Tag: Historic Resources Committee

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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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Take our time

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.”

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Slow and steady

The city continues to work on creating a memorial to replace the Court Square slave auction block plaque, which was stolen last year.

After over a year of debate surrounding Charlottesville’s stolen slave auction marker, the Historic Resources Committee began meeting with descendants of enslaved laborers, seeking their input on how to best pay tribute to the thousands of enslaved people bought and sold in Court Square.

The memorial’s story serves as an example of the process of creating new public monuments. And as Charlottesville continues to reevaluate its physical public spaces, stories like this will become more and more common.

At the beginning of the month, committee member and UVA history professor Jalane Schmidt, joined by city planner Robert Watkins, met virtually with nine descendants, including DeTeasa Gathers, Myra Anderson, Calvin Jefferson, Bertha French, and Diane Brown Townes. While most attendees have recent connections to the Charlottesville area, several live outside of Virginia.

During a May 14 committee meeting, Schmidt shared that the descendants urged them to be patient and not rush the descendant engagement process. “The process itself is just as important as what any eventual memorial might look like,” she said.

City Councilor Heather Hill asked if the descendants wanted the city to erect a temporary marker while the committee works on a permanent memorial, referencing the city residents who have placed homemade markers in Court Square since the plaque was stolen last year.

“We have heard from some facets of the community that would like to see something done sooner versus later,” Hill said.

Watkins and Schmidt explained that the descendants did not provide a definite answer, but were not anxious to put up something temporary.

“The thing I kept hearing was don’t feel pressured to move too fast, and to be listening to people into the process,” said Schmidt. “I did not hear from them, ‘yeah get something up there right away, that needs to be in place.’”

Committee co-chair Phil Varner questioned which descendants should have the most say in the creation of the memorial.

“It’s this huge spectrum of voices in this conversation,” he said. “How do we determine who we should listen to the most?”

“It seems to be that we should be prioritizing those who can trace their ancestry to Albemarle County, especially since this is the county courthouse,” responded Schmidt, pointing out that before emancipation, over half of the county’s population was enslaved.

Moving forward, Schmidt said she will meet again with the leaders of Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVA, and ask them to help get more descendants involved.

“Fortunately, there’s been some really important work done by [genealogist] Shelley Murphy in tracking down people,” she said. “They’ve steadily built a database of names of descendants.”

Committee member Kay Slaughter also suggested reaching out to the Central Virginia History Researchers, which has engaged with descendants from the area.

Before next month’s committee meeting, Schmidt and Watkins plan to do one or two more virtual descendant engagement sessions. And as more people get vaccinated, the group hopes to host in-person meetings with descendants at Washington Park over the summer.

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Street smarts: City committee revamps honorary street name policy

In June, two blocks of 16th Street in Washington, D.C., were renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza. PC: Wikipedia User BDWARD3

Want to take a walk down Black History Pathway? Or maybe Waneeshee Way? Or even Tony Bennett Drive? Soon, you might be able to. These are among the honorary street names that area residents have submitted to the city in recent months.

After debating the issue late into the night during several meetings, Charlottesville City Council decided in September to send nearly a dozen honorary street name proposals to the Historic Resources Committee, seeking guidance on the evaluation process.

During its November 13 virtual meeting, the committee decided to completely revamp the honorary street naming policy before tackling the applications.

Until recently, the city rarely received new street name proposals. But around the country, people and governments have sought to commemorate the year’s events by redesignating their physical environment. In Washington, D.C., for example, two blocks of 16th Street were transformed into Black Lives Matter Plaza, with huge yellow letters painted on the pavement.

Charlottesville currently has a dozen honorary street names. Recent designations include Heather Heyer Way, honoring the victim of the 2017 white supremacist attack, and Winneba Way, named for our sister city in Ghana.

“Up until now this process has been very ad hoc,” said committee member Phil Varner. “We’re really trying to nail down [how] exactly should we do this…what exactly are the policy criteria, and what does the application actually look like for it [and] mean?”

Under the current policy, proposals are limited to individuals, organizations, entities, events, or something of local significance. While the committee agreed to keep these broad categories, it suggested that some honorary streets could be temporary, while others could be permanent, depending on the will of the nominator.

“Especially in a small city like this, [rotating] can be beneficial if there are this many people that should be honored,” said member Sally Duncan.

Committee member Jalane Schmidt expressed concern over the sunset period, and how it may lead to individuals “who’ve been excluded from conventional historical narratives” to only be recognized for a few years, while many city streets have had the names of racists for over a century.

After member Dede Smith pointed out that the city’s current honorary markers offer no information about who or what they’re named after, committee chair Rachel Lloyd suggested the creation of a website with a detailed history about each street name, as well as including them on the updated historic walking tour.

Smith also stressed the importance of street names being near the geographic location of the person or thing they are honoring. For instance, a portion of Avon Street is currently named after the late Franklin Delano Gibson, a celebrated philanthropist who owned a grocery store on the street for more than 40 years.

That won’t always be possible, though. “Because one of the reasons we’re doing this is out of equity concerns, there may be people who aren’t permanently associated with a distinct geography,” said co-chair Genevieve Keller. “We would need to memorialize and honor them anyway [and] find the most appropriate place.”

While some preferred that the street proposals be submitted by city residents, people who live on the street, or family members of the individual being honored, the committee decided to leave the applications open to anyone in the larger Charlottesville area.

However, a public notice will be sent to residents living on the streets with name proposals, so they can provide input on the decision.

The committee also decided to scrap the 500-word essay on the current application, and replace it with a series of short, direct questions about the street proposal.

After deciding on the policy changes, the committee briefly discussed the applications submitted to the city over the summer. Several seek to honor notable Black figures, like activist Wyatt Johnson and enslaved laborer Henry Martin, and historical events, like the razing of Vinegar Hill, while other proposals cover a variety of categories, including two in honor of UVA men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett.

In September, before turning to the HRC, City Council approved two of the original 13 applications. One renames a section of Grady Avenue after the late Reverend C.H. Brown, who built 12th Street’s Holy Temple Church of God In Christ in 1947. Behind the church, Brown also constructed several homes, helping the area to become a thriving Black neighborhood.

The other approved request honors the ongoing movement against police violence and systemic racism, recognizing Market Street between First Street Northeast and Ninth Street Northeast as Black Lives Matter Boulevard. It was proposed by community activist Don Gathers.

At its next meeting, the committee will officially vote on the naming policy changes, and decide which of the remaining 11 applications it should recommend for council’s approval, using the newly established guidelines.