Author: Brielle Entzminger

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Moving in

Three UVA or UVA Foundation properties—the Piedmont community off Fontaine Avenue, 1010 Wertland St., and portions of North Fork UVA discovery park on 29 North—are part of the university’s new affordable housing development initiative. Photo: University of Virginia

From redlining to racial covenants, Charlottesville’s long history of racism and segregation has created the affordable housing crisis the city now faces. Over the years, the city’s largest employer, the University of Virginia, has contributed to the problem. As UVA continues to grow and expand, more and more students have signed leases at apartments and houses around the university, leaving less and less affordable housing available for the city’s low-income residents.

In 2020, UVA President Jim Ryan announced that the school would take proactive measures to address the situation. Over the next decade, UVA plans to support the development of 1,000 to 1,500 units of affordable housing in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. UVA and the UVA Foundation will retain ownership of the land for the affordable housing developments, and partner with third-party developers to design, finance, build, and manage the new units.

Last month, the university announced three prospective sites—all owned by the university or the UVA Foundation—for new affordable housing units: UVA’s Piedmont community off Fontaine Avenue, portions of the North Fork UVA discovery park on Route 29, and the 1010 Wertland St. building at the corner of Wertland and 10th Street. The existing buildings, excluding a historic structure at the Piedmont site, would be replaced with new ones.

Among the key questions facing the project is just how affordable the units will be. City councilor and longtime affordable housing advocate Michael Payne hopes the dwellings will be available at a variety of rental prices—at all area median income levels. “Our biggest need, and the most difficult affordable housing to build, is having units at zero to 30 percent AMI,” he says.

Moriah Wilkins, Skadden Legal Fellow at the Legal Aid Justice Center, says the units need to be affordable specifically for local residents who make below $50,000 a year. “A lot of the low-income housing tax credit units that we have in the community right now accommodate people who have far more than $50,000, so we need to make sure we’re targeting the right demographic,” she explains.

While the units will be available to the entire community, they should be easily accessible to UVA employees, including dining hall staff, custodians, and other service workers, says Public Housing Association of Residents Executive Director Shelby Edwards.

“People who work at UVA should have the ability to live in the city if they’re going to be expected to work in the city,” says Edwards. “Low-income people, specifically Black people, over the past few years have been moving out of Charlottesville.”

According to a report published by the Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition in 2020, around 25 percent of all city residents currently do not make enough money to afford to live here.

In addition to one- and two-bedroom units, the new developments should have plenty of units for larger households, as well as elderly and disabled residents, stresses Wilkins. It’s also important that the units offer opportunities for homeownership, giving Black residents a chance to build generational wealth.

Payne also encourages the university to explore adopting a community land trust model, in which a nonprofit organization owns land and leases it to homeowners, maintaining permanent affordability. “They’ll be able to reach deeper AMI levels, potentially open up wealth-building opportunities to more people, and ensure that those units aren’t just affordable for 10, 15, or 20 years, which is often the case in some affordable housing developments,” he says.

Two of the potential affordable housing sites, Piedmont and 1010 Wertland St., currently have residents. After receiving some pushback from the residents, this month the university notified those who are eligible to renew their leases that they could do so through spring 2023, and would not have to move out this spring.

“We are beginning discussions about how to assist current residents as we get a better understanding of the needs,” said Assistant Vice President for Economic Development Pace Lochte in an email.

Affordable housing advocates point to Charlottesville’s troubled history of displacing vulnerable residents. In 1964, the city razed Vinegar Hill, a historically Black neighborhood and business hub. Former residents were forced to move to the city’s first public housing development, Westhaven. In 1969, Charlottesville also expanded City Yard into Page Street, another historically Black neighborhood, but refused to assist residents with finding alternative housing.

UVA should start helping residents of Piedmont and 1010 Wertland St. find new housing now, says Wilkins. It should also give them the option to live in the new affordable units once they are built, and offer them the same rental rate they had before—or a lower one, says Edwards.

“It’s really critical to have a survey of everyone who is living in these units who is facing displacement, [and] for UVA to know what their situations are—is it mainly students, community members, how long they’ve been living in that unit, what’s their current rent,” adds Payne. “[They should] use that information to definitely be 100 percent certain that no one is displaced.”

Piedmont residents have echoed these concerns. Since announcing the proposed sites, UVA has been collecting community feedback through an online (or mail-in) survey, as well as a comment wall on the affordable housing initiative’s website.

“If dozens of families lose their homes simultaneously or within a few months, the Charlottesville housing market cannot absorb all of them. Some families might not be able to find a place that is available, affordable, or that will accept their application (because of income, credit score or legal status),” wrote one commenter.

“We just moved in this summer and our new life is just settled down totally. My kids are just get used to their school,” said another resident. “That would be great for kids to stay in same school. Hope we could live at piedmont for full 4 years.”

The 1010 Wertland St. and North Fork sites have received more positive—albeit less—feedback. Commenters would like to see access to public transportation at the affordable housing sites, as well as green infrastructure, sustainable building practices, and community services.

As the project’s team moves forward with the community engagement process, Wilkins urges UVA representatives to visit low-income neighborhoods and public housing communities in person.

“Not everybody—especially low-income folks—has access to the internet and the same resources…so we really need to go into these communities as much as we can and engage in a way that speaks to them,” she says.

