By Ben Hitchcock, Brielle Entzminger, and Kristin O’Donoghue
The statues came down
In one hot July weekend, four of Charlottesville’s racist old statues were pulled off their pedestals. The infamous downtown depictions of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were the first to go, wheeled out of town after a 5-0 vote from City Council in June to remove the bronze eyesores. The city then relocated a Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea monument, and UVA got in on the action the next morning, whisking away a statue showing militia man George Rogers Clark towering over Native Americans.
“This is a crucial first step in the right direction, to tell a more historically accurate and complete story of this place, and the people who call this place home,” said Zyahna Bryant on the morning the statues came down. As a high schooler, Bryant started a petition in 2016 that ultimately led to the statues’ removal five years later.
“The work did not start here, and it will not end here,” she continued. “To the young people out there, I hope that this empowers you to speak up on the issues that matter and to take charge in your own cities and communities.”
At the beginning of December, City Council voted to hand the Lee statue over the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which plans to melt it down and have an artist reshape the monument into a new piece that better reflects the community’s values.
Republicans took control of Virginia
After two years of Democrats holding a trifecta in Virginia government, Republicans came storming back in 2021. Glenn Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe in the governor’s race, and Republicans gained seven seats in the House of Delegates, turning a 55-45 Dem majority into a 52-48 advantage for the GOP. Youngkin, a former private equity CEO who spent $20 million of his own money on his campaign, will be sworn in on January 15.
Democrats were busy during their two years in control: They abolished the death penalty, passed major climate change legislation, and expanded voting rights, among other things.
Youngkin’s election could change all that. The fleece vest-wearing, aw-shucksing finance baron says his day-one game plan includes eliminating the grocery tax, suspending the gas tax for a year, and establishing new charter schools. He’s shared plans to pull Virginia out of a 10-state regional greenhouse gas alliance, and during the campaign he promised to “go on offense” against abortion access and launch an Election Integrity Task Force.
Creigh Deeds, Charlottesville’s long-time state Senator, took the long view when we spoke to him just after the election. “An election is not an event, it’s part of a process,” he said. “We’ll get through this. We just have to work harder.”
The city government couldn’t get its act together
Charlottesville’s government entered 2021 in turmoil. City Manager Tarron Richardson resigned in September 2020, and in January the hiring firm retained to find his replacement fled the scene as well, with the firm’s principal saying he had “never seen a level of dysfunction as profound as what he was seeing here.”
There was nowhere to go but up, right?
Wrong. In January, Charlottesville settled on Chip Boyles, the then-executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, as city manager. Boyles started off just fine, presiding over the removal of the statues. But in September, he fired Police Chief RaShall Brackney, providing reasons that left some community members unsatisfied. Facing backlash for the decision, Boyles resigned.
The city hired a new interim manager, Mark Woolley, and introduced him at a press conference in November. Woolley would have become the sixth person to hold the job since 2018, but it turned out his tenure was shorter than anyone’s—he withdrew his application before his first day. The city says it plans to retain a consulting firm to handle day-to-day operations until a permanent manager can be found next spring. The police department is still running under an interim chief, and both Brackney and Richardson are suing the city for the circumstances surrounding their departures.
As if that wasn’t enough turnover, Mayor Nikuyah Walker also declined to run for reelection this fall. New councilors Juandiego Wade and Brian Pinkston start January 1. They’ve got their work cut out for them.
Virginia legalized weed (sort of)
Stoners, rejoice: Virginia went green this year. Thanks to legislation passed by the now-broken Democratic trifecta, Virginians over the age of 21 have been allowed to possess and use marijuana recreationally since July 1.
Admittedly, the law came with some strange caveats. Retail sales are still illegal, and will be until 2024. The state wants time to set up a new Cannabis Control Authority, which would function like the Alcoholic Beverage Control, to monitor and oversee the legal market. In the meantime, adults are able to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and grow up to four marijuana plants at home, as long as they keep them out of public view and away from children. And while police are no longer able to use the smell of marijuana as a reason to search your car, they can still search you if they see you’re toting a green leafy substance.
