The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center shared updates on the Swords Into Plowshares project during an October 30 community engagement session. Photo: Eze Amos
Community members gathered at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on October 30 to hear the latest on the Swords Into Plowshares project, which seeks to melt down Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue and repurpose its bronze into a new public artwork.
In December, the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation and the Ratcliffe Foundation filed a lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville, claiming the city violated state code, the Virginia Public Procurement Act, and the Freedom of Information Act when it donated the statue to the Jefferson School. (The school was initially named as a second defendant, but was removed, and is now a party to the suit.) On October 10, Charlottesville Circuit Court ruled that the lawsuit had grounds to move forward, with a trial date set for February.
While the Jefferson School initially planned a six-month community engagement process, during which Charlottesville residents would discuss ways to represent inclusion through art and public space, the lawsuit has delayed it. But Jefferson School Executive Director Andrea Douglas remains hopeful about where the project currently stands.
“We’re still going. We’re still raising money. We’re still asking the questions,” said Douglas. “We’re still a united front against this court case.”
During the October 10 hearing, the plaintiffs pushed the Jefferson School to disclose the Lee statue’s location to the public, but the two parties later agreed to a protective order allowing only an expert and lawyers from each side to know the statue’s location, marking a victory for Swords Into Plowshares.
UVA professor Frank Dukes, who is leading the community engagement phase of the project, presented the results of a survey that asked community members for input on what should happen to the Lee statue, including the stories the resulting artwork should tell. Respondents were primarily from Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and came from various age groups, including young children.
Stories that respondents thought needed to be told included information about Vinegar Hill, the Jefferson School, McKee Row, and the lives of enslaved and Indigenous people.
Respondents also voiced fears for the project—some felt that art might be too abstract or figurative, or represent an oversimplification of a complex issue. Among those who liked the art idea, common desired themes included incorporating touch or sound, serving a function, and not honoring a single person.
Community engagement meetings have also served as a forum for residents to voice their thoughts. “We’re gonna continue to do this until there’s an opportunity for us to say, ‘Okay, we’ve heard enough from people—we can start creating,’” said Dukes.
Zyahna Bryant, a student activist who first petitioned for the removal of the Lee statue in high school, emphasized that the final product should be treated with the same degree of esteem that had been given to the Lee statue.
“I don’t think it needs to be sad or somber, but I definitely think that it should have some level of respect and honor,” Bryant said.
Other community members hoped the new artwork would provoke dialogue while reflecting a historical consciousness. One suggested incorporating some kind of theatrical form, creating a lively interactive space.
Charlottesville resident Peter Kleeman, who has frequently attended SIP’s community engagement events, said he finds the project to be the only one of its kind he has come across.
“This whole project is such a fabulous idea,” said Kleeman. “The idea of taking a Civil War memorial and making it into something new, taking something that shouldn’t be part of our memorial collection and thinking, let’s transform it into something that meets our ideas for today.”
With the trial set for February 1, the Jefferson School has no plans to slow down.
“We’re deliberately moving forward with a kind of consistency of message that says to the larger world that Charlottesville will make its own decisions about its public spaces,” said Douglas.
Bob Good, the 5th Congressional District’s Republican candidate, released a bizarre campaign advertisement this week. In the spot, Good draws on his experience as a wrestling coach—everyone’s favorite kind of authority figure—and shows how he’ll “put liberal ideas in a headlock.” As Good grapples on the mat with his son, the candidate periodically looks up from the tangle of arms and legs to deliver a zinger such as “Government-run health care? I’ll pin that idea.”
Meanwhile, election forecasters at the Cook Political Report are now rating the race a toss-up, something formerly unthinkable in a district Donald Trump won by 11 points in 2016. On Twitter, Cook’s Dave Wasserman called Cameron Webb “perhaps the Dems’ best House candidate anywhere in the country…Webb is a young, telegenic Black doctor w/deep ties in both Charlottesville & Southside.”
Proof positive
Sticky notes in the window of Echols dorm show how students are feeling about quarantine. PC: Julia Hyde
Despite evidence from colleges around the country that inviting students back to campus would lead to coronavirus outbreaks in on-campus housing, UVA’s administration made the decision to bring first-year students back to Grounds. Now, less than three weeks later, there are outbreaks in several dorms.
Last Wednesday, the school announced at least five cases of COVID-19 were found in the wastewater of the Balz-Dobie freshman residence hall. The dorm immediately went into lockdown and all residents were tested Wednesday evening. The tests turned up 15 cases of COVID-19 in a dorm of 188 students, says the university. Students who tested positive have been placed in isolation housing and their close contacts (such as roommates) have been placed in quarantine housing.
Thursday evening, residents of the Lefevre dorm were instructed to undergo mandatory asymptomatic testing after wastewater tests indicated possible infections there, too. That dorm turned up three more positive cases. Then on Friday, the Echols and Kellogg dorms underwent the same routine, and 17 additional cases were confirmed.
“All students with positive tests are doing well,” says UVA in an official statement.
As of Friday, 19 percent of the university’s quarantine rooms were occupied by students and 1 percent of isolation rooms were occupied. Quarantine rooms are for those who have been exposed to COVID-19 and isolation rooms are for students who have tested positive for COVID-19. The school’s coronavirus tracker shows 241 active cases as of Tuesday morning, including students, staff, faculty, and contracted workers.—Amelia Delphos
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Quote of the week
“The issue is that y’all don’t have your facts together. You’re trying to cite me for a [Black Youth Action Committee] event, claiming that it took place in Washington Park and it didn’t.”