Payne hopes UVA will continue to work with local nonprofits, public housing communities, and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority to ensure that the new construction “is meeting the biggest needs in the community” and “won’t have unintended consequences [for] the people around the sites.” He also encourages the school to partner with the city on housing projects that are already in the works, like the redevelopment of South First Street.

UVA is collecting comments from the public until January 31. It plans to issue a Request for Qualifications from developers this spring.

“UVA has been around for so long, and there’s so much undoing of work that needs to happen,” says Edwards. “They started it, and they still have a long way to go.”

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New face

PC: City of Charlottesville

In November, newly appointed Charlottesville City Manager Marc Woolley quit the job—the day before he was supposed to start work. It was the low point in a three-year period that had seen five people, not counting Woolley, serve as the city government’s lead executive. In response, City Council addressed the desperate situation by hiring a management firm until it finds a permanent city manager. 

This month, Charlottesville signed a contract with the Robert Bobb Group, which has decades of experience serving local and state governments across the country. Last week, council interviewed three potential candidates—all members of the Robert Bobb Group—to be the interim city manager.

After meeting for over an hour in closed session, councilors officially appointed Michael Rogers during Tuesday’s meeting.

“I look forward to engaging with the staff and becoming a part of the team and leading the team so that the citizens of Charlottesville are proud every day at the level of service that their government provides,” said Rogers. “A government that will listen, is open and transparent, that’s my style. That’s what I look for.”

Rogers has previously served as Washington, D.C.’s city administrator, and executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, as well as chief operating and financial officer of Petersburg, Virginia. He has also held senior positions in the New York City government, and with the Minority Business Development Agency. 

Following his appointment, Rogers said he looked forward to “hitting the ground running” and working with council to address a plethora of issues facing Charlottesville. He also shared his connection to the area—early in his career, he met Cole Hendrix, who served as Charlottesville’s city manager from 1971 and 1996. 

“I can still remember the excitement and joy in [Hendrix’s] voice when he talked about his city of Charlottesville,” said Rogers. “So that impression of that city has always stuck with me.”

Mayor Lloyd Snook said he was drawn to the new manager’s passion for mentorship. 

“One of the things that I remember particularly about [Rogers’] interview is that [he] enjoyed mentoring and teaching younger, deputy city managers, people who are middle managers in city government,” said the mayor. “That’s something we really need.”

“Investment in staff development and building cohesive teams has been a staple of my career,” replied Rogers. “That’s how you build succession planning.”

Vice-Mayor Juandiego Wade said he was impressed by Rogers’ previous accomplishments, especially in regard to finances. In 2016 and 2017, the Robert Bobb Group helped the City of Petersburg climb out of millions of dollars in debt. 

“We’re going to need to be able to hit the ground running with the budget process,” said Wade.

Councilor Michael Payne expressed his appreciation for Rogers’ commitment to diversity and inclusion. 

“How do we ensure that there’s real diversity in class and race in the rooms that we’re in, and incorporating that into every decision we’re making—I’m just really excited to have that approach, along with your breadth of local experience,” said Payne. 

Rogers’ contract will last for six months, unless Charlottesville hires a permanent city manager within that time period. In the meantime, the Robert Bobb Group will help address other urgent needs, including creating the fiscal year 2023 budget.

Councilors will continue to work with the group to find a permanent city manager and police chief. They hope to hire a new person to lead the city by June.

Rogers will take office on January 31. 

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On the rise

Drive-through testing sites, like this one at Fashion Square Mall, have seen record numbers of patients in the last few weeks. Photo: Eze Amos

Nearly two years after arriving in Charlottesville, COVID is still here—and it’s more prevalent than ever. On January 10, the Blue Ridge Health District reported 610 new cases, the most in a single day. Before the surge of the last three weeks, the highest single-day case total was 245, in February of 2020. The surge can be attributed in large part to the omicron variant, which has taken over as the most common variant in the U.S.

In a town hall last week, BRHD officials and local doctors offered additional insight on the surge, and detailed a variety of testing options.

“What we anticipate is that [cases] will continue to increase,” said BRHD COVID-19 Incident Commander Ryan McKay. “We also recognize that these numbers are probably underreported numbers,” thanks to at-home tests, asymptomatic carriers, and infected people who have not been tested. McKay encouraged those who test positive using an at-home test to report their case to the health district.

Dr. Michael Williams of UVA Health urged people to not go to an emergency room or urgent care for a COVID test, especially if they are asymptomatic.

“As the numbers have gone up, the stress and strain on hospital personnel staff, and also resources, has gone up in lockstep,” said Williams. “You will wait and you will wait and you will wait [for a test].”

Amidst this record surge, local residents have reported waiting for hours in line to get tested, while area stores have quickly sold out of at-home tests. The state health department opened a new community testing center at the Pantops Shopping Center last weekend. The site offers PCR tests by appointment, and is open Saturday through Thursday from 9am to 5:30pm. The Blue Ridge Health District also offers testing Monday through Thursday at each of its health departments, and in the JCPenney parking lot at Fashion Square Mall on Friday. Appointments can be scheduled online at vase.vdh.virginia.gov, or by calling the BRHD hotline at 972-6261.

UVA Health continues to offer free drive-through and walk-up testing at Church of the Incarnation on Mondays, and Mount Zion First African Baptist Church on Tuesdays. (This week, testing will be held at Church of the Incarnation on Wednesday.) Next Molecular also runs a testing site at the JCPenney parking lot throughout the week. Testing appointments are available at local pharmacies too.

