A judge will decide by February 27 if the tarps that shroud statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson should be removed.
Photo by Eze Amos
In the case of whether the city’s longstanding General Robert E. Lee statue should remain on its feet, a judge ruled October 4 that a lawsuit protecting it can go forward, and the black shrouds temporarily draped over Lee and his buddy, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, can also stay.
In Charlottesville Circuit Court, S. Braxton Puryear—one of several attorneys representing plaintiffs who want to overrule City Council’s March decision to remove the Lee statue—argued that the tarps could cause irreparable harm to the monuments.
“It’s not a shroud, it’s a trash bag,” he said, bringing to mind an image of the statues as giant bags of leaves set out on the curb.
The city’s Parks and Recreation department sheathed Lee and Jackson August 23, to mourn the loss of Heather Heyer and two Virginia State Police officers, who died during the August 12 white supremacist rally.
“Every minute those covers are in place, there’s harm being done,” Puryear said, and he cited evidence from experts on corrosion and aeronautics, who testified that the tarps could trap moisture that corrodes the statues, or catch like a sail in the wind and blow the whole monument over.
A stifled snarl could be heard from someone who appeared to believe Charlottesville winds are incapable of blowing away a massive bronze war memorial.
Lisa Robertson, the deputy city attorney representing Charlottesville in the case, motioned to strike all of the plantiffs’ evidence, and said she doesn’t think the shrouds have caused irreparable harm to the statues.
“Like it or not, since the covers have gone on, things seem to have calmed down,” she said. She called City Manager Maurice Jones to the stand, who said Parks and Rec employees intermittently check on the statues and haven’t reported any damages.
The shrouds have, however, been ripped from the statues so many times we’ve lost count. Now, Lee and Jackson are surrounded by orange fencing and no trespassing signs. Moore ruled they can stay that way for an undisclosed amount of time, so long as the coverings and barriers are temporary.
The judge also ruled that while a Virginia statute protecting war memorials does apply in this case—a major win for the plaintiffs—they have not convinced him that the Lee sculpture falls into that category. He gave them 21 days to amend their pleading and refile.
The code says it’s illegal for any locality “to disturb or interfere with any [war] monuments or memorials so erected, or to prevent its citizens from taking proper measures and exercising proper means for the protection, preservation and care of the same.”
Puryear’s pretty sure the Lee and Jackson statues are war memorials. “These are not a couple of old guys out riding on a horse,” he said. “These are Confederate generals.”
Plaintiffs also asked the judge to extend the injunction of the removal of the statue until May 2018, but he ruled that he would not expand it further than its November expiration date. He did allow the injunction to include the Jackson monument, because City Council has also voted to remove that one, too.
Robertson offered to tell the court the full costs of the Unite the Right rally on August 12, and said the “sole purpose” of the deadly white supremacist gathering was to protest the removal of General Lee.
Judge Moore called her comment a “red herring,” meant to distract from the questions at hand in the lawsuit.
“No one had to show up to confront those people,” Moore said, accompanied by groans from those in favor of tearing the statue down. “The statues didn’t cause anything. People did.”
Robertson replied, “Your honor, you don’t have to tell me that.”
Sara and Tennessee got married in Emancipation Park July 8, the same day as the KKK rally at Justice Park. Photo by Lorenzo Dickerson
In the center of Charlottesville is a park. A park that, lately, has seen its fair share of blood and spit, pepper spray and violence, tears and prayers. It sits in the city’s northeast quadrant and takes up a square block, sandwiched between First and Second streets to the west and east, Jefferson Street to the north and Market Street to the south. For nearly 93 years it was known as Lee Park. But for the last three months, officially at least, it’s been called Emancipation Park.
In fewer than 48 hours after City Council unanimously passed a resolution to cover statues of generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the black tarps went up over the monuments this afternoon to commemorate the city’s mourning over the deaths following a hate-filled rally August 12.
The draping went up without public notice from the city, with the bucket trucks in Emancipation Park, formerly known as Lee Park, signaling the swathing of the Confederate monuments.
Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, who in the same park a year and a half ago called for the removal of the statues, initially was silent as Lee was swaddled in black plastic. “I’ve learned it’s best.” he says, when pressed for comment.
After the city turned the lights out on Stonewall Jackson in Justice Park, he told reporters that shrouding the statues isn’t a be all, end all, but a step in the right direction of eventually removing them and placing them in a museum with historical context. And other localities that have recently toppled their Confederate statues used similar language to Charlottesville’s in their order, but didn’t face a lawsuit.
Musician/activist Jamie Dyer says, “Symbolically, it’s a good start,” but he’d still like to see the statues gone.
“What’s going to change?” asked Roshi Hill, who filmed the Lee shrouding with her black cell phone. “It’s a statue. It’s been here forever and to take it down changes nothing.”
Instead, she suggests City Council stop granting permits for the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups to assemble in the town’s parks. She also supports renaming Emancipation Park after Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old activist who died during the August 12 Unite the Right rally.
“She lost her life over this statue,” Hill says.
Before alt-right and neo-Nazi groups dubbed Charlottesville their battleground, the African American woman says she knew she could smile at anyone she crossed and they’d smile back. Now, she says minorities have to stop and think before interacting with white people. And when one is walking behind her, she says she stops to let him pass in front of her.
“I don’t like having to feel uneasy,” Hill says. “Do they still love us?”
Others were dismayed by the draping. Brian Lambert was walking by when he saw the cherry pickers. “It’s disappointing,” he says. “It’s just disappointing.”