—community organizer Zyahna Bryant on the $500 fine the BYAC received for hosting Black Joy Fest, criticizing City Council for not being consistent with enforcing the ban on large gatherings
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In brief
The lost art
Seven paintings by Charlottesville artist Megan Read, worth a total of $12,000, have gone missing. They weren’t stolen in a dramatic art heist, though: FedEx lost track of the packages, which were en route to a gallery in Denver. Read has tried to track the paintings down, and says she thinks they’re stuck in a shipping center in Kernersville, North Carolina, but she hasn’t been able to find anyone who can help her.
Sign of the times
A blunt sign on the door of one of UVA’s historic Lawn rooms has caught the attention of some of the university’s more traditionally minded alumni. “FUCK UVA,” it says, before reminding passersby of the school’s history of slavery and other crimes. The sign prompted Bert Ellis, class of ’75 and CEO of Atlanta’s Ellis Capital, to drive to town and indignantly knock on the Lawn room door, where, according to his own Facebook post, he was given an eye-opening history lesson from the student who lives there.
Name game
After debating the issue late into the night during multiple recent meetings—and getting nowhere—City Council decided on Monday to send proposals for honorary street names to the city’s Historic Resources Committee. Several proposals would honor local Black figures, including activist Wyatt Johnson and enslaved laborer William Henry Martin, while two others suggest honoring UVA men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett.
DJs from 101.3 Jamz radio station play music during the first Black Youth Action Committee event on Saturday. Photo: Zack Wajsgras
A chorus of “We gon’ be alright” bounced out of DJ Flatline and DJ Double U’s speakers, signaling the beginning of Saturday’s Black Joy Fest.
The festival was the first event hosted by the newly formed Charlottesville Black Youth Action Committee. Young people tossed beanbags back and forth at a set of Dallas Cowboys cornhole boards. Tubs of Ben & Jerry’s sat on a table in the tent, and Angelic’s Kitchen served soul food from a truck.
The activists emphasized that this event was a supposed to have a light atmosphere, but the group’s larger goals are serious, says local activist and committee member Zyahna Bryant.
“The committee was established by five young Black girl students, all local Charlottesville students,” Bryant says. “We wanted to address issues of policing and education in the Charlottesville community, so that people can understand that there’s a deep connection between the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arberry, and the local issues we have every day through systems and structures.”
For three hours in the early evening, the event occupied the road at the intersection of Preston and Grady avenues, with volunteers’ cars forming a barrier around the gathered crowd. Police were largely invisible from the intersection, having established a light presence at the bottom of the Preston Avenue hill.
When asked about the connection between the Black Joy Fest, which was held on August 8, and the upcoming three-year anniversary of Unite the Right, Bryant says taking up space in the city remains an important goal of young activists.
“Washington Park is a historically Black park,” she says. “We’re also right outside of two Black neighborhoods, there’s the 10th and Page neighborhood and there’s the Grady Avenue neighborhood. In a space that’s heavily gentrified such as this, we wanted to reclaim this space and make it clear that this is a space for Black joy and Black existence.”
At one point, the young organizers drew the crowd together for a brief teach-in.
Bryant urged the gathered community members to tune in to local government and school board meetings, and to keep an eye on local elections. In pamphlets distributed to the attendees, the organizers cited the school-to-prison pipeline as an example of the need for systemic change.
Bryant also asked that allies help in less formal settings. “When we say spend your privilege, we mean pull over and watch the cops when they’re arresting Black people,” she said.
Zaneyah Bryant, another member of the committee who is herself a high schooler, said the group hopes to get more young activists involved in making change around the city. “These are our streets,” she said. “We should be able to feel how we want to feel in our streets and our town.”
At the end of the teach-in, just before the music and dancing resumed, the committee led the crowd in a call and response invocation from the revolutionary activist Assata Shakur.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom,” the crowd said. “It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Community organizer and UVA student Zyahna Bryant recently handed out college dorm essentials to nine first-gen Black college students, who all graduated from Charlottesville High School. Bryant, also a first-gen student, raised $12,000 to purchase the items and award scholarships—ranging from $750 to $1,000—over the course of a few hours.
PC: Eze Amos
Comeback kids?
On August 4, UVA announced that move-in and the beginning of in-person classes will be delayed by two weeks, meaning face-to-face instruction will start on September 8. University President Jim Ryan released a video August 7, explaining that the decision to delay was made in response to a rise in Virginia’s coronavirus transmission, as well as “recent volatility in the supply chain for testing.”
The school has instituted additional safety measures in an attempt to minimize spread of the virus, including changes in classroom capacities to accommodate for social distancing, installing plexiglass shields between faculty and students, and enhancing its classroom sanitation protocols. UVA has even begun testing the dorms’ wastewater to try to detect the virus early.
Meanwhile, the state of Virginia has surpassed 100,000 cases since the onset of the pandemic, and cases have increased 16 percent in the last two weeks, according to The New York Times. New daily cases in Virginia reached an all-time high with 2,015 reported cases on August 7—less than one month before students return to Grounds.
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Quote of the week
“I promise that’s just black water in my glass. It was a prop only.”
—Jerry Falwell Jr., longtime president of evangelical Liberty University (where alcohol is banned) in an Instagram post in which he posed with his fly down on a yacht. He was placed on indefinite leave shortly thereafter.