UVA Health now has the highest number of COVID patients that it’s ever had, said Dr. Taison Bell. While a majority of these patients are unvaccinated, those who are vaccinated typically have severe high-risk conditions, like cancer.

“The vaccines were specifically designed to prevent serious illness, and they continue to do that consistently,” said Bell. “As opposed to last year when we were taking care of [patients] who were getting sick because they were not vaccinated, this year we’re not taking care of [anyone] who has been fully vaccinated and especially boosted.”

Omicron is also impacting children more severely. “The number of children, including infants and newborns, who have become infected and have been critically ill and/or die is still a very small number, but it’s much higher than it has been to date,” said Williams.

Dr. Paige Perriello of Pediatric Associates of Charlottesville says she’s seen an uptick in kids coming into her office with coronavirus, and stresses that the increased demand for testing has had a major impact on health care workers.

“What happens during [testing] surges is both you need more people and they’re hard to come by, and people themselves are getting sick and they’re not available to participate in the testing sites,” says Perriello. “We started with staffing shortages and then you add an incredibly contagious variant on top of that, and those shortages go down even more.”

The surge has also had an impact on local schools. Since returning from winter break, Hannah Helm, a teacher at Charlottesville High School, says she has seen more absences in her classes than usual. Though she appreciates the school district’s mask mandate and other safety measures, she wishes the administration would implement stricter cleaning guidelines.

“Last year, we had a very clear-cut card system. At the end of the day when you would leave, you would ensure that there was a red card that was visible, so that custodial staff [knew] that that room had not been flipped,” she explains. “Now this year we’re not doing that, or if we are doing that, I’m not aware that we should be.”

This week, thousands of students from around the world will also return to Charlottesville. UVA has required all students, faculty, and staff to be vaccinated and boosted, but Stephen Marrone of United Campus Workers of Virginia at UVA believes the school could be doing more to protect the community.

“It’s a good idea to have boosters and vaccinations required…but if you look at the numbers of people getting infected, and the number of people getting really sick, it’s clearly not enough,” he says. “By the time you have symptoms, you’ve already been spreading the disease.”

Marrone wants to see mandatory weekly testing for everyone, and also wishes the university would consult its employees when making major decisions. “The number of people who currently have any say in our working conditions and the community’s living conditions is really, really small, compared to the people who are being put at risk,” he adds.

Health officials strongly encouraged everyone to get vaccinated and boosted to protect themselves from the highly-transmissible variant. Walk-ins and appointments are available Monday through Saturday at the Community Vaccination Center at Seminole Square.

What’s the mood on Grounds?

Amid the rise in coronavirus cases, UVA’s vax-mandated students, faculty, and staff will return to classrooms, dining halls, and fraternity houses this week.

“In-person instruction is a core part of our mission as an institution,” wrote President Jim Ryan on January 7. “UVA public health experts have advised us that classroom spaces are low-risk environments for infection.”

Some students are relieved to be returning to Grounds. “I don’t think the new variant will change the behavior of UVA students as a whole,” says Sullivan, a second-year student. “At this point, most students have become fairly unconcerned.”

Others are more wary about the return to in-person instruction.

“Although I’m of course eager for things to return to normal, I don’t think that’s currently possible with how many cases there have been even in just the UVA community recently,” says third-year student Maryann. “I think it would’ve been better to wait for the surge to slow down before introducing thousands of students back to Grounds.”

“I’m pretty much as nervous as I was at the start of spring semester last year,” says Patrick. “I definitely think it’s wise to keep a low profile and not party too much the first two weeks so I can see how many COVID cases are active when we get back on Grounds.”

Alyssa is conflicted about the return, given the value of in-person education and how much students have already missed due to the pandemic. “I think I am happy with the decision to return to in-person school as long as students are responsible and conscious of their interactions with the community,” she says. We’ll see how it goes.—Kristin O’Donoghue

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Uncivil review board

Bellamy Brown, left, stepped down as Civilian Review Board chair last week. Meanwhile, Mayor Lloyd Snook, middle, and local attorney Jeff Fogel have disagreed over the board's operating procedures. Photos (left to right): Supplied photo, supplied photo, Jackson Smith

The Charlottesville Police Civilian Review Board was among the key criminal justice reforms put in place following the 2017 Unite the Right rally. More than four years later, the board remains mired in controversy, with conflict between its appointed members and persistent legal questions about its powers hampering the board’s ability to keep law enforcement accountable to the city’s residents.

FOIAs and ‘flying monkeys’

At last Thursday’s meeting, Bellamy Brown stepped down from his position as chair, shifting to a position as a regular board member. Brown’s 11-month stint as the CRB’s leader saw the body embroiled in multiple internal disputes. Text messages revealed recently through a Freedom of Information Act request by activist Ang Conn show the extent of the dysfunction within the board.

In August, Brown made a public statement calling for a change of leadership in the police department. Shortly afterwards, Police Chief RaShall Brackney was fired, sparking pushback from some in the community who felt she had been removed from her post because her efforts to reform the internal culture of the department had been too proactive. The Police Benevolent Association, a union-like coalition of police officers, had lobbied for Brackney’s firing, and Brown had met with PBA members over the summer.

During multiple text exchanges last fall, Brown and board member Jeffrey Fracher, a retired forensic psychologist, expressed their strong dislike for Brackney and then-mayor Nikuyah Walker. Walker had supported the police chief and disapproved of the firing.