He nodded toward Bellamy. “To see that man gloating,” he says. “It’s sickening.”
There have been threats that the black plastic shroud will be removed, and Lambert thinks that’s likely to happen before Friday. “This will not stand,” he says. “This tarp will be taken down. It’s illegal.”
Says Lambert, “If people are offended, there’s plenty of free therapy available.”
A lawsuit filed against the city for ordering the removal of the statues will be heard again in court September 1, and Lambert thinks the violent rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis will affect the judge. “I think they would have been successful with the lawsuit except for recent events,” he says.
Local attorney Lewis Martin says he believes, according to Virginia code, covering the statues could also be illegal.
“It shall be unlawful to disturb or interfere with any monuments or memorials,” the code says. Adds Martin, “Clearly, if you cover it up so people can’t see it, it’s interfering.”—Samantha Baars and Lisa Provence
Members of the clergy link arms with counterprotesters in front of Emancipation Park Saturday, August 12, as alt-right groups of white nationalists arrive in waves. Photo by Natalie Krovetz
It was the day that kept getting worse. The weekend from hell. Like many of you, C-VILLE Weekly is still processing Saturday’s violation from ill-intentioned visitors with antiquated notions who now believe it’s okay to say in broad daylight what they’ve only uttered in the nether regions of the internet.
The Unite the Right rally left three people dead and countless injured, both physically and psychologically. We, too, share the sorrow, despair and disgust from being slimed by hate.
But here’s one thing we know: Despite the murder, the assaults and the terror inflicted upon this community, Charlottesville said no to hate. And the world, it turns out, has our back.
We sent six reporters and two photographers out to document the August 12 rally at Emancipation Park, the community events taking place around it and the weekend of infamy. Here’s a timeline of what we saw and what we felt. Because this? This is our town.
It’s the time of year C-VILLE editorial staffers dread most: landing on the final names for our Power Issue, followed by the inevitable complaints that the list contains a bunch of white men. Sure, there are powerful women and people of color in
Charlottesville. But when it comes down to it, it’s still mostly white men who hold the reins—and a lot of them are developers. The good news: that’s changing. (And we welcome feedback about who we missed, sent to editor@c-ville.com.)
If you’re looking for a different take on power, skip over to our Arts section, where local creative-industry leaders share their most powerful moments (grab some Kleenex!) on page 46.
1. Robert E. Lee statue
More than 150 years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, he continues to be a divisive figure—or at least his statue is. The sculpture has roiled Charlottesville since a March 2016 call (see No. 2 Wes Bellamy and Kristin Szakos) to remove the monument from the eponymously named park.
As a result, in the past year we’ve seen out-of-control City Council meetings, a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, a City Council vote to remove the statue, a lawsuit and injunction to prevent the removal and the renaming of
the park to Emancipation.
The issue has turned Charlottesville into a national flashpoint and drawn Virginia
Flaggers, guv hopeful and former Trump campaign state chair Corey Stewart, and Richard Spencer’s tiki-torch-carrying white nationalists. Coming up next: the Loyal White Knights of the KKK July 8 rally and Jason Kessler’s “Unite the Right” March August 12.
You, General Lee, are Charlottesville’s most powerful symbol for evoking America’s unresolved conflict over its national shame of slavery and the racial inequity still present in the 21st century.
Spawn of the Lee statue
Jason Kessler
Before the statue debate—and election of Donald Trump—Charlottesville was blissfully unaware of its own, homegrown whites-righter Jason Kessler, who unearthed Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s offensive tweets from before he took office and launched an unsuccessful petition drive to remove Bellamy from office, calling him a “black supremacist.” Since then, Kessler has slugged a man, filed a false complaint against his victim and aligned himself with almost every white nationalist group in the country, while denying he’s a white nationalist. The blogger formed Unity and Security in America and plans a “march on Charlottesville.” Most recently, we were treated to video of him getting punched while naming cereals in an initiation into the matching-polo-shirt-wearing Proud Boys.
SURJ
The impetus for the local Showing Up for Racial Justice was the seemingly unrelenting shootings of black men by police—and white people wanting to do something about it. But the Lee statue issue has brought SURJ into its own militant niche. Pam and Joe Starsia, who say they can’t speak for the collective, are its most well-known faces. The group showed up at Lee Park with a bullhorn to shout down GOP gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, interrupted U.S. Representative Tom Garrett’s town hall and surrounded Kessler at outdoor café appearances on the Downtown Mall, shouting, “Nazi go home!” and “Fuck white supremacy!”—perhaps unintentionally making some people actually feel sorry for Kessler.
2.City Council
Not all councilors are equally powerful, but together—or in alliances—they’ve kept the city fixated on issues other than the ones citizens normally care about: keeping traffic moving and good schools.
Mayor Mike Signer. Photo by Eze Amos
Mike Signer
Mayor Signer took office in January 2016 in what is widely seen as a step to higher office. He immediately riled citizens by changing the public comment procedure at City Council meetings. A judge determined part of the new rules were unconstitutional, but some council regulars say the meetings do move along much better—at least when they’re not out of control with irate citizens expressing their feelings on the Lee statue. Signer called a public rally, sans permit, to proclaim Charlottesville the capital of the resistance. And despite his vote against removing the statue, he’s not shied away from denouncing the white nationalists drawn to Charlottesville like bears to honey.
Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy. Photo by Eze Amos
Wes Bellamy
Most politicians would be undone by the trove of racist, misogynistic and homophobic tweets Bellamy made before he was elected to City Council. As it was, they cost him his job as an Albemarle County teacher (a post from which he resigned after being placed on administrative leave) and a position on the Virginia Board of Education. But he fell on the sword, apologized and acknowledged the “disrespectful and, quite frankly, ignorant” comments he posted on Twitter. Perhaps it helped that Bellamy, at age 30, is a black male leader, has real accomplishments and has dedicated himself to helping young African-Americans. Despite his missteps, he is the voice for a sizable portion of Charlottesville’s population.
City Councilor Kristen Szakos. Photo by Elli Williams
Kristin Szakos
Szakos raised the topic of removing the city’s Confederate monuments several years before she teamed up with Bellamy, and she was soundly harassed for her trouble. When she ran for office, she called for town halls in the community and bringing council to the people, and she’s always demonstrated a concern for those who can’t afford to live in the world-class city they call home. She announced in January she won’t be seeking a third term in the fall.
City Councilor Kathy Galvin. Photo by Christian Hommel
Kathy Galvin
Galvin, an architect, envisions a strategic investment area south of the Downtown Mall, and her job will be to convince residents it’s a good deal for them. Council’s moderate voice, she, along with Signer, were the two votes against removing the Lee statue.
City Councilor Bob Fenwick. Photo by Chiara Canzi
Bob Fenwick
Even before losing the Democratic nomination June 13 with a dismal 20 percent of the vote, Fenwick was always the odd man out on council. His moment in the sun came earlier this year when he abstained from a split vote on removing the Lee statue, lobbied for pet causes among his fellow councilors and then cast his vote in the “aye” side, joining Bellamy and Szakos. That vote did not yield the groundswell of support he might have imagined from the black community. And although he leaves council at the end of the year as a one-termer, there are those who have appreciated Fenwick’s refusal to join in lockstep with the rest of council, and his willingness to call out its penchant for hiring consultants without taking action.
Coran Capshaw. Photo by Ashley Twiggs
3. Coran Capshaw
Every year we try to figure out how to do the power list without including Capshaw. But with his fingers in pies like Red Light Management (Dave Matthews, Sam Hunt); venues (the Pavilion, Jefferson, Southern and, most recently, the Brooklyn Bowl); Starr Hill Presents concert promotion and festivals such as Bonnaroo; merchandise—earlier this year, he reacquired Musictoday, which he founded in 2000; restaurants (Mas, Five Guys, Mono Loco, Ten) and of course development, with Riverbend Management, we have to acknowledge this guy’s a mogul. There’s just no escaping it.
In local real estate alone, Capshaw is a major force. Here are just a few Riverbend projects: City Walk, 5th Street Station, C&O Row, the rehabbed Coca-Cola building on Preston and Brookhill.
True, he fell from No. 7 to 11 on this year’s Billboard Power 100, but in Charlottesville, his influence is undiminished. And now he’s getting awards for his philanthropy, including Billboard’s Humanitarian of the Year in 2011, and this year, Nashville’s City of Hope medical center’s Spirit of Life Award.
UVA’s Rotunda. Photo by Karen Blaha
4. UVA
In January, UVA President Teresa Sullivan announced her summer 2018 retirement, and directed the Board of Visitors to begin the search for a new leader to rule Thomas Jefferson’s roost, the top employer in Virginia with its state-of-the-art medical center, a near-Ivy League education system and a couple of research parks teeming with innovative spirit.
Charlottesville native venture capitalist James B. Murray Jr., a former Columbia Capital partner of Senator Mark Warner, was elected vice rector of the Board of Visitors, and will take the rector-in-waiting position July 1, when Frank M. “Rusty” Connor III begins a two-year term as rector.
And lest we forget, the UVA Foundation recently purchased the university a $9 million 2015 Cessna Citation XLS—an eight-seat, multi-engine jet—to haul around its highest rollers.
Jaffray Woodriff. Photo by Eze Amos
5. Jaffray Woodriff
As the founder of Quantitative Investment Management, a futures contract and stock trading firm with experience in plataforma trading, Woodriff has landed at No. 28 on Forbes’ list of the 40 highest-earning hedge fund managers in the nation, with total earnings of $90 million. His troupe of about 35 employees manage approximately $3.5 billion in assets through a data science approach to investing.
Woodriff, an angel investor who has funded more than 30 local startups, made headlines this year when he bought the Downtown Mall’s beloved ice skating rink and announced plans to turn Main Street Arena into the Charlottesville Technology Center, which, according to a press release, “will foster talented developers and energized entrepreneurs by creating office space conducive of collaboration, mentorship and the scalability of startups.”
Demolition of the ice rink is scheduled for 2018, so there’s time yet to lace up your skates before you trade them in for a thinking cap.
Keith Woodard. Photo by Amy Jackson
6. Keith Woodard
Some might argue that Woodard’s power stems from the unrelenting complaints of people who are towed from his two downtown parking lots. But it’s the real estate those lots sit on—and more. The owner of Woodard Properties has rentals for all needs, whether residential or commercial. The latter includes part of a Downtown Mall block and McIntire Plaza. He was already rich enough to invest in a Tesla, but Woodard is about to embark on the biggest project of his life—the $50 million West2nd, the former and future site of City Market. Ground will break any time now, and by 2019, the L-shaped, 10-story building with 65 condos, office and retail space (including a restaurant and bakery/café) and a plaza will dominate Water Street.