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In brief
In the doghouse
On Sunday, Carrie Pledger, owner of Pawprints Boutique, which sells clothes and accessories for pets, asked an unhoused Black man to move because she felt he was dancing too close to her business’ sign. That request inspired the ire of a handful of nearby Black Youth Action Committee activists, who were handing out free water and snacks. After the activists voiced their concerns, Pledger called the police. Video shows Pledger telling the police, “This is scary to me,” gesturing to the scene in front of her.
Bewildering ballots
If you received a mailing from the Center for Voter Information, be wary. The nonprofit isn’t attempting to scam you, but it is demonstrably incompetent: This month, the organization mailed out a half-million ballot applications directing potential voters to send their ballots back to incorrect registrars’ office addresses, and in 2018, voter registration forms were mailed to 140,000 Virginians who were already registered to vote, reports The Washington Post. The safest way to vote absentee is to register online via the Virginia Department of Elections.
No Good?
A press release from Democratic congressional candidate Dr. Cameron Webb says his Republican opponent Bob Good has declined to participate in a proposed October debate. The district has been steadily Republican for a decade, but Webb has so far out-fundraised Good by leaps and bounds.
ICE facility outbreak
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement immigration detention center in Farmville, Virginia, is now home to the worst coronavirus outbreak of any detention facility in the United States, reports The Washington Post. Testing last month showed that 70 percent of those detained had the disease, and one person being held there died last week.
This article has been corrected to accurately reflect the timeline of events described in the brief titled “In the dog house.” Pledger called the police only after the activists spoke up, not before.
Organizers Zaneyah Bryant and Ang Conn honor the Black women who’ve died at the hands of police with a moment of silence. PC: Eze Amos
It’s been nearly two months since the murder of George Floyd, but protests against police violence continue around the country, including here in Charlottesville. Over a hundred protesters took to the streets July 17 to amplify Black women’s voices and struggles, and demand justice for those who’ve been killed by police, including Breonna Taylor and Sandra Bland.
Hosted by Defund Cville Police, the demonstration started in front of the Albemarle County Office building, where organizer Ang Conn welcomed the (masked) crowd and led several chants, including “No justice, no peace, defund the police,” and “Black women matter.”
Youth organizers (and twin sisters) Zaneyah and Zeniah Bryant, who are 14, also took turns shouting chants into their megaphone, alongside local activist and friend Trinity Hughes. Drivers passing by honked their horns in support.
While the group gathered on East High Street, a white woman drove around the public works truck blocking the road, and twice told the protesters they would “make good speed bumps,” according to tweets from the event and a Medium post from Defund Cville Police. The threat is especially chilling and violent given that Heather Heyer was murdered by a driver just a few blocks from where the protest took place.
The woman was soon identified as UVA undergraduate Morgan Bettinger. Her stepfather, Wayne Bettinger, was a Charlottesville police officer until he passed away in 2014.
When asked, the Charlottesville Police Department said it is “respectively declining comment” about the family member of a former member of the force.
Defund Cville Police called for Bettinger’s expulsion from UVA, but activist Zyahna Bryant says the group will not press charges. “We cannot and will not use/expect systems and institutions that disproportionately harm and criminalize Black people, to protect us at this time. They won’t. We protect us,” Bryant tweeted.
UVA released a statement via social media saying, “We are aware of the allegations on social media about a student’s conduct with respect to a protest in the city and are actively investigating the matter.”
The protesters walked down the mall before stopping in front of the Charlottesville Albemarle Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, where Conn asked everyone to take a knee and a moment of silence to honor the Black women who have lost their lives at the hands of police.
In front of the courthouse, Conn spoke about why money needs to be reallocated from the Charlottesville Police Department—which currently has a budget of $18 million—to different social departments and programs, especially the city’s foster care system.
Reading from last year’s Charlottesville Foster Care Study, she emphasized the disproportionate amount of Black and multiracial children who are referred to child welfare services, compared to their white peers in the city. These children are also less likely to be reunified with their families upon exiting foster care.
Conn, who spent time in foster care, invited Black people in the crowd who’ve been affected by the system to share their stories.
Sisters Harli and Kyra Saxon detailed the trauma inflicted on them after their parents split up, and their mother was no longer able to keep up with the bills. The family was evicted from their home, and CPS eventually got involved. Kyra was forced to live with the girls’ abusive father, while Harli was sent to a group home and later lived with several foster families. The pair said they begged to live with their mother, but the social workers assigned to their case—as well as a “racist” judge—did little to help them, even as they faced serious mental health crises.
After five years of battling CPS, the sisters were reunited with their mother.
“That’s what defunding the police is about—channeling those funds into assistance,” said Harli. “If somebody had come up to my mom and said here is some rent money, this never would have happened.”
Following several more speakers, Conn wrapped up the protest by encouraging attendees to call on City Council to slash the police department budget and invest in “real solutions,” such as an emergency response division, which could have prevented the violent arrest of an intoxicated unhoused man on the Downtown Mall earlier this month.
“We shouldn’t be criminalized for being human,” she said.