“The mayor has done nothing to improve racist policing in 4 years except piss off a lot of people by running her mouth and playing to the white guilt of the [Showing Up for Racial Justice] crowd,” wrote Fracher in September. “She is a toxic combination of several personality disorders…So divisive, so cruel, so manipulative, so angry—all in the name of ‘racial justice.’”

“True story,” wrote Brown.

In September, Brown told Fracher he wanted Nancy Carpenter removed from the board. “She is a disaster. Is doing nothing for our mission. In bed with the flying monkeys,” replied Fracher. The following month, Carpenter sent an email to City Council and the board asking Brown and Fracher to resign.

Fracher and Brown strongly criticized Vice-Chair Bill Mendez for introducing a vote of no confidence against Brown during the board’s September 10 meeting. “He’s an activist at heart. His daughter who apparently supports Nikuyah could have gotten to him,” wrote Brown, referencing posts Mendez’s daughter made in support of Walker on Facebook in 2017.

In text exchanges with Fracher in August and September, member James Watson also said he hoped Brackney would leave the department, and expressed his disapproval of the vote of no confidence.

In addition, Brown criticized former city manager Chip Boyles for hiring Hansel Aguilar—and not him—as the CRB executive director. He claimed Aguilar, “a damn introvert and academic,” was not well-equipped to engage with the public.

In many texts and emails, Brown and Fracher discussed their disagreements with public commenters, particularly members of The People’s Coalition, a local criminal justice reform advocacy group, who they claimed were trying to control the CRB.

“I don’t think 5-10 people should represent themselves as representing the whole Black community. Especially when they are all, including Nancy, in the defund the police crowd,” Fracher texted Brown in September. “All the people that I have talked to in the projects want nothing to do with defunding the police. They have to live with all the shootings. They want good police, not no police.”

During last week’s CRB meeting, Mendez and Watson were elected as the board’s new chair and vice chair, respectively. Member Deirdre Gilmore was not in attendance and Carpenter abstained from voting.

Carpenter addressed the leaked text messages. “To think about the terms ‘flying monkeys,’ and identifying low-income neighborhoods as projects, going after someone’s child…you’re asking me to vote in a system that has supported this [and] has not held itself accountable as we want to hold our law enforcement accountable,” said Carpenter.

During public comment, community member Katrina Turner asked why Carpenter or Gilmore were not nominated as chair, and claimed the board needed to be dismantled. “To see you all vote, and vote the men in again, what in the world is wrong with you all?” she said.

Brown and Fracher claimed that their use of the term “flying monkeys” was not racist, but was a “professional psychological term” and referred to the blind supporters of “narcissistic” Walker.

Fracher also criticized the FOIA for compromising members’ privacy. In public comment, Conn later maintained that the FOIAed information was public business, and urged Brown and Fracher to resign.

City Councilor Michael Payne encouraged the board to focus on filling its empty positions and fixing its tarnished image. He suggested the members go on a retreat to address their internal divisions.

“If the board is not able to be successful and do these things in a professional manner, the people who are going to be sitting back and smiling [are] those who don’t want to see police oversight,” said Payne.

Privacy powers

Meanwhile, debate continues over the specific operating procedures and legal powers of the board. A state law passed last year to grant broader authority to civilian review boards around the commonwealth left certain points open to interpretation. At issue at the moment is the amount of public information that must be disseminated during the hearing process.

In a public statement last week, The People’s Coalition wrote that it was “concerned about some aspects of the ordinance” that establishes the board’s powers. “We are particularly concerned about efforts by City Council to have all hearings and evidence in secret…secret proceedings are in direct contrast to the purpose of the Board which is to provide open and transparent oversight of the police department,” reads the statement.

Mayor Lloyd Snook explained in several emails that council wanted the board to be able to make disciplinary recommendations based on confidential information, and not have to release that information to the public. The board would hold a public hearing to determine whether police misconduct occurred, but deliberate in closed session and announce its decision to the public.

The current state law does not specify whether or not a police oversight board can do anything in private. There is at least one bill, HB 631, currently in the General Assembly that would clarify these rules, said the mayor.

“There is also one (hopefully rare) case where there might be some confidential information on the question of whether police misconduct occurred—that situation would be where the allegation is of a sexual impropriety, and the complainant does not want to have their private humiliation relived in public,” wrote Snook. “We want the [board] to do all that it can out in the open, and to have access to confidential information as they make a decision that will be publicly announced.”

Local attorney Jeff Fogel pushed back against the mayor in an email, claiming that HB 631 would allow all board hearings and evidence to be heard in private. According to the bill’s proposed summary, it would permit the board to “hold a closed meeting to protect the privacy of an individual in administrative or disciplinary hearings related to allegations of wrongdoing by employees of a law-enforcement agency, where such individual is a complainant, witness, or the subject of the hearing.”

“One definition of private is secret. You have also advocated for secrecy for all evidence,” Fogel said. “There was never a public discussion about whether secrecy was appropriate and there should have been.”

The 2022 Virginia General Assembly session, which could provide clarity on this point, began last week.

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Never again

Representative Liz Cheney was among the panelists at a UVA January 6 event. Photo: US House Office of Photography

Just over a year ago, the world watched in horror as thousands of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. Though activists and watchdog groups had warned law enforcement about the attack for weeks, police failed to adequately prepare for the violent mob. Insurgents broke into the Capitol, and occupied the building for several hours, resulting in over a hundred injuries and five deaths.