Will Richey. Photo by Amy Jackson
7. Will Richey
When you talk about Charlottesville’s ever-growing restaurant scene, one name that seems to be on everyone’s tongue is Will Richey. The restaurateur-turned-farmer (his Red Row Farm supplies much of the produce in the summer for the two Revolutionary Soup locations) owns a fair chunk of where you eat and drink in this town: Rev Soup, The Bebedero, The Whiskey Jar, The Alley Light, The Pie Chest and the newest addition, Brasserie Saison, which he opened in March with Hunter Smith (owner of Champion Brewery, which is also on the expansion train, see. No. 9). Richey’s restaurant empire seems to know no bounds, and we’re excited to see what else he’ll add to his plate—and ours—in the coming years.
Rosa Atkins. Photo by Eze Amos
8. Rosa Atkins/Pam Moran
The superintendents for city and county schools have a long list of achievements to their names, with each division winning a number of awards under their tenures.
This month, Atkins—the city school system’s leader since 2006—was named to the State Council of Higher Education, but she’s perhaps most notably the School Superintendents Association’s 2017 runner-up for national female superintendent of the year.
Pam Moran. Photo by Amy Jackson
Moran, who has ruled county schools since 2005, held a similar title in late 2015, when the Virginia Association of School Superintendents named her State Superintendent of the Year, which placed her in the running for the American Association of School Administrators’ National Superintendent of the Year award, for which she was one of four finalists. This year, she requested the School Board continue to fund enrollment increases for at-risk students, making closing learning opportunity gaps a high priority.
Hunter Smith. Photo by Amy Jackson
9. Local beer
Throw a rock in this area and you’ll hit a brewery. For one thing, the Brew Ridge Trail is continually dotted with more stops. And new breweries in the city just keep popping up: Reason Brewery, founded by Charlottesville natives and set to open next month on Route 29 near Costco, is the latest. Other local additions include Random Row Brewery, which opened last fall on Preston Avenue, and Hardywood, based out of Richmond, which opened a pilot brewery and taproom on West Main Street in April.
And local breweries are not just opening but they’re expanding: Three Notch’d and Champion both opened Richmond satellite locations within the last year (that marks Three Notch’d’s third location, with another in Harrisonburg). And what pairs better with good drinks than good eats? Champion is adding food to its Charlottesville menu, and its brewers are enjoying a Belgian-focused playground at the joint restaurant venture Brasserie Saison.
Another sure sign that craft beer is thriving is the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild’s annual beer competition, the Virginia Craft Beer Cup Awards, which is the largest state competition of its kind; this year, 356 beers in 24 categories were entered. And Charlottesville is the new home of the organization’s annual beer showcase, the Virginia Craft Brewers Fest, which is moving from Devils Backbone Brewing Company to the IX Art Park in August. Host of the event, featuring more than 100 Virginia breweries, will be Three Notch’d Brewing Company, which is expanding its brewing operations from Grady Avenue into a space at IX, set to open in 2018.
Amy Laufer. Publicity photo
10. Amy Laufer
With 46 percent of the vote in this month’s City Council Democratic primary and nearly $20,000 in donations, Laufer also had a lengthy list of endorsements, including governor hopeful Tom Perriello and former 5th District congressman L.F. Payne.
Laufer, a current school board member and former chair and vice chair of the board, is also the founder of Virginia’s List, a PAC that supports Democratic women running for state office. If she takes a seat on City Council, keep an eye out for the progress she makes on her top issues: workforce development, affordable housing and the environment.
Khizr Khan. Photo by Eze Amos
11. Khizr Khan
Khan launched the city into the international spotlight when he, accompanied by his wife, Ghazala, took the stage on the final day of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and harshly criticized several of then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s policies, including his proposed ban on Muslim immigration.
“Donald Trump, you’re asking Americans to trust you with their future,” Khan said. “Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of the law.’”
Khan could be seen shaking a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution at the camera—his face splayed across every major news network for days thereafter. At the convention, he discussed the death of his son, Humayun, a UVA graduate and former U.S. Army captain during the Iraq War, who died in an explosion in Baqubah, Iraq.
Khan also spoke before hundreds at Mayor Mike Signer’s January rally to declare Charlottesville a “capital of the resistance,” and Khan and his wife recently announced a Bicentennial Scholarship in memory of their son, which will award $10,000 annually to a student enrolled in ROTC or majoring in a field that studies the U.S. Constitution.
John Dewberry. Photo by Eze Amos
12. John Dewberry
Even though he doesn’t live around here, he’s from around here, if you stretch here to include Waynesboro. Dewberry continues to hold downtown hostage with the Landmark Hotel, although we have seen some movement since he was on last year’s power list. After buying the property in 2012, he said he’d get to work on the Landmark, the city’s most prominent eyesore since 2009, once he finished his luxury hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. That took a few years longer than anticipated—these things always do—but earlier this year Dewberry wrangled some tax incentives from City Council, which has threatened to condemn the structure, and on June 20, the Board of Architectural Review took a look at his new and improved plans. One of these days, Dewberry promises, Charlottesville will have a five-star hotel on the Downtown Mall.
13. Andrea Douglas
The Ph.D. in art history, who formerly worked at what’s now UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art, always seemed like the only real choice to head the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, and since it opened in 2012, she’s made it an integral part of the community. The heritage center is far from self-sustaining, but a $950,000 city grant, a fundraising campaign and Douglas’ steely determination keep the historic school—and its place in the city’s history—firmly in the heart of Charlottesville. And Douglas can get a seat at Bizou anytime she wants—she’s married to co-owner Vincent Derquenne.
