Over the past month, Charlottesville’s Historic Resources Committee has met virtually with more than a dozen descendants of enslaved laborers, seeking their thoughts and ideas on how to best pay tribute to the thousands of people bought and sold in Court Square. Now, the committee plans to establish a formal timeline for the highly anticipated memorial, as well as request complete funding from the city.
The thorough outreach and design process offers a worthwhile glimpse at the steps required to replace a public monument, a process that will become even more relevant as the city prepares to remove the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues from city parks.
“There’s no hurry—these statues have been here for 100 years,” says committee member and University of Virginia professor Jalane Schmidt. “Let’s think carefully about how we want public space to look for the community.”
During a June 11 meeting, Schmidt summed up the input gathered from the three descendant engagement sessions about the Court Square space, emphasizing “the importance of the combination of memorialization with education.”
Descendants strongly recommended the memorial feature the words of people enslaved in Charlottesville, such as Maria Perkins and Fountain Hughes. In 1852, Perkins wrote a poignant letter to her husband Richard, who was owned by a different enslaver, alerting him that their son Albert had been sold to a slave trader. Fearing that she would soon be sold too, she urged Richard to convince his owner to buy her as soon as possible.
Hughes—whose grandparents were enslaved by Thomas Jefferson—was freed in 1865 after the Civil War. He was one of several thousand formerly enslaved people interviewed by the Federal Writers’ Project in 1949. His account of the brutal realities of Black life, both during and after slavery, is among the few surviving sound recordings of formerly enslaved people.
“Enslaved people were humans and people first,” said descendant Diane Brown Townes, who joined in on the HRC meeting. “I would like that to become a running theme.”
Descendants suggested that the research conducted for the memorial could later be turned into an exhibition, like the Holsinger Portrait Project at UVA, which displayed a selection of the few hundred portraits of Black Charlottesville residents taken by photographer Rufus Holsinger during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cultural events, historic reenactments, and educational tours could also be hosted at the new memorial site.
Those who attended the engagement sessions ultimately urged the city to erect a permanent memorial while public interest is still heightened.
“People are talking about it [and] interested in truth telling—let’s strike while the iron is hot,” said Schmidt.
Still, “we have to be careful what we wish for or wish to see. It goes on in perpetuity,” warned Townes. “We want to be careful with the deliverance and not rush into anything.”
Following the impending removal of the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues, multiple members suggested the memorial could be combined with the redesign of Market Street and Court Square Parks, and backed by funds set aside for the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces.
“Is there a pressure for it to be where the former slave auction block was, or could it be perhaps in Court Square Park after this statue is gone?” asked member Dede Smith.
City Historic Preservation and Design Planner Jeff Werner urged the committee to determine the next steps in the planning process. Though the design process is getting underway, City Council has not yet officially set aside funding for a Court Square monument. “I’m just a little worried that there is an assumption that this committee has funding and is preparing to develop and design some sort of monument,” he said.
The committee agreed to pause its meetings with descendants while it works to establish a clear timeline for the memorial and secure funding from City Council. However, it plans to put up a form on the city’s website over the summer, allowing descendants to continue submitting their feedback. Descendant engagement sessions will resume after Labor Day, when the city begins holding in-person meetings again.
“We just don’t want to keep asking people to come to meetings without us having something formal we are pursuing,” added Schmidt.
Reflecting on the descendant engagement process, Schmidt says it has been “fulfilling” and “gratifying” so far, and sees it as a unique opportunity to make the city’s public spaces welcoming and inclusive of everyone.
As the city thinks about what’s coming for other monument replacements, HRC member Sally Duncan hopes the city will continue to allow descendants of enslaved laborers take the lead.
“Ultimately, City Council should not have the say for what goes in there,” says Duncan. “The Black community of Charlottesville should have the say in what goes in the place of those statues and what those parks should look like.”