Last week, the UVA Center for Politics hosted a virtual conference reflecting on the January 6 insurrection, featuring an array of notable politicians, journalists, scholars, authors, and political scientists.

“If our democracy is to survive, then this is something that we can never forget,” said Larry Sabato, political scientist and director of the UVA Center for Politics.

After Trump canceled a press conference scheduled for the 2021 anniversary of the event, CNN Chief Domestic Correspondent Jim Acosta reflected on Trump’s relationship with the media.

“Trump is a loser. He is somebody that knows deep down that he lost the 2020 election,” said Acosta, who served as CNN’s chief White House correspondent during Trump’s presidency. “He knows all too well that Joe Biden had the bully pulpit today, and he was going to get all of the television coverage…the major networks were not going to take his lies on air.”

Polls have shown that as many as 68 percent of Republicans still believe that Trump won the election. However, some Trump supporters have been open to hearing Acosta’s perspective when he has talked to them one-on-one, he said. “If the truth can be told in a penetrating way, I do believe we can get through that Trump fog.”

During the second panel, Sabato questioned whether the canceled press conference showed that Trump may now be listening to the people around him.

“Psychologically, he is incapable of changing course,” said Mary Trump, psychologist, author, and niece of the former president. “There is a definite worsening of his state of mind, and that just suggests that nobody down the road is going to be able to rein him in.”

The former president’s niece pointed out that most elected Republicans still support Trump, and would do all they could to make him president if he runs in 2024. In addition to Trump himself, there are currently at least two dozen people who participated in the insurrection, as well as at least 50 QAnon supporters, running for federal office, added Miles Taylor of the Renew America Movement, which tracks radical candidates.

New York Times columnist and Charlottesville resident Jamelle Bouie emphasized the structural issues of our electoral system, most notably the electoral college. Since 1992, Republicans have only won the popular vote once during a presidential election.

“The ability to win power without winning the majority of votes has created a reliance on that method of winning among Republicans,” said Bouie. At the same time, “The Republican party has come to believe that [it’s] demographically doomed, and that change in the demographics of the United States is going to make it impossible to win.”

That mixture is “encouraging this toxic interaction with the personality of Donald Trump,” said Bouie.

Senator Tim Kaine and Congresswoman Liz Cheney expressed hope for the ongoing House investigation into the insurrection.

“I’m confident that we will, despite the efforts [of] people to delay and obstruct, get to the truth,” said Cheney, vice-chair of the January 6 committee. “We’ll have the facts and the truth to lay out for the American people.”

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O Canada…Virginia?

Scholar Mikki Kendall has traced her roots back to Charlottesville. Supplied photo

Before the U.S. abolished slavery in 1865, thousands of enslaved Black Americans escaped from Southern plantations and fled to Canada, where slavery was officially banned in 1834. Many used the Underground Railroad—an extensive network of secret routes, safe houses, free and enslaved Black Americans, and white abolitionists—to make the dangerous journey to freedom. The former slaves settled in free Black communities across southern Canada.

For years, feminist writer and cultural critic Mikki Kendall believed that her great-grandfather was a descendant of the enslaved Black people who fled to Canada. Her family assumed he eventually immigrated to the United States, where he met her great-grandmother. But when Kendall went looking for her great-grandfather’s name in Canadian records in 2020, she came up empty.

“My grandmother’s father has always been a little bit of a family mystery,” says Kendall, author of New York Times bestseller Hood Feminism and Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights. “They changed their last name at some point…There were two different spellings of the name, and three different stories about where he was from.”

After spending months scouring ancestry.com for records of her great-grandfather, Kendall finally stumbled upon records of his sibling and father. She was surprised to discover that his family was not from the country of Canada, but rather Canada, Virginia—a free Black community near the University of Virginia.

Residents of Canada worked as “washerwomen, seamstresses, carpenters, and cobblers, mostly serving students and faculty,” reports the Virginia Humanities’ Encyclopedia Virginia.

Notable residents of Canada include Catherine “Kitty” Foster, who was freed from slavery in 1820 and bought two acres of land in Canada, near several other free Black households, in 1833. Foster passed her land on to her descendants, who continued to live there until 1906, before the community was destroyed. In the 1990s and 2000s, archeologists discovered 32 unmarked graves—including Foster’s—where the neighborhood used to be. A memorial to Foster, showing the outline of her house, now stands next to the cemetery on UVA’s South Lawn.

“My family is up in Chicago on both my grandmother and grandfather’s side because of massacres and towns being destroyed,” says Kendall. “So [learning about Canada] wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was like, ‘Oh damn. Not one of you escaped this history.’”

Next week, Kendall will take a (virtual) trip to her great-grandfather’s hometown, when she speaks at the UVA’s Women’s Center about her feminist work. For over a decade, her work has critiqued modern white feminism, attempting to shed an intersectional light on issues faced by Black women and other women of color. She has coined several viral hashtags on Twitter, including #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, which called out white feminists who defended Hugo Schwyzer, a former college professor who preyed upon young women of color.

“It was weird seeing what was supposed to be feminism centered on men,” she says. “I wanted the conversation to be about needs and not lipstick and last names.”

In Hood Feminism, Kendall’s most recent book, she argues that basic human needs—including food, health care, safe neighborhoods, and a living wage—are feminist issues too, drawing on her own personal experiences.