Paul Beyer. Photo by Ryan Jones
14. Paul Beyer
Innovation wunderkind Beyer ups the stakes on his Tom Tom Founders Festival every year. The event began six years ago as a music-only festival, but has morphed into a twice-a-year celebration of creativity and entrepreneurism. The fall is dedicated to locals who have founded successful businesses/organizations, while the week-long spring event continues to draw some of the world’s biggest names in the fields of technology, art, music and more. This year’s spring fest, which added a featured Hometown Summit that drew hundreds of civic leaders and innovators from around the country to share their successes and brainstorm solutions to struggles, was the biggest yet: 44,925 program attendees, 334 speakers and 110 events.
Lynn Easton and Dean Porter Andrews. Photo by Jen Fariello
15. Easton Porter Group
We know them as local leaders in the weddings and hospitality industry (Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards is often the site of well-to-do weddings, with some totaling in
the $200,000s, we hear), but now the Easton Porter Group has its sights set on a much bigger portfolio: Its goal is to secure 15 luxury properties in high-end destinations in the next 10 years. In 2016, the group, owned by husband-and-wife team Dean Porter Andrews and Lynn Easton, landed on Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the nation.
Their latest project is to our north, with the renovation of the Blackthorne Inn outside of Washington, D.C., in Upperville, Virginia. The historic hunt-country estate, which is being transformed into a boutique inn featuring luxury-rustic accommodations, fine dining and wine, is projected to open in spring 2018.
The Easton Porter Group’s other businesses include Red Pump Kitchen on the Downtown Mall, as well as Cannon Green restaurant and the Zero George Hotel Restaurant + Bar in Charleston, South Carolina.
16. EPIC
Equity and Progress in Charlottesville made a poignant debut earlier this year, shortly after the death of former vice-mayor Holly Edwards, who was one of the founders of the group dedicated to involving those who usually aren’t part of the political process. It includes a few Democrats no longer satisfied with the party’s stranglehold on City Council, like former mayor Dave Norris and former councilor Dede Smith. The group has drawn a lot of interest in the post-Trump-election activist era, but its first two endorsements in the June 13 primary, Fenwick and commonwealth’s attorney candidate Jeff Fogel, did not fare well. The group still holds high hopes for Nikuyah Walker as an independent City Council candidate, and despite the primary setback, says Norris, “We may not have won this election, but we certainly influenced the debate.”
Dr. Neal Kassell. Courtesy photo
17. Dr. Neal Kassell
UVA’s Focused Ultrasound Center, the flagship center of its kind in the U.S., has had a banner year. The use of magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound technology to treat tremors has moved from the research stage to becoming more commercialized for patient treatment. And we can thank Kassell, founder and chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, for placing our city in the neurological pioneering sphere.
Two months ago, the Clinical Research Forum named the center’s use of focused sound waves to treat essential tremor (the most common movement disorder) instead of requiring invasive incisions, as one of the top 10 clinical research achievements of 2016. And it can’t hurt to have someone as well-known as John Grisham in your corner. He wrote The Tumor, and the foundation, which works as a trusted third party between donors, doctors and research, distributed 800,000 copies.
Kassell is the author of more than 500 scientific papers and book chapters, and his research has been supported by more than $30 million in National Institutes of Health grants. In April 2016, he was named to the Blue Ribbon Panel of former vice president Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
18. Jody Kielbasa
Since Kielbasa came to town in 2009, he has continued to steer the Virginia Film Festival toward an ever-expanding arts presence in not only our community, but statewide as well. Last year’s festival featured more than 120 films and attracted big-name stars, including director Werner Herzog and Virginia’s own Shirley MacLaine. And Kielbasa expanded his own presence locally, as he was appointed UVA’s second vice provost for the arts in 2013, which places him squarely in the university’s arts fundraising initiatives. Last year there was talk of a group of arts sector powerhouses forming to lobby the city in an official capacity to gain more funding for local arts initiatives—no surprise that Kielbasa was among those mentioned.
In images from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, African-Americans in their Sunday best peacefully protested, and when violence occurred, it came from police or from virulent racists.
Those are not the optics of today’s demonstrations.
Instead, protesters knock cell phones out of people’s hands, blast them with bullhorns, block filming with hands or hats and link arms to prevent passage—and that was just at the May 14 vigil in Lee Park after the Richard Spencer white nationalist crew was there the night before.
And a video circulating from May 20 shows right-wing blogger Jason Kessler with three other people sitting at a restaurant table on the Downtown Mall, surrounded by a dozen or so people shouting, “Nazis go home” and ordering them to leave.
“You don’t get to dictate who comes in or out,” said a police officer responding to the scene.
“White supremacists should not be allowed to move quietly in public spaces,” says Pam Starsia with Showing Up for Racial Justice, which has been active in confronting Confederate memorial supporters and the alt-right—although Starsia says she’s speaking only for herself, not for SURJ.
In sharp contrast to the 1920s, when members of the Ku Klux Klan met secretly in the dark wearing white hoods, yet passed by day in polite society, she says, the strategy now is to disrupt and “to loudly call out white supremacists in public spaces.”
And yet some local activists’ tactics straddle the line between free speech and criminal behavior.
“It’s very disturbing,” says Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman. The heated rhetoric leads “to an atmosphere of antagonism,” which leads to escalation. “We should all discourage behavior that stops short of criminal offenses.”
In his more than 30 years as a prosecutor, Chapman has seen a number of protests. The difference in the current crop is “the intensity and the physical confrontation accompanying it,” he says, as well as the participation of people from outside the community.