Mental health advocate Myra Anderson warns that the social service systems need reform too. PC: Eze Amos
Every year, C-VILLE publishes a power issue. It’s usually a rundown of local real-estate moguls and entrepreneurs, tech tycoons, arts leaders, and big donors. This year’s issue is a little different—most of the people and groups listed here aren’t the richest folks in town. They don’t own the most land, they don’t run the biggest companies. But when things got really rocky, they stepped up, and exercised the power they do have to help those around them. This isn’t a comprehensive or objective list, of course, but we hope it highlights some of the many different forms that power can take in a community like ours. —Dan Goff, Brielle Entzminger, and Ben Hitchcock
The Organizers: Black Lives Matter movement in Charlottesville
There’s a revolution brewing. Activists all over the country and the world are taking a stand against police brutality, and Charlottesville is no different. Over the last few weeks, local black activists young and old have organized events in support of the national Black Lives Matter movement and its associated goals, including a march from the Charlottesville Police Department to Washington Park and a Defund the Police Block Party that marched from the John Paul Jones Arena parking lot to hold the intersection of Barracks Road and Emmet Street. Other organizations such as Congregate Charlottesville and its Anti-Racist Organizing Fund are supporting the activists calling for defunding the police department. Little by little, change is happening—on June 11, Charlottesville City Schools announced it will remove school resource officers and reallocate those funds for a new “school safety model.”—D.G.
Eze Amos: Photo: Eze Amos
The Documenters: C’ville Porchraits
How do we preserve art and community during a pandemic? It’s been a question addressed by many creatives, perhaps none more successfully than the creators of Cville Porch Portraits. Headed by Eze Amos, the “porchrait” takers, who have photographed 950 families outside their Charlottesville-area homes, also include Tom Daly, Kristen Finn, John Robinson, and Sarah Cramer Shields—all local photographers in need of work once the city shut down. The group has donated $40,000 to Charlottesville’s Emergency Relief Fund for Artists. “This is for everyone,” says Amos of the project, which has been successfully emulated by other photogs, including Robert Radifera.—D.G.
The Musicians: The Front Porch
As most concert venues were struggling to reschedule shows and refund ticket money, The Front Porch, Charlottesville’s beloved music school and performing space, wasted no time in pivoting to COVID-friendly programming. Executive Director Emily Morrison quickly set up Save the Music, a livestreamed concert series that brings performances by local artists like David Wax Museum and Lowland Hum to the comfort and safety of your home. If you haven’t tuned in yet, there’s still plenty of time—as the city tentatively reopens, Morrison recognizes that live music will likely be one of the last things to return, so she’s extended Save the Music to late August.—D.G.
Jay Pun. Photo: John Robinson
The Innovator: Jay Pun
All restaurant owners have had to get creative to keep their businesses alive during the pandemic, but almost no one has been as creative as Jay Pun, co-owner of both Chimm and Thai Cuisine and Noodle House. Pun has gone further than just a pickup/delivery model by starting a virtual cooking series on Instagram and Facebook Live, and selling kits to be used in tandem with the lessons. He’s also donated significant amounts of food to UVA health workers, and most recently has brought other Thai restaurants into the conversation: A recent discussion with the proprietor of famed Portland institution Pok Pok focused on food, but also touched on the issue of race in America.—D.G.
The Reporter: Jordy Yager
Through his work as a Digital Humanities Fellow at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and as a reporter for multiple local news outlets, journalist Jordy Yager addresses equity or the lack thereof in all its forms. This is showcased most notably in his Mapping Cville project, which takes on the enormous job of documenting Charlottesville’s history of racially restrictive housing deeds, but also through in-depth coverage of Home to Hope, a program dedicated to reintegrating formerly incarcerated citizens into society, and other studies on the redevelopment of Friendship Court and the day-to-day lives of refugees. Yager’s also extremely active on Twitter, retweeting the content of community organizers as well as his own work, and keeping his followers up to date on, well, almost everything.—D.G.
Kat Maybury (left) and Sherry Cook volunteering at the Haven. Photo: Zack Wajsgras
The Safe Places: The Haven and PACEM
Since the onset of the pandemic, the places that serve some of our community’s most vulnerable members have ramped up their efforts to keep guests and staff safe. Downtown day shelter The Haven has opened its doors to women who needed a place to sleep, while also continuing to provide its regular services, including daily to-go meals, with cleanliness and social distancing measures in place.
PACEM has remained open, serving more than 40 people per night, even though its volunteer staff is smaller than usual. Guests are screened for virus symptoms, and they’re given face masks, among other safety precautions, before being admitted to either the men’s or women’s shelter, where there’s at least six feet between every cot. Though it had to move its male guests out of a temporary space at Key Recreation Center on June 10, PACEM will offer shelter for women at Summit House until at least the end of the month.
Thanks to funding from the city, county, and a private donor, PACEM has also housed 30 high-risk homeless individuals in private rooms at a local hotel, in addition to providing them with daily meals and case management. Men who still need shelter after leaving Key Rec have been able to stay at the hotel for at least 30 days.—B.E.
The Sustainers: C’ville Mutual Aid Infrastructure
One of the most heartwarming nationwide responses to COVID-19, and all of the difficulties that came with it, was the widespread creation of mutual aid networks. Charlottesville joined the trend in March, creating a Facebook page for community members to request or offer “time, money, support, and resources.” Since it was launched, the page has gained hundreds of followers, and posts have ranged from pleas for a place to sleep to the donation of a
half-used Taco Bell gift card. The page’s moderators have also shared resources such as a continually updated list of when and where food-insecure community members can access pantries. Though it came about through dire circumstances, the C’ville Mutual Aid Infrastructure network is proof that our community looks after its own.—D.G.
