly Virginia African American Cultural Resources Task Force.
“More than anything, this bill gives the General Assembly’s seal of approval for efforts that in many cases are already underway,” he adds. “There are institutions doing this work that wouldn’t be doing it if it had not been for student activism, faculty support, and descendant organizing.”
If the bill is passed by the state senate, the colleges will have to tap into their large endowments (or fundraise) to pay for the scholarship program, which would take effect in the 2022-2023 academic year. They will also be obligated to build a memorial to enslaved laborers, if they have not done so already.
At UVA, descendants have already established their own independent organization. Though the group is still getting organized, one of its main goals is to establish reparations scholarships.
“Our ancestors [not only] put their blood, sweat, and tears into creating and building the university,” says Bertha French, co-chair of Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVA, “but their bodies were a part of a system of finance that were foundational to the beginnings of our country.”
In addition to providing free higher education—which is “a passport for upward mobility,” says French—to thousands of African Americans, these scholarships would rectify the ways in which the bodies of enslaved people were defiled and abused in the name of scholarship, she explains.
“People were robbing graves and taking cold bodies to use for research in medical schools, and to study anatomy,” French says.
For founding co-chair DeTeasa Gathers, the fight for descendant scholarships is personal. In 1963, her late mother graduated from UVA hospital’s segregated licensed practical nurse program—but was not allowed to attend the university.
“As she was passing, she told me not to forget her,” says Gathers. “Not forgetting her is also part of my push for this process.”
There are institutions doing this work that wouldn’t be doing it if it had not been for student activism, faculty support, and descendant organizing.
Justin Reid, manager of the General Assembly Virginia African American Cultural Resources Task Force
Per the proposed law, the five colleges will be required to work with the State Council for Higher Education to identify as many of the enslaved people who worked on their campuses as possible, which will determine how many scholarships or grants each institution awards. For UVA, that number will range between 4,000 and 5,000.
One of the challenges of establishing programs like these is locating the descendants of enslaved people, which often must be done using incomplete or nonexistent historical records. Genealogist Shelley Murphy has already built over 100 family trees, and identified more than 45 descendants of people enslaved at UVA.
In 2019, “I began with doing presentations about the research and who I am looking for: descendants of the enslaved laborers, descendants of the slave owners, other genealogists, and family historians [who] have central Virginia ancestry connections,” she says. “I also use social media…The more that know about it, the chances increase in finding more descendants.”
Now that the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has been open for almost a year, Murphy says she’s had a lot more people contact her directly about being a descendant. If their intake form shows a possible connection to the area, she meets with them over Zoom, and begins to dig into their family history.
Across the commonwealth, other colleges and universities have taken their own steps toward addressing their troubled pasts.
Since 2009, the Lemon Project—named after an enslaved man—has worked to uncover William & Mary’s deep ties to slavery, offering courses, symposiums, and other educational events. The college has also commissioned a $2 million memorial to enslaved laborers, which is set to be completed next year.
Other institutions are not as far along in the process. After facing scathing accusations of “relentless racism” by Black students and alumni, VMI removed its statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson last year. While the school’s policies and culture remain under third-party investigation, it has begun to research and identify the people it enslaved.
If the legislation is approved, Reid ultimately hopes it can be expanded upon to include even more colleges in the state.
“Virginia wouldn’t exist without the labor of enslaved people,” he says. “All of our higher ed institutions have benefited from this history.”
If city school reconfiguration moves forward, Walker Upper Elementary would be converted to a preschool, with the building also housing a health clinic and counseling services.
PC: Staff photo
In the best of times, it’s difficult to balance the big-ticket projects in Charlottesville’s Capital Improvement Plan, the city’s five-year budget schedule for large infrastructure projects. That’s only become more challenging during the pandemic, when municipal coffers have taken a hit. Last week the Planning Commission debated the merits of a variety of upcoming projects, including a controversial $10 million parking garage downtown. Whatever City Council ultimately decides to do about the parking garage, another other major expenditure looms in the near future: school reconfiguration.
The proposed school reconfiguration project is designed to decrease the number of transitions students go through from elementary to middle school. The district would move fifth grade from Walker Upper Elementary, which houses fifth and sixth grades, back down to elementary schools, and sixth grade up to Buford Middle School.
“That’s just a tough time,” explains Charlottesville School Board chair Lisa Larson-Tores. “You get into a building and then you get settled and start to make relationships—then you’re leaving again.”
“Fifth graders really are developmentally more aligned with elementary school,” she adds.
Walker would then be revamped into a centralized preschool with wraparound services, including a health clinic and counseling.
The 54-year-old middle school would also get a badly needed makeover, which doesn’t come cheap.
“A lot of these school buildings are the same buildings, maybe the same auditorium seats that some of our city councilors sat in when they were going to school,” says Larson-Torres. “We will be upgrading to the physical spaces that these kids deserve.”
A lot of these school buildings are the same buildings, maybe the same auditorium seats that some of our city councilors sat in when they were going to school.
Lisa Larson-Torres, Charlottesville School Board chair
The school board first began discussing reconfiguration in 2008, but had to put it on hold when the recession hit. Though the project was mentioned on and off over the years, it was not officially revived until around 2017, following a school growth and capacity study suggesting that reconfiguration would help to address achievement gaps and equity issues.
“We had [an] architect come in to lead public forums, meet with us to provide different options, and provide some of the framework that the board used to then make our decision as far as which direction we wanted to go,” says Larson-Torres.
While the city’s negotiations with an architecture firm were halted at the start of the pandemic, they resumed last fall, putting the school board in “wait mode,” explains Larson-Torres.
“We are waiting to hear whether or not the contract has been finalized with the architect that was chosen,” she says. “Right now there’s lots of transition going on, [with] the new city manager coming in and the city attorney. All of those people are a part of this.”
In the Capital Improvement Plan draft, the city has set aside $50 million as a placeholder for reconfiguration, but the architect contract will give a more realistic price estimate and timeline.
During a February 3 budget work session, councilors largely agreed that the West Main Streetscape could be paused in order to allocate more funding to school reconfiguration. However, it remains unclear if any other adjustments, like a tax increase, will be needed.
If council ultimately decides not to move forward with reconfiguration, the school district will have to find another way to update its aging infrastructure, which could cost just as much as reconfiguration.
“It’s my sincere hope that we get to the next step, and that everyone is willing to take a deep breath and understand this is an investment this community and our kids deserve,” says Larson-Torres.