UVA professor and activist Jalane Schmidt explains the trajectory of protest tactics since the 1950s, when Martin Luther King Jr. organized a movement of “respectability politics” and was influenced by Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau’s nonviolent resistance.
That changed in the 1960s and ’70s with the Black Panthers, who wore military garb and “eschewed respectability politics,” she says. “The tactics always change with time.”
She says, “The 21st century descendants of the Klan are the alt-right. They should not be allowed to circulate anonymously in polite society.”
A May 24 press release from the anonymous Cville Solidarity suggested a laundry list of ways to resist white supremacy. “Refuse to employ, work with, serve or shop with Nazis. Refuse to sit next to them at a bar or restaurant. Refuse to let them sit peacefully in a public space,” it said.
“There’s a harassment and intimidation campaign being led by Joe and Pam Starsia,” Kessler says. Joe Starsia was in the video of the mall shouters, and activist Veronica Fitzhugh can be seen yelling in Kessler’s face, “Fucking go home. Get up and go home.”
Earlier that night, Kessler said he went to Champion Brewery and was refused service. “They violated my civil rights,” he says.
Can businesses deny service to those whose politics or philosophy they don’t like?
“Beliefs and philosophies are protected constitutionally against actions by government,” John Jeffries, former dean of UVA’s law school, writes in an email. “Private parties are free to act against unwelcome beliefs and philosophies, unless there is a statute against such discrimination.”
For Champion owner Hunter Smith, Kessler’s civil rights “didn’t cross my mind for a minute,” he says. “He assaulted someone who works for the business. It was a safety issue.”
Jay Taylor, the man whom Kessler punched on the mall January 22, frequents the brewery and does work there, says Smith.
However, in the face of demands that service be denied, Miller’s is taking a different tack after some white nationalists came there for beers following the tiki-torch assembly at Lee Park. Miller’s Scottie Kaylor calls for courtesy on Facebook and writes: “Our policy is simple: if any person or group, on either side of the political spectrum, displays an overt hatred or disrespect for others at Miller’s, they will be asked to leave.”
Arrests from protests are mounting. After the February 11 Lee Park rally that brought gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart to town to protest City Council’s vote to remove the Robert E. Lee statue, Kessler filed charges against Sara Tansey for snatching his phone. She was charged with destruction of property and Tansey filed an assault charge against Joe Draego, claiming he grabbed her arm when he retrieved Kessler’s phone.
At the May 14 candlelight demonstration at Lee Park, Jordan McNeish was charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly spitting on Kessler, Charles Best was charged with felony assault for hitting an officer in the head with a thrown cell phone, and Kessler was charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to leave the park and inciting with a bullhorn, say police.
“Police said I wouldn’t leave the park,” says Kessler. Protesters “wouldn’t let me leave. They were blocking me. They encircled me so that I was trapped.”
“Jason Kessler barged into a peaceful space that had been created by people of color with every intention of inciting a confrontation,” says Pam Starsia. “He was the aggressor.”
In video and photographs from the May 14 event, a young man filming is encircled by people who are asking why he was filming, blocking his camera and, he says on the video, knocking his cell phone out of his hand.
Blocking people filming is a tactic that comes from a practice called “doxxing,” says Starsia, in which leftist activists are filmed and their images are put online to “encourage harassment.”
“It’s a mob tactic used online by the left and the right,” says Kessler.
Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead compares current protests to ’60s sit-ins, where demonstrators “didn’t stop someone from free speech,” he says.
“The more I read about it, these people don’t want free speech,” he says. “You can’t block other people’s right to move on public property. These people need to grow up and respect other people’s rights.”
Is it free speech or assault?
What’s legal and what’s not in the resistance? We checked with Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman.
Slapping away a person’s cell phone: “Unwanted touching in an angry, rude or vengeful manner can constitute assault in Virginia,” says Chapman.
Invading one’s personal space: While there’s no law against trespassing in personal space, close contact and yelling in someone’s face could be disorderly conduct, says Chapman, escalating into allegations of being jostled. See unwanted touching above.
Using a bullhorn in someone’s face: Could violate the noise ordinance, and doing it aggressively in someone’s face in a way that interferes with her free speech potentially could be disorderly conduct.
Linking arms to prevent passage: If it’s restricting someone’s freedom and not letting them go, it could be abduction, says Chapman.
While a court injunction currently prevents the statue of Robert E. Lee from being moved, the city is moving full speed ahead in an effort to change the names of local parks named for Confederate heroes.
After fielding suggestions from almost all committee members, the Charlottesville Historic Resources Committee decided on four names each for both Lee Park and Jackson Park to recommend to City Council.
For Lee Park, the committee recommended Community Park, Central Park, Market Street Park and Festival Park. For Jackson Park, it suggested Court Square Park, Courthouse Park, The Commons and Memory Park.
Most committee members agreed it was important to suggest names that had conceptual or geographical connotations to promote inclusivity rather than names referring to a single person or historical figure.
Committee member Margaret O’Bryant, who served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Monuments and Public Spaces, suggested names such as Community Park and Central Park, saying that each “expresses a centrality of our community” and in their neutrality apply to all facets of the Charlottesville population.
Committee co-chair Edwina St. Rose abstained from each vote, however, and said at the beginning of the meeting that she thought the committee should not make a recommendation.
“I believe the council has already seen quite a number of recommendations,” St. Rose said.
City Council recently received more than 2,000 suggestions through an online survey, which showed the top results as Lee Park and Jackson Park, although the survey allowed more than one submission per person and some suggest it was loaded with those who oppose any kind of name change.