“[The book] highlights the ways that a lot of communities have the same problems, except the way that they’re discussed are different,” she adds. “Missing and murdered Indigenous women and missing and murdered Black girls—this is the same problem.”

At UVA, Kendall also plans to discuss the “unacknowledged work” of women, disabled individuals, and genderqueer folk within feminist movements.

“We only talk Rosa Parks in the context of the bus, and never talk about her work to protect women from sexual violence,” says Kendall. “Movements honestly work better when we acknowledge the work being done.”

Kendall is currently working on a book about her family’s genealogy, as well as the construct of America. And when it is safe to do so, she plans to make an in-person visit to the former site of Canada.

Mikki Kendall will speak at the UVA Women’s Center on January 19 at 5 pm.

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Second chance

Jesse Crosson is out of prison after 19 years, and ready to talk about his experiences. Supplied photo

Most of us associate TikTok with teenagers doing goofy dances. Charlottesville native Jesse Crosson, though, is using the platform to talk about something far more meaningful—criminal justice reform. Over the past year, Virginia has passed major legislation, like abolishing the death penalty and legalizing marijuana. Crosson, who was released in 2021 after nearly two decades of incarceration, is among the activists and organizers advocating for more critical reforms in the Old Dominion.

In 2002, struggling with substance abuse, Crosson was convicted of robbery and unlawful wounding in Albemarle County. Just days after his 18th birthday, he was sentenced to 32 years in prison—twice the maximum of sentencing guidelines.

While recovering from substance abuse, Crosson had a radical shift in perspective.

“My transformation was from having a self-centered view of the world, to recognizing my connection with, obligation to, and the benefits I receive from others,” he says.

Throughout his years in prison, Crosson led a variety of programs, including GED tutoring, mental health support, and yoga. He also became a licensed electrician, and a mentor for other incarcerated men. After 15 years of studying, he earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio University in 2018.

In 2019, Crosson decided to petition for clemency. To his surprise, he received an outpouring of support from friends and family, as well as the general public. He met with multiple state leaders about his fight for clemency, and did interviews with the media.

On August 16, 2021, Crosson got the news he had been waiting nearly two decades to hear: Governor Ralph Northam granted him a conditional pardon, based on the excessiveness of his sentence, his age at the time of the crime, and his accomplishments.

“I went to a knee and started sobbing. I just lost my mind,” he says. “It went from zero to you’re getting out of prison today.”

Adjusting to life as a free man has been “really amazing,” says Crosson. Though he’s had some “really stressful times and difficult things happen,” he’s received an overwhelming amount of support—not a given for people coming out of prison, he emphasizes.

“I was really fortunate to have a place to stay, be able to get a job, and have transportation,” he says. “This is not something people should use for like toxic positivity to say, ‘everybody else can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ because that’s bullshit.”

Shortly after his release, Crosson created a TikTok account, @second_chancer, to share his experiences in prison, as well as advocate for criminal justice reforms. The account has since gained more than 500,000 followers, and features videos of Crosson casually recalling stories about the people he met and his process readjusting to the outside world.

Incarcerated people should have “the tools they need to succeed,” including emotional regulation skills, job training, and technological literacy, he says. He also hopes to see more support for victims of crimes, and changes to sentencing laws.

“You’ll have guys who get a five-year sentence, who are far worse when they get finished with that sentence, and are guaranteed to reoffend,” he says. “[Then] you have guys who get 50 years who after 10 years…have really turned their life around and are ready to reenter society but don’t have that opportunity.”

He says he’s received a wide range of responses to his TikTok, including positive comments that have made him “question and look at myself… I’ve also had some amazing exchanges with victims of crimes that were similar to mine. We’ve talked about our experiences, and it’s been really powerful and healing for both of us.”

Last month, he worked with a public defender on TikTok to collect clothes, food, and other necessities for people recently released from prison.

“It’s really encouraging that there is a capacity for some kind of action with this—it’s not just people sitting behind their keyboards talking about things,” he says.

On social media, Crosson has also discussed his relationship with local journalist (and former C-VILLE editor) Courteney Stuart, who did a story about his fight for clemency for CBS19 in 2019. Stuart later came to Crosson for advice about a personal issue, and began talking with him on the phone regularly. They soon became close friends—and eventually fell in love.

“We developed this amazing relationship without ever having stepped foot in the same room together,” says Crosson. “It’s been the healthiest and most gratifying relationship of my life.”

With Stuart, Crosson started the Pri-Zen podcast, which discusses a variety of issues within the criminal justice system. He is also working on a book proposal, and networking with local and state leaders to “find a way forward.” Crosson says he would like to go to grad school to become a licensed counselor or psychologist, and has also considered starting a nonprofit that provides re-entry services.

From his advocacy work, Crosson ultimately hopes that people will learn to “humanize everyone” and recognize that people are not “irredeemable.”

“There’s a failure to understand that we are not simple, rational creatures,” he says. “The vast majority of crimes that I saw committed were committed…as a result of trauma and really difficult circumstances.”

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Square one

The Historic Resources Committee is working on replacing the old Court Square plaque, which was removed last February. Staff photo

Charlottesville’s most famous monument made national headlines last week, when City Council voted to hand the statue of Robert E. Lee over to the Jefferson School African American History Center, which will melt it down and reshape the metal into a new piece of art. Across the street, meanwhile, a less conspicuous but no less important public history project is underway in Court Square.