Howie and Diane Long. Photo: Keith Sparbanie/AdMedia
The Nourishers: School lunches
Before COVID, over 6,000 students relied on our public schools for free (or reduced price) breakfast and lunch. To make sure no student has gone hungry since schools closed in March, Charlottesville City Schools and Albemarle County Public Schools have given away thousands of grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches to anyone under age 18, regardless of family income. With the help of school staff and volunteers, both districts have set up dozens of food distribution sites, as well as sent buses out on delivery routes every week. During spring break, when CCS was unable to distribute food, Pearl Island Catering and Mochiko Cville—backed by the Food Justice Network and area philanthropists Diane and Howie Long—stepped up and provided 4,000 meals to kids in neighborhoods with large numbers enrolled in free and reduced-price meal programs. Even though students are now on summer break, that hasn’t slowed down staff and volunteers, who are still hard at work—both districts plan to keep the free meal programs going until the fall.—B.E.
The Superheroes: Frontline workers
After Governor Ralph Northam issued his stay-at-home order in March, most Charlottesvillians did just that: stayed at home. But the city’s essential workers didn’t have that luxury. In the language of Northam’s executive order, these are employees of “businesses not required to close to the public.” Frontline workers’ jobs vary widely, from health care professionals to grocery store cashiers, but they all have one thing in common: The people who do them are required to put on their scrubs or their uniform and go into their physical place of employment every day, while the rest of us work from the safety of our sofa in a pair of sweatpants. Their reality is one that the majority of us haven’t experienced—and the least we can do is thank these workers for keeping our city running.—D.G.
Jim Hingeley. Photo: Elli Williams
The Reformers: Commonwealth’s attorneys/Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail
The area’s commonwealth’s attorneys are some of the most powerful people you might never have heard of. During normal times, Albemarle’s Jim Hingeley and Charlottesville’s Joe Platania have tremendous influence over sentencing decisions for those on trial in their localities. They’ve both worked toward progressive reforms since taking office, but since the pandemic took hold, they’ve accelerated their efforts.
The effect has been especially pronounced at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Under the guidance of the commonwealth’s attorneys and Jail Superintendent Martin Kumer, around 90 inmates have been transferred to house arrest. As prisons across the state have fought coronavirus outbreaks, the ACRJ has yet to report a single case among those incarcerated.
“It’s a shame that it took this crisis to motivate the community to get behind decarceration,” Hingeley said at a panel in May, “but it’s happened now, and when the crisis has passed, we’re going to work to continue doing this.”—B.H.
Zyahna Bryant. Photo: Eze Amos
The Voices: Charlottesville Twitter
“Twitter isn’t real life,” some say. (Most often, they say it on Twitter.) But Charlottesville’s ever-growing group of dedicated tweeters has recently used the platform to make real-life change.
The synergy between social media and protest is well-documented, and the demonstrations against police brutality that have taken place across town have been organized and publicized on Twitter, as well as on other social media platforms. Meanwhile, people like Matthew Gillikin, Rory Stolzenberg, and Sarah Burke have used Twitter to call out the police department for botching its collaboration with state forces and dragging its heels on revealing important budget details. And Molly “@socialistdogmom” Conger—perhaps Charlottesville Twitter’s most recognizable avatar—continues to digest and interpret dense city government meetings for the public, making real-life advocacy easier for everyone.
The effect is felt on UVA Grounds, as well—this month, tweeters shamed the university into changing its new athletics logo to remove a reference to the school’s historic serpentine walls, which were designed to conceal enslaved laborers. After UVA abruptly laid off its dining hall contract employees in March, outraged tweeters raised tens of thousands of dollars for those workers, while pushing the university to create an emergency contract worker assistance fund. And recently, Zyahna Bryant drew attention to UVA President Jim Ryan’s limp response to the protests that followed the death of George Floyd, when she tweeted her resignation from the school’s President’s Council on University Community Partnerships. Keep tweeting, people. It’s working.—B.H.
Updated 6/24 to clarify which organizers were responsible for recent demonstrations to support Black Lives Matter.
Protesters gather at the Robert E. Lee statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
The six-story-tall equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee has towered over Richmond’s Monument Avenue since 1890. Soon, it’ll be gone, replaced by empty sky.
“That statue has been there for a long time. But it was wrong then and it’s wrong now. So we’re taking it down,” said Governor Ralph Northam during a June 4 press conference.
The announcement comes after the death of George Floyd sparked a week of national protests against police brutality. Demonstrators in Richmond have targeted the Lee statue since the protests began, spray painting “Black Lives Matter” and other slogans across the statue’s base. When Richmond police tear-gassed peaceful protesters at the site on Monday night, the statue became an even more charged symbol of oppression.
Richmonders have re-contextualized other Confederate spots in the city as well—the United Daughters of the Confederacy building, just a few blocks from the Lee statue, was lit on fire on May 31, with the word “Abolition” written next to its steps.
Zyahna Bryant, the Charlottesville student activist who started the petition to remove Charlottesville’s Lee statue in 2016, spoke at Northam’s press conference on Thursday.