Committee member Dede Smith said any future survey effort would have to be formulated in a way to allow one vote per person, calling the City Council survey a “good idea” but “flawed.”
“I don’t think we can put a lot of weight on what actually we saw,” Smith said.
St. Rose also called for a more “democratic” selection process that would be powered by Charlottesville residents, such as a referendum. “I don’t understand this process,” she said.
While the meeting was open to the public, the committee did not field any public comments because that will take place at an upcoming City Council meeting.
After the meeting, some attendees said they were disappointed by the lack of opportunity to comment. Karenne Wood, a member of the Monacan Nation, said she attended because she heard that Monacan Park—one of the more popular suggestions from the online survey—would be one of the names discussed, but she was unable to offer the tribe’s support of the name during the meeting.
Charlottesville resident Jalane Schmidt also wanted public comment and said she thought the suggestions offered at the meeting did not confront the history of each park.
“The recommendation of the [Blue Ribbon Commission], which the City Council did affirm, was that these parks were to be transformed,” Schmidt said, “and the full history…of how these spaces bolstered white supremacy was supposed to be revealed.”
Lisa Woolfork, another attendee, similarly called the selection process “tepid” and said it did nothing to recontextualize or challenge each park’s history.
“If all we might get is a renamed park, that name should be potent,” she said. “It should not be vague. It should not be general. I found this entire process frustrating and only in effect reinforcing the power dynamics that brought this problem to a head in the first place.”
Even with this process moving forward, there are those who still disagree with renaming the park. Historian and Charlottesville resident Arthur Herman says remembering the history of why the Confederate generals were commemorated in the first place is important.
“The sense of duty, the sense of honor, the courage, the sacrifice that they and other Confederate soldiers and veterans served were important virtues irrespective of the nature of the cause they served,” Herman says. “These men were not men who donned white sheets and marched with the KKK. These are not monuments dedicated to men like that.”
City Council will decide on the renaming of both parks at its June 5 meeting.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces will meet for their first session June 16. Rammelkamp Foto
Nine members appointed to serve on Mayor Mike Signer’s Blue Ribbon Commission—created to make a recommendation to City Council on how to treat race, memorials and public spaces after a major controversy regarding the General Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park—now have about half a year and $10,000 to make it happen.
“I think the biggest problem will be that a lot of people think there are people who have already made up their minds,” says commission member Frank Dukes, a long-time mediator and UVA faculty member trained in facilitation who founded the University & Community Action for Racial Equity almost a decade ago. “This is going to be a learning process. I think people will join us in that willingness to learn and keep their minds open.”
Three members, Gordon Fields, Rachel Lloyd and Margaret O’Bryant, were appointed to represent the Human Rights Commission, PLACE Design Task Force and Historic Resources Committee, respectively.
Lloyd, a professional preservation planner and historical landscape architect, says different generations may reinterpret their community’s history over time. In fact, the opinion overload regarding Lee’s legacy in town began when a local high school student petitioned to have the Confederate soldier’s memorial removed and his park renamed.
“I doubt any of us are naive enough to think that the process will be easy or that our recommendations, whatever they are, will be universally popular,” Lloyd says.
O’Bryant has been the librarian at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society for over 28 years. She says the group’s final recommendation should be reflective of all aspects of the local community. “I hope we can work effectively and constructively without unnecessary disagreement,” she says.
Jane Smith, who says she was “amazed” to learn she was selected out of the 74 people who applied to be on the commission, is eager to work with the group of “dignified, respectful people” who were also chosen, though she says she doesn’t expect them to agree on everything. Going in with a “clean slate,” Smith, who is a retired graphic designer, says, “I love doing history research and so I’m hoping that I can be of use that way.”
Don Gathers works as the front desk supervisor at the Graduate Hotel, is a member of UVA’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes executive committee and is on the deacon board at the First Baptist Church on West Main Street. Gathers says he applied to be on the commission to serve and hopefully unite the community.
“I think everyone wants basically the same things,” he says. “They want better lives for our children, freedom to come and go as they choose and to not have their rights infringed upon due to someone else’s rights.”
Gathers, a Richmond native, grew up around similar controversies surrounding the city’s historic Monument Avenue, where many Confederate leaders are honored.
“I’ve heard the outcries, I’ve heard the problems, the issues, the complaints, the explanations,” he says. “I think the best thing that we individually and collectively as a commission can do [in Charlottesville] is to listen before we formulate any opinion or take any stance one way or the other.”
But commissioner John Mason, a historian and UVA history professor who is descended on both sides of his family from Virginia slaves, has an idea of where he stands.
“I think my starting point is that the memorials are less about the men who are depicted and more about what they symbolize,” he says. “What they symbolize to me is not what they symbolized to the people who put them up.”
Erected as memorials to the “lost cause,” which Mason describes as the story white southerners told themselves to cope with defeat 30 years after the Civil War, he says, “Psychologically, they wanted to tell themselves about the glory of this lost cause. I think it’s a story of sacrifice, valor and dignity.”
He also notes that the Confederate memorials were built at the height of Jim Crow laws, when “things had never been worse for African-Americans.” Before City Council April 18, Mason said the memorials hide history instead of making it more visible.
Not reached were commission members Fields, Andrea Douglas and Melvin Burruss. All nine will meet for their first session June 16.
Correction: The original article incorrectly stated when the commission would first meet.
General Robert E. Lee: Will he stay or will he go? Blue ribbon commission to advise City Council by the end of the year. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
City Council unanimously approved a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces May 2 after a Charlottesville High School student presented a petition to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee and rename Lee Park in March.
