January 2024 – Page 6 – C-VILLE Weekly

The University of Virginia will reopen Alderman Library on January 8 after nearly four years of renovations. As work continues on the project during the spring semester, the UVA Board of Visitors will also consider renaming the university’s main library ahead of the official grand opening in April.

Since closing in March 2020, Alderman Library has undergone extensive renovations to improve the buildings’ safety, accessibility, and amenities. New features include the secondary entrance on University Avenue, two study courts, and more natural lighting.

“We are eager to welcome the UVA community back to the newly renovated library,” says UVA Deputy Spokesperson Bethanie Glover. “Library visitors can expect more study spaces, better accessibility, more natural light, a student-run café, and more following the reopening.”

Glover says the university is opening the building now to allow the Class of 2024 the opportunity to use Alderman before graduation. Most elements of the library will be accessible in January, but the book and material relocation process will continue throughout spring. More than a million books will be moved by library workers in what is expected to be a six-month process.

Beyond book relocation, another crucial item is still up in the air: the library’s name.

The University of Virginia is one of several major institutions that has considered and, in many instances, renamed buildings that are named after problematic individuals. One example is UVA’s 2020 decision to drop enslaver and confederate supporter J.L.M. Curry’s name from the School of Education and Human Development.

The university’s main library is currently named after UVA’s president from 1905 to 1931, Edwin Alderman. Proponents of renaming the library say Alderman should not be honored, given his staunch support of the pseudoscience of eugenics and white supremacy during his time as university president. A 2018 president’s commission report examining slavery at the UVA noted Alderman’s aim to make the university a “leading eugenics research center.”

“The topic of renaming the library is expected to appear in the March 2024 Board of Visitors meeting materials for discussion,” says Glover. She did not say whether new signage referring to the building as Alderman Library was created during the renovation process.

While the Board of Visitors was slated to take up renaming the library in December, it pushed consideration of the name change to March 2024. At press time, the Board of Visitors had not responded to a request for comment.

The university is not expected to hold any special events related to the reopening prior to April’s official opening.

As the number of Palestinian lives lost from the conflict in Gaza climbs to over 20,000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, voices addressing the crisis are louder than ever. Local activist Jason Crane is one of them.

Since October 24, Crane has held a vigil every weekday morning on the corner of Rugby Road and Rugby Avenue in observance of the loss of Palestinian life. Like hundreds of thousands of Americans, Crane wanted to acknowledge the unfolding crisis in the region, so, with a homemade sign reading “Stop Genocide, Free Palestine,” he walked to the busiest street corner accessible to him, and made it a daily ritual.

Crane says for the first week or two, he held the vigil alone. Then someone saw one of his daily posts on Instagram and joined him the next morning. A neighbor who saw him while driving by decided to stop and participate as well. Crane says there are now about 50 people who attend off and on. On November 9, a similar vigil gathered in front of the Northrop Grumman building on Route 29, and has continued from 4 to 5pm every Friday.

According to the Crowd Counting Consortium, a public service project that tracks non-violent protests, the majority of demonstrations in the United States expressed solidarity with Israel in the first 10 days following the October 7 attack by Hamas, with 270 recorded compared with nearly 200 in support of Palestine. But as the war continued, the nation saw a massive surge of support for Palestine. On November 28, CCC recorded 1,869 events showing solidarity for Palestine compared to 433 in support of Israel since October 7.

“The belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza appears to be an important factor in the growth of this movement,” writes Jay Ulfelder, program director of Harvard’s Nonviolent Action Lab, on the CCC blog.

“For me this is a daily show of solidarity,” says one attendee of the Charlottesville-area vigils. “What’s important is that we show people we’re still out there and remind people that this is still happening.”

Crane says their presence every day is helping those who feel the same way know that they are not alone, one of his primary motivations for holding the vigil.

“The way that I know that, is people do things like pull over and hand us a tray of muffins, or bring us coffee,” Crane says. “A very elderly woman came with a box full of pastries from Albemarle Baking Company, and she handed them out to us.”

But there are also the hecklers.

“The number-one reaction, far outstripping every other reaction, is apathy,” Crane says. “It’s just people who barely look at us or look and look away. Number two is positive, and there are a lot of positive reactions. And a distant third is negative, people who flip us off or yell.”

Sixty-one percent of Americans support a permanent ceasefire in the region, according to a poll conducted by Data for Progress and published December 5. The poll found that 74 percent of those surveyed support sending food, water, and medical aid to the people of Gaza. 49 percent support sending military aid to Israel, while 38 percent oppose it.

Though the U.S. has long been a staunch ally of Israel, President Joe Biden said the country was losing international support by its “indiscriminate bombing” of the area. Israeli airstrikes continue across Gaza, including the southern city of Rafah. More than 50,000 Palestinians have been injured, 300,000 residences destroyed, and 26 out of the area’s 35 hospitals are not functioning, according to data collected by Al Jazeera.

Yet the U.S. has vetoed three U.N. resolutions calling for an immediate end to hostilities in the region. Fifth District Representative Bob Good expressed “unequivocal support” for the war in Gaza during a December 20 pro-Israel event at the Fluvanna County Public Library.

On the topic of popular support for a permanent ceasefire, the congressman said, “the only solution for Israel is to eradicate and defeat Hamas to ensure [an attack] cannot happen again.” Good supported a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel that passed in the House at the beginning of November.

From Crane’s vantage, however, the vast majority of people are in favor of peace.

“I’ve been really heartened by the number of people who support us,” Crane says. “I think it’s not a hard concept to understand that genocide is bad. And I think we afford [people] a very small chance each morning to say that out loud in some way.”