“I want to make space to thank the activists in Charlottesville who have put in decades of work to get us to where we are today,” Bryant said. “Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”
Charlottesville, ground zero for the fight over Confederate monuments, could see its statues of Lee and Stonewall Jackson removed later in the summer. This year, the General Assembly finally passed a rule allowing localities to remove their Confederate monuments. The law will go into effect July 1, and then City Council will have to vote on their removal, hold a public hearing, and offer the statues to any museums that want them—a total of 60 days worth of legislative hoops to jump through—before the monuments can legally come down. At an event in March, local activist Don Gathers said he thought it best not to schedule the removal ahead of time, so as to avoid any potential violence.
Richmond’s Lee statue, by contrast, sits on state property, and can be removed without public comment or review. Northam says the cranes will roll in “as soon as possible” and put the statue in storage.
Amanda Chase, the only Republican who has so far announced a 2021 run for governor, called Northam’s decision a “cowardly capitulation to the looters and domestic terrorists” that’s aimed at “appeasing the left-wing mob.” A statement from a collection of Virginia’s Republican state senators said the statue should remain where it is, but called Chase’s statement “idiotic, inappropriate, and inflammatory,” reports WSLS 10 News. (Republicans have not won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009.)
The Lee statue in Richmond is one of five Confederate statues on Monument Avenue. The other four, which Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said Wednesday he also wants removed, are on land controlled by the city of Richmond. To take down those monuments, Stoney would have to follow the same process that’s required in Charlottesville.
Elsewhere in the country, many Confederate memorials have been torn down informally. People in Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama, have toppled statues during demonstrations, and monuments have been spray-painted and otherwise altered in countless other cities. In Alexandria, Virginia, even the United Daughters of the Confederacy got in on the action, removing a statue of a soldier that it owns from one of Alexandria’s central streets.
“Make no mistake,” Northam said at the press conference, “removing a symbol is important, but it’s only a step.”
“I want to be clear that there will be no healing or reconciliation until we have equity,” Bryant said. “Until we have fully dismantled the systems that oppress black and brown people.”
Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville May 30, demanding an end to police brutality and justice for the murders of black people across the country. PC: Eze Amos
Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville May 30, demanding an end to police brutality and justice for the murders of black people acrossthe country, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade.
In solidarity with the dozens of other Black Lives Matter demonstrations around the nation, people of all races and ages carried homemade signs and chanted statements like “Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” “White silence is violence,” and “No justice, no peace.” Others joined in by car, blowing their horns and waving signs as they drove along Market Street.
“I was extremely pleased both with the turnout and the resiliency of the participants to remain peaceful…I am certain we got our message across,” says community activist and former Blue Ribbon Commission member Don Gathers, who spoke at the march.
But he believes there should have been “tens of hundreds more” at the event. “Anyone with a pulse and a moral compass should have been out there protesting the disgusting murder and ongoing brutalization of blacks across this country,” he says.
Don Gathers PC: Eze Amos
The march was initiated by local resident Ang Conn, who, after seeing the murder of Floyd on video, felt “just completely distraught with what to actually do.” Floyd died after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes, despite Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. (Three other police officers on the scene, who failed to intervene, were fired along with Chauvin, but only Chavin has been arrested.)
Conn reached out to multiple racial justice groups and put a local team together to plan the Charlottesville protest, and get the word out.
The event started at 3pm in front of the city’s police department, where activists, including Zyahna Bryant and Rosia Parker, led chants, gave speeches, and invited the crowd to take a knee. Demonstrators later marched down the mall to City Hall, then through Market Street Park, along Preston Avenue, and into Washington Park, chanting and listening to speeches from area activists and residents. Nearly all wore masks, bandanas, and other facial coverings.
While police in other cities have responded violently to protesters (including in Richmond, where peaceful demonstrators were tear-gassed Monday evening), cops did not confront the crowd in Charlottesville, and the event remained nonviolent. CPD, which has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed treatment of protesters, chose to have “officers remain at a respectful distance, so that people attending could engage in civil discourse peacefully,” says spokesman Tyler Hawn.
City Councilor Sena Magill was thankful that CPD took a hands-off approach to the protest, instead of “trying to stop it.” She says she’s also “proud of our community in general for coming out and saying enough is enough, and doing it in a way that was peaceful.”
As for Conn, she says she hasn’t thought much about how it was peaceful, or how many supporters came out. “We’re protesting black people getting murdered. That’s not fun. It wasn’t a party [or] a get together. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and there are millions of black and brown people locked up in jail cells…which was also what this protest was about.”
On Sunday, the Albemarle High School Black Student Union hosted a demonstration in front of the Albemarle County Office Building. Joined by community members, students of all races stood on the sidewalk in masks, chanting and holding signs with phrases like “Justice for George.”
“We wanted to continue the momentum. It’s important for us to keep protesting peacefully and raising awareness,” says BSU president Faith Holmes. “We’re actually really happy with the way it turned out…we weren’t expecting the numbers that we had. It was fulfilling to see people from [the community] come out and support Black Lives Matter.”
Moving forward, Gathers says he and other local activists will “continue to monitor the situation across the country,” and “should there be a situation that comes to light, God-forbid, here in Charlottesville, we certainly will be at the ready and quick to respond.”