Specifics of the new laws could change now that Republicans are in control. During the campaign, Youngkin said he wouldn’t try to repeal marijuana legislation, but Republicans and Democrats are likely to differ on some of the criminal justice rules surrounding legalization. A few GOP lawmakers have indicated they’d like to speed up the legal sale date, to minimize illegal activity in the meantime.
(If all this policy talk is stressing you out, well, you know what to do.)
Charlottesville got vaxxed
As of December 15, 2021, exactly one year after we started vaccinating our doctors and nurses, 63 percent of city residents and 74 percent of county residents have been fully vaccinated.
It’s taken a tremendous amount of work from public health officials, leaders, and regular residents to reach those numbers. By February, law enforcement, emergency personnel, corrections and homeless shelter employees, educators, and individuals 65 years and older were eligible for their shots; in March, BRHD started vaccinating people of all ages with high-risk medical conditions; and shots became available to everyone in April. (Many couldn’t wait that long: In March, hundreds of UVA students—as well as community members—headed south to Danville to a walk-in vaccination site, chasing word of surplus doses.)
Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout, some people of color—particularly Black and Latino communities—have been hesitant to get vaccinated, due to rampant vaccine misinformation and the United States’ long history of medical racism. To get the vaccine out to more people of color, BRHD ramped up its partnerships with community leaders, hosted pop-up vaccine clinics over the summer, and sent health workers and vaccinators door-to-door in underserved neighborhoods.
Especially in light of the new omicron variant, the CDC is now encouraging everyone 16 and older to get COVID-19 booster shots. Since late September, boosters have helped to bring COVID cases down significantly in the BRHD.
Appointments and walk-ins are available Monday through Saturday at the Seminole Square community vaccination center, located inside the former Big Lots next to Marshalls. Remember what BRHD spokesman Ryan McKay told C-VILLE in July: “It’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Students went back to school
The pandemic strained all public institutions this year, but schools faced a particularly daunting challenge. In early March, Charlottesville City Schools reopened its doors to preschoolers through sixth graders—as well as older students in ESL and special education—for hybrid learning, while Albemarle County Public Schools allowed all grades to receive some face-to-face instruction. The following month, Buford Middle School and Charlottesville High School students were also able to attend in-person classes. Families wary of sending their child to school could continue with all-virtual learning.
This fall, CCS and ACPS finally returned to five-days-a-week, in-person instruction. Both school districts required employees to show proof of vaccination or submit a negative COVID test every week, and have implemented universal mask mandates.
Meanwhile, at UVA, hundreds of students tested positive for coronavirus after fraternity and sorority rush in February, leading the university—which held mostly virtual classes during the spring semester—to ban all in-person student gatherings and close libraries and gyms for almost two weeks. Though the administration claimed there was no evidence the spike in cases was linked to the unsanctioned parties and celebrations, UVA President Jim Ryan admitted the school could have done more to “discourage” in-person rush events.
Before returning to Grounds for full-time, in-person learning in August, every student had to show proof of vaccination or face unenrollment. The university later mandated all faculty and staff get vaccinated by December, and masks are still required on UVA property.
UVA hired more cops
In September, a student was non-fatally shot through the wall of a bathroom at popular Corner bar Boylan Heights. In response, the University Police Department, under the direction of former Charlottesville police chief Tim Longo, established a new unit: the Community Oriented Policing Squad, or COPS for short. (See what they did there?) Four COPS cops have been patrolling the Corner—and some surrounding areas that usually fall under the jurisdiction of the city police—from 7pm to 3am every Thursday through Saturday since September.
“They have focused on creating and maintaining relationships among Corner merchants and community members, as well as being highly visible and engaged,” says UPD Sergeant Ben Rexrode. “We look forward to their continued footprint and impact in our off-Grounds community.”