The nine-member commission will look not only at Confederate monuments like Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but will also consider options to tell the “full story of Charlottesville’s history of race relations and for changing the city’s narrative through our public spaces,” according to the resolution. That could include augmenting the slave auction block at Court Square, rehabbing the Daughters of Zion cemetery and revisiting Vinegar Hill through the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
Three commission members will come from the PLACE Design Task Force, Human Rights Commission and Historic Resources Committee, and all must apply in the next 30 days. Council will appoint the members June 6 after a closed session, and the commissioners will produce a written report by November 30.
At an April 28 work session, councilors discussed who should be on the commission, because the issue has drawn interest from people all over the commonwealth. They agreed that members need to have a strong affiliation with the Charlottesville/Albemarle area.
City Councilor Bob Fenwick said the commission’s discussions will be “blunt,” “brutally honest” and not always civil.
“It’s extremely important we’re transparent,” said Councilor Kathy Galvin. “This is something very emotional for our community, that we open it up and let people apply.”
Council approved $10,000 to fund the commission’s work.
Defenders of the statue of General Robert E. Lee include a great-nephew of sculptor Henry Shrady.
Rammelkamp Foto
The Charlottesville park bounded by Jefferson, North First, Market and North Second streets isn’t the only Lee Park under heavy scrutiny.
Last July, a group of folks in Dallas led a demonstration at Oak Lawn’s Lee Park to demand that a General Robert E. Lee statue be removed and the park renamed. Activists felt called to “un-dedicate” the statue and rededicate it to “the spirit of the abolitionist movement, raising the spirits of six genuine heroes of the Civil War era”—Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Denmark Vesey, Maria Stewart, Harriet Tubman and Senator Hiram Revels, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Though the acts of un-dedication and rededication had no legal recognition, another issue concerning Confederate war memorials could—and this one hits a bit closer to home.
A Virginia state law says localities can’t “disturb or interfere” with Confederate monuments, but a judge in Danville ruled that legal protection does not apply to structures erected before 1998. A Confederate flag flown since 1996 above the last capitol of the Confederacy at the city-owned Sutherlin Mansion was removed in August.
This decision has been appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
On March 10, Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed HB587—Republican Delegate Charles D. Poindexter’s bill—which would clarify conditions of the previous ruling in Danville and prohibit localities from removing any war memorials, including Civil War monuments, regardless of the date they were erected.
Though the Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill by a margin of 82 to 16 votes in the House, with local delegates Rob Bell, Matt Fariss and Steve Landes voting yay, and 21 to 17 in the Senate, Democratic Senator Creigh Deeds says he voted against it.
“Ultimately, localities are going to have to decide how they’re gong to commemorate the past,” Deeds says, adding that the discussion ought to be broader than just between 140 legislators at the General Assembly. “You can’t whitewash or change history,” he says. “You just have to learn from it.”
In Virginia, Deeds says the Civil War is commemorated in many different ways, with Confederate statues in every county, and high schools and roads named after Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.
While he says he would be cautious about moving Charlottesville’s General Lee statue, he commends Mayor Mike Signer’s proposal of a Blue Ribbon Commission on Confederate Memorials to evaluate the community’s stance on the statue removal and renaming of Lee Park, explain the policy behind the effort, assess costs, explore options and develop a fundraising strategy.
In a statement proposing the task force, Signer alludes to dark chapters in Charlottesville’s past, including slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, segregation and Vinegar Hill.
“We see one of those chapters every time we’re in Lee Park or Court Square, where, in the 1920s, city leaders elected to celebrate the Confederacy and, by extension, slavery, by placing large monuments to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,” Signer says.
Deeds hopes the commission will consist of a broad cross-section of community members.
“If [a commission] is appointed, it shouldn’t just be made up of people with a predetermined view of what should happen,” Deeds says. “To be a genuine commission, it needs to be made up of people who are willing to consider all sides to come up with the right approach.”
Signer says planning for the task force is still in the early stages and he is discussing options while researching examples of similar groups in places such as St. Louis and Baltimore. “My hope is that this will be a deliberative and hopeful process that truly engages the community in exploring how we can best change the narrative in Charlottesville,” he writes in an e-mail.
Julie Langan, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, says her department is working to help UVA grad Molly Ward, Virginia secretary of natural resources, develop a list of best practices for how communities should approach historic monuments. Governor McAuliffe requested a report from the group by December, Langan says, and they are in the early stages of electing people to serve on the commission.
“We’ll want geographic representation,” Langan says. “We’ll want people who have diverging points of view.”
Langan, like McAuliffe, believes conclusions should be reached by the community and not regulated by state law.
“My inclination is to view something like the [General Lee] sculpture in Charlottesville more as a work of art than a Confederate memorial,” she says.
In the National Register of Historic Places, Langan points out that documentation for the monument at Lee Park has little to say about the Civil War. It emphasizes the high artistic value of the sculpture, the history of its design and its production.
Paul Goodloe McIntire, who gifted Lee Park to the city in 1918, signed a deed June 14 of that year that said he desired “to erect thereon a statue of General Robert E. Lee and to present said property to the City of Charlottesville, Va. as a memorial to his parents, the late George M. McIntire and Catherine A. McIntire.”
Although some may question whether the city is able to remove the statue or rename the park that McIntire gifted, the deed says, “This conveyance is made upon condition that the said property be held and used in perpetuity by said city as a public park, and that no buildings be erected thereon, but the authorities of said city shall at all times have the right and power to control, regulate and restrict the use of said property.”