This spring, Charlottesville’s Historic Resources Committee met virtually with more than a dozen descendants of enslaved laborers, gathering their input on how to properly memorialize the thousands of people who were bought and sold in Court Square. The committee paused the meetings over the summer, however, while it worked to secure funding from the city for the complex memorial project.

During the committee’s December 10 meeting, chair Phil Varner explained that the new Court Square memorial, as well as potential additional historical markers in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, could cost as much as $1 million. He suggested the city allocate funding from its long-term Capital Improvement Plan, and form a partnership with Albemarle County for the costly project. The committee currently has around $35,000 in its budget.

Councilor Heather Hill noted that the city has other costly projects coming up, including a major school reconfiguration. “There’s just a lot of things that we haven’t done that we have been pretty conservative about through the pandemic, so we don’t just have a bunch of money laying around,” she said.

“The only immediate thing that I have in mind is getting something in the CIP to start, so that over a number of years, we will continually put money towards something we will eventually converge on,” Varner said.

Hill—whose term on City Council concludes at the end of the year—encouraged the committee to present a report to council about the status and timeline of the engagement process, as well as a funding request for the entire project, at its January 18 work session.

During public comment, local resident Richard Allan—who stole the original slave auction block marker and threw it into a river last year, frustrated with the city for not erecting a better memorial—asked if the city would consider relocating the two parking spaces in Court Square Plaza that obstruct public view of the auction block site. Allan’s Court Square Slave Block Citizen Advocacy Group had an engineer inspect the area, and learned that the parking spaces could be moved across the street, he explained.

Varner emphasized that the committee has not yet started to design the memorial. “We’re gathering information, we’re building community,” said Varner, “to inform a future process.”

The committee also discussed resuming its community engagement by inviting historian Anne Bailey, an expert on slavery in the United States, to speak about slave auctions in February or March.

“One of the most poignant remarks we heard at some of the engagement meetings…was that descendants came and just didn’t know anything about the site or its history,” said city planner Robert Watkins. “Any educational or informational event is really getting people involved and making sure that they have a say in this project.”

Varner agreed to bring an interim report to council by February.

“For five years basically, we’ve just been fighting and struggling in just lots of different ways,” added member Jalane Schmidt. “It feels like now…we’re kind of in a new space where we feel like we can move forward.”

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A seat at the table

Advocates say establishing unions for school staff could help local districts retain school bus drivers, which has been a challenge in recent years. Photo: Martyn Kyle

Since Virginia lifted its decades-old ban on collective bargaining for public sector employees this year, Charlottesville’s firefighters and bus drivers have urged City Council to pass an ordinance allowing city employees to join a union and negotiate their contracts. Over the summer, the city took initial steps toward bargaining, when council adopted a resolution allowing former city manager Chip Boyles to draft a collective bargaining ordinance. But Boyles’ sudden resignation in September—and former interim city manager Marc Woolley’s hasty withdrawal from the position—has left the timeline for such an ordinance in limbo.

Amid these setbacks, local teachers have joined the fight for collective bargaining. And after Richmond’s school board became the first in the state to approve a collective bargaining resolution for school employees last week, Charlottesville-area educators hope to have a seat at the table soon too.

“When we talk to people, they’re usually in favor of it happening,” says Vernon Liechti, president of the Albemarle Education Association. “It’s a tool we can use to improve working conditions, benefits, and compensation for everybody.”

To force a school board to vote on a collective bargaining resolution, a union must have the support of the majority of employees in the bargaining unit. The board then has 120 days to take a vote, and set the parameters for contract negotiations. Nationally, teachers’ unions are some of the most influential unions in any industry, but Virginia has been one of just five states—along with Texas, Georgia, and the Carolinas—that bans bargaining with educators. Because Virginia’s unusual new law gives power to local boards to determine whether bargaining is allowed or not, early unionization efforts have made more headway in the state’s Democratic areas, like Richmond and northern Virginia, than in more conservative regions.

In Charlottesville and Albemarle, union supporters are currently focusing on organizing licensed professional staff who work directly with students, including teachers, counselors, specialists, nurses, and instructional coaches. AEA is also working to recruit bus drivers, food service workers, custodians, and teacher assistants.

In addition to pay raises and improved benefits, collective bargaining can help school employees get better classroom supplies and technology, adequate restroom breaks, smaller class sizes, additional time for lesson planning, more control over work hours, and other benefits, the union organizers argue. Most importantly, it will ensure every required duty is clearly spelled out in employees’ contracts.

“All parties are held accountable for what we negotiate for, which isn’t the case now. We can have all the negotiations we want…but it’s not on paper, and things can change,” says Jessica Taylor, president of the Charlottesville Education Association. “We would continue to make sure the division is accountable for compensating people who are doing more than what the contract asks them to do, like subbing for other teachers.”

“If you ever look at a collectively bargained contract in another state, versus what we have in Virginia, their contracts are like 40 or 50-plus pages—ours are just one or two,” says Liechti. “A lot of people just want to have clarity on what their roles, responsibilities, and time commitments are going to be.”

In light of the substitute teacher and bus driver shortages impacting both school districts, collective bargaining could also be a “huge welcome sign,” helping to recruit new employees—and retain them, Liechti says.

“I see such a huge turnover every single year in teachers and drivers,” he adds. “This is a way for us to work with our governing bodies…and just straight up tell them what people need to see in order to stick around in the division.”