The move prompted pushback from students, wary of the dangers of over-policing. UVA law students issued an open letter, calling for the school to get rid of the COPS unit. “If this University wants to protect the students of color who attend this school and repair its relationship with the Black community in Charlottesville, it must take these concerns about policing seriously,” the letter stated.
UVA’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter protested the increased police presence too, and launched a Defund UPD campaign in November. “We have an abolitionist mindset,” said YDSA Chair Sarandon Elliott.
A sign caused a stir
“FUCK UVA,” read the sign Hira Azher hung on her Lawn room door in October 2020. The sign stuck out like a sore thumb in the university’s well-manicured Academical Village, causing some alumni and community members to urge UVA to remove it (after consulting with its legal team, the school determined the sign was protected under the First Amendment and could stay up). In March, Azher hung another sign, this one featuring a KKK hood and a grim reaper looming over the Rotunda (left). Two days later, UVA told her the new sign had to go because it “advocates physical violence” and was not protected speech. This caused weeks of free speech hand-wringing.
In May 2021, UVA President Jim Ryan created a 12-member Committee on Free Expression and Inquiry, charged with “craft[ing] a statement that identifies the role that free expression and free inquiry play in UVA’s academic enterprise.” The school also passed restrictions limiting the size of signs that students could put on their doors.
One student was forced to trim the edges off a flier for a Planned Parenthood volunteer event, and fourth-year Emma Camp was required to remove her sign—which included the full text of the First Amendment—because it was too large. “I think without freedom of speech and open inquiry, you just can’t have a functioning university,” Camp told C-VILLE in October. “When students use freedom of expression in a way [UVA leadership] don’t like, the reaction is to limit speech. And to me that’s deeply hypocritical.”
Incarcerated people struggled with the pandemic
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Albemarle-Charlottesville jail has been hit especially hard by COVID-19. In letters shared this year with C-VILLE by the Charlottesville chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, people incarcerated at the jail reported insufficient COVID containment procedures, shoddy living conditions, and a range of sanitary issues, including bug infestations, standing water, heating outages, leaky ceilings, and moldy vents.
The jail also banned in-person visits, something that has taken a heavy toll on the population’s mental health.
After months of waiting, everyone in the jail now has their own tablet, which they can use for video visitations with those outside, as well as for watching TV, listening to music, and sending emails. However, it costs $15 per video call, and 5 cents per minute for other tablet activities.
And the tablet system isn’t without flaws. “My papa has no smartphone or computer, so even video visits are not [worth it] for some of us,” wrote one incarcerated woman.
In interviews with C-VILLE—and additional letters collected by DSA—incarcerated people claimed that jail leadership had done very little to address these issues over the past year.
“This is very unhealthy in here for all,” read one letter. “No one deserves this kind of punishment.”
The Unite the Right organizers had to pay up
The organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally are liable for $26 million in damages, a jury found after a month-long civil trial this fall. Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, and all the rest conspired to commit racially motivated violence under Virginia law, the jury determined.
“Our goal was to come here and to prove a conspiracy to do racially motivated violence, as to each and every defendant, and to get damages awarded, compensatory and punitive, and we did all those things,” said attorney Karen Dunn, who represented the nine plaintiffs in the case.
UVA alums Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer each owe $500,000 for their role in the rally planning.
Over the course of the trial, plaintiffs had to relive the harrowing details of that weekend in August. Natalie Romero, who was present for the August 11 torchlit march through Grounds and injured in the deadly August 12 car attack, recalled the chants she heard on August 11: “I hear it in my nightmares,” she said during the trial. “I literally hear the same cadence to the ‘You will not replace us.’ That one was just so terrifying.”
In a statement following the November 23 verdict, the plaintiffs wrote: “Our single greatest hope is that today’s verdict will encourage others to feel safer raising our collective voices in the future to speak up for human dignity and against white supremacy.”