Charlottesville residents of all ages and races attended Saturday’s protest. PC: Eze Amos
Charlottesville has its own fraught relationship with the police. Following community anger over the tear-gassing of counterprotesters during the July 2017 KKK rally, and CPD’s failure to protect residents during the violent Unite the Right rally later that summer, City Council created the Police Civilian Review Board to enhance transparency and trust. After years of controversy and disagreement over the board’s bylaws, City Council appointed seven members to the board in February, but the board has not yet met—an eighth, non-voting member, who was required to have prior law-enforcement experience, was appointed at Monday’s City Council meeting. Councilor Lloyd Snook, however, announced during the city’s Cville360 broadcast on Tuesday that the board could begin virtual meetings.
Before Saturday’s protest, organizers also released a list of demands for the city, county, and state, which Conn read to the crowd on Saturday. It included an end to pretrial detention and home monitoring fees; the demilitarization and defunding of CPD; and the release of more people from jail and prison, especially given the current high risk of death from COVID-19.
Several Charlottesville officials offered statements condemning Floyd’s death and police violence against the black community. And while Magill did not comment on the specific demands, she says the recent incidents of police brutality around the country “have been weighing heavy on all of council” and, from what she’s seen, council is “committed to true change.”
“So many things are hard to get moving quickly, but we all know that we have to do something real,” she adds. “The time for thoughts and prayers is done—it’s been done.”
Updated 6/3 to reflect the recent appointment of a new CRB member and the board’s ability to have virtual meetings
Painter Robert Shetterly's portrait series "Americans Who Tell the Truth" is on view all over town—and includes three local residents. Zyahna Bryant (pictured) is the latest addition to this series. Image courtesy Robert Shetterly/Americans Who Tell the Truth
Unless you’ve been living off the grid (or in denial) you know the story: In spring 2016, Zyahna Bryant wrote an open letter to City Council, calling for the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue and the renaming of the downtown public park bearing Lee’s name.
“When I think of Robert E. Lee, I instantly think of someone fighting in favor of slavery,” she began her letter. “Thoughts of physical harm, cruelty, and disenfranchisement flood my mind.”
Bryant wrote that she was disgusted with the “selective display of history” in the city. “There is more to Charlottesville than just the memories of Confederate fighters. There is more to this city that makes it great. …I struggle with the fact that meaningful things that are unique to Charlottesville are constantly overlooked. I believe that we should celebrate the things that have been done in this great city to uplift and bring people together, rather than trying to divide them.”
Bryant was just 15, a student at Charlottesville High School, at the time.
This week, Bryant herself was celebrated for her work: On March 1, at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Bryant’s image became part of the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portrait series by contemporary American painter Robert Shetterly.
Among other things, Bryant’s letter sparked support throughout the Charlottesville community and precipitated the formation of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces. In 2017, after considering the commission’s report and recommendations, Charlottesville City Council voted to remove not just the Robert E. Lee statue, but the Stonewall Jackson statue from another nearby public park.
A lawsuit citing state law protecting war memorials blocked the city’s plans to remove the statues, but the Virginia General Assembly is working on legislation that, if passed, would give localities control over what to do with the statues.
Shetterly, an artist who lives and works in Maine, heard about Bryant’s work via his son and daughter-in-law, who both live in Charlottesville. Struck by Bryant’s clarity andpersistence (now a first-year student at UVA, she’s continued her local activism), he decided to include her portrait in “Americans Who Tell the Truth.”
Painter Robert Shetterly (left) converses with Zyahna Bryant (right), a local activist and UVA student who is the latest addition to Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portrait series. Bryant’s portrait is now on view at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center through April 18. Photo by Eze Amos
“So much depends on an individual who refuses to give in,” says Shetterly, a career illustrator who began this portrait series in 2001. He intended to paint 50 such individuals, to bring their truths closer to his own ears and to those of his audience.
In the nearly two decades since, he’s painted nearly 250 portraits, and he has no plans toslow down. “It got so interesting,” says Shetterly, who believes that “we are all made up of stories. And if we only tell the stories that make us feel good, we’re in real danger of not having any idea who we really are.”
“I [am] learning so much from doing it,” he adds. “I [keep] hearing more stories about more people, and thinking, ‘oh, I have to include that person in this story.’”
It’s difficult to exhibit all of the portraits together, and so they travel in different groups to different places around the country (one gets the sense that the same combination of portraits is rarely shown twice). Currently, portraits of about 60 truth-telling Americans are on view in various locations around Charlottesville (see sidebar), and each show has a different theme, among them civil rights leaders, African American women, and youth activism.
Some of Shetterly’s subjects are contemporary figures, people he’s had the opportunity to meet and get to know (as he has with Bryant); others are long deceased, and so he relies on other portraits and photographs, as well as historical documents, for information. Shetterly paints each subject against a plain and usually colorful background and uses a key to etch a quote from the subject into the canvas, words related to the truth they’re telling. Other than the quote, each portrait is free from embellishment, thereby emphasizing the individuals and the ideals for which they stand.
It’s a “wonderful way to honor people,” says David Swanson, a Charlottesville-based author and peace activist who is one of three locals whose portrait appears in the series. Certainly better than “giant equestrian statues,” he adds. The portraits are personal; taking the time to look at a painting and read the quote is more or less like having a one-on-one conversation with the person in the portrait. And so, “when we hear all about apathy and ‘nobody’s doing anything,’ and ‘we have no leaders,’ and ‘we have nobody who’s getting active,’ just point them towards these portraits of people,” says Swanson.
When Shetterly asked to paint Bryant’s portrait, Bryant considered carefully. She wondered how she might be perceived, not just by viewers of the portrait, but by her community. “Will people think I’m essentially doing this for clout?” she asked herself. She consulted close friends, her mother, and her grandmother, and then looked to see who Shetterly had included in the series so far.