And as schools continue to deal with the pandemic, collective bargaining could ensure that they maintain proper health and safety measures, says Taylor.

Collective bargaining would improve the lives and experiences of students too, union supporters stress.

“A teacher’s work environment is a student’s learning environment,” says Taylor. “If you have teachers who have all the resources that they need and are given the benefits that they deserve, they’re going to come to work rested, respected, and engaged.”

Across both county and city school divisions, many employees have shown support for unionizing. Earlier this month, dozens of local teachers gathered on the Downtown Mall to protest the Virginia School Board Association’s opposition to collective bargaining for public employees.

“People outside of the classroom are making decisions that directly impact people doing the work,” says Taylor. “It leads to people feeling disrespected. That is not a good feeling when you come to work…and you can only give your best when you feel your best.”

Next month, Charlottesville organizers plan to give presentations about collective bargaining at staff meetings, as well as put together a formal organizing committee. And until they have the majority support of their bargaining unit, CEA and AEA will work to boost membership across the schools.

“We need to make sure we are doing what we need to do to not just keep the teachers teaching right now, but make people want to be teachers, drivers, food service workers,” says Liechti. “This is a tool we can use to get to that point.”

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Out of office

Former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney is preparing to take her case against the city to federal court. Photo: Amy Smith

“Typically, everyone just goes away. They make these agreements and people go away,” says former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney. But she’s not going away.

Two months after her controversial termination, Brackney—the city’s first Black woman police chief—filed a string of formal complaints against the city, accusing government leaders of directly retaliating against her efforts to dismantle white supremacy within the police department.

In complaints submitted to CPD’s human resources department, the local Office of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the NAACP on November 9, Brackney claimed that city leadership defamed, harassed, and discriminated against her based on her race and sex after then-city manager Chip Boyles wrongfully terminated her on September 1. She demanded $3 million and a public apology.

Brackney gave the city until November 26 to reach a settlement with her. But since filing her complaints, she says she has only received a brief letter from the city’s attorney, David Corrigan of Harman Claytor Corrigan & Wellman. According to the civil litigation firm’s website, Corrigan specializes in representing state and local governments, and has handled numerous cases of employment discrimination.

“It literally was just a letter notifying us who their attorneys were—not anything substantive,” says Brackney. According to Brackney’s attorney Charles Tucker, the city government has yet to alert Brackney when, or if, it plans to formally respond to her complaints.

“Even when the entire world was watching, and it’s been on display what they’ve done, they just are so comfortable in the way in which they go about their work,” Brackney says. “They don’t think that they have to respond because they’ve not had anyone challenge them to this degree.”

Since her departure, “most of everything” has fallen apart at CPD, claims Brackney. Some officers have stopped coming into work, and several have completely left the department.

“They just show up when they want to show up,” says the former chief. “They’ve found officers sleeping on duty and instead of discipline, they’ve sent them home and said, ‘You know what, we’ll let them do work from home.’”

In September and October, CPD did not post information about investigative detentions and encounters on its website—a practice Brackney implemented during her tenure in an effort to improve the department’s transparency. The statistics were not updated until after Brackney sent an email to City Council last month about the department’s rollback on her reforms, she says. And though the former chief dismantled the department’s SWAT team after uncovering severe misconduct in August, she claims the team has been secretly reassembling since her termination, and will be fully funded in the FY23 CPD budget.

Brackney emphasizes that officer pushback against systemic reforms is not unique to Charlottesville.

“I am now hearing people say that this is a system that is so failed, it can’t be reformed, it can’t be reimagined. It needs to be demolished—start all over,” says Brackney. “There are really good individuals who work in these systems, but they’ve also been indoctrinated and socialized into [them].”

The former chief says Charlottesville has been “complicit” in the deteriorating situation in the department. She claims the community did not support her efforts to reform the department until after she was terminated.

“I’ve been screaming from the rooftops this is the work I’ve been doing, but no one cared,” she says. “[Local media] oftentimes were very comfortable attacking me because they could.”

Though Tucker declines to detail the exact steps Brackney’s legal team will take next, he says they have the right to file a “host of claims” in federal court.

“There’s a defamation claim that we could make…to go along with her constitutional claims that allege the city not only disparately treated her but also retaliated against her,” says Tucker. “We are putting forth our efforts to get her case ready to go.”

Due to the conflict of interest, the city’s Office of Human Rights must delegate a separate authority to investigate Brackney’s complaints on behalf of the EEOC, explains Tucker. The office has about two months left to complete its investigation.

“From their findings or lack thereof, chief Brackney would be entitled to receive a right-to-sue letter, which would give her the opportunity to then file her claims in federal court,” says Tucker.

Brackney also plans to file a complaint with the Virginia attorney general’s office requesting an investigation into the city’s pattern of discrimination.

“If you look across the board of qualified Black candidates who’ve been brought into Charlottesville…they have been forced out,” she says. One high-profile example is former city manager Tarron Richardson, who is also suing the city regarding the way his departure was handled last September.

Still, Brackney and Tucker urge the city to respond to the former chief’s claims, and save taxpayers the hefty costs of litigation and attorney fees.

“I don’t think it’s in anybody’s best interest if we get into a fight,” says Tucker. “But we’re certainly prepared to litigate the fight to the fullest extent that the law allows.”

“The city knows what we have,” adds Brackney. “If they don’t know the full extent of what we have, shame on them.”