Among the portraits, Bryant saw many black women she admired: Alicia Garza, who, along with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, founded the Black Lives Matter movement; Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness; Ella Baker, who worked behind the scenes in the American civil rights movement for more than 50 years and often does not get the credit she deserves; Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement; and politician Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, who fought for the rights of women, children, minorities, and the poor. “If they don’t give you a seat at the table,” Chisholm once said, “bring a folding chair.”
Bryant was pleased to see that these women, who are often left out of conversations and historical narratives about the very movements they helped spark, and sometimes even ignored by their own communities, were included in the series. She saw people “who do the work as a means of survival…not because they are looking to become someone’s idols, or searching for fame, but literally because if they don’t do the work, people are going to die.”
She thought, too, about how Charlottesville is often cited as a hashtag, an event rather than a place where people live. For those who do not live here (and even for some who do), “there’s no depth in people’s understanding of this place and what happened here,” says Bryant. She hoped that if another Charlottesville resident was added to the series, it would be a person of color.
“So I thought, ‘Who else would be better for this?’ And because I’m so young, and because the work that I did has been erased in certain ways, and it has been miscredited to other people who did not do what I did, I just really think that now it’s important for young black women to take control of our own narratives. That was one of the pushing factors for me to choose to be there [in the series],” she says.
For all of these reasons, Bryant wanted in on “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” and she agreed in part because she gets the sense that Shetterly “puts a lot of care into his work.” She appreciates the artist’s goal of “not just painting portraits, but traveling with these pieces of art and starting conversations in different spaces about who these people are,” she says. “I thought that was really dope.”
With each portrait, Shetterly includes a quote from the subject. Bryant’s brings the viewer to the beginning of the movement she sparked: “In the spring of 2016, I did something that scared me, but something that I knew needed to be done. I wrote the petition, a letter to the editor and City Council, calling for the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue and the renaming of the park, formerly known as Robert E. Lee Park. I was 15.” Image courtesy Robert Shetterly and Americans Who Tell the Truth
Bryant’s portrait—either photographed or illustrated—has appeared in many places, including on the side of the Violet Crown Theater on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, in a wheat paste mural with more than 100 other local activists; inside and outside the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond; in Teen Vogue magazine, where she was named one of “21 Under 21” in 2019; and on poster board projects created by local middle school students (Bryant herself was in middle school when, at age 12, she organized her first protest, a rally for Trayvon Martin). And while she says it’s always an honor (and still a surprise) to have her portrait anywhere, having her image included in a traveling art exhibition is something else entirely.
“Oftentimes the platforms that I have access to are traditional articles, or written pieces, so, to then be able to extend into a different medium, or have my story be told and shared with other people in that way, that’s really cool,” says Bryant, who insists that her daily life (college classes, work, friends, family, community organizing) is “pretty average.” She particularly likes that Shetterly includes a quote from each subject, right there in the painting, to add some context. And context can sometimes be lacking in portraiture that’s aiming to relay a specific message.
When asked about the truth she tells, Bryant says that among other things, it’s one “about how people of color have been silently marginalized, silently killed, by this kind of war on our memories, this war on narrative. [My truth] is a truth about our need to reconsider, and reckon with, our past, thinking about how we haven’t done right by certain people—indigenous people, black people, Latinx people—and how we’ve basically continued to build on top of, and cover up, these narratives of displacement, and violence, instead of actually working to do the groundwork and make structural change.”
Those sorts of changes require showing up, and being present, over and over again. And now that Bryant—a young black woman from Charlottesville who braved public scrutiny to catalyze a change she believes in—is included in the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series, her truth, as well as that of those who work alongside her, will be present in new ways, present in more spaces both physically and intellectually. Says Bryant, “it’s given me a different outlook on how I see art as a means to convey certain messages, to start certain conversations.”
Charlottesville’s truth tellers
Images courtesy of Robert Shetterly and Americans Who Tell the Truth
Bryant is the third Charlottesville resident to be included in Shetterly’s series. The other two are John Hunter, schoolteacher and founder of the World Peace Game (left); and David Swanson, journalist and peace activist (right).
Hunter, who taught at Venable and Agnor-Hurt elementary schools, says that his work—his truth—is about “teaching children the work of peace so that they can increase compassion in the world and decrease suffering in the world.”
The World Peace Game is now taught in 37 countries, by more than 1,000 specially trained educators, and its mission is really about legacy, says Hunter. “The results of the work that we do…will be decades in coming to fruition.”
In 2011, Swanson, a longtime anti-war activist and author of several books, including War is a Lie, learned that then-vice president Dick Cheney was planning a visit to Charlottesville. He emailed local law enforcement requesting that they arrest Cheney for conspiracy to commit torture, and shortly after that, Cheney canceled his visit. “The encouraging thing about these portraits is that there are so many…and [Shetterly] can’t keep up!” says Swanson, who thinks that there are even more people in Charlottesville who should be included in the series.
Where to see it
More than 60 of Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portraits are on view at various spots around town. The “Truth to Climate Change” exhibit at CitySpace has already closed, but here’s where you can find the others:
“A Place Fit for Women”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center
Through April 18
Featuring 14 paintings of African American women and commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Youth Speaking Truth”
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative
Through March 31
Featuring 120 portraits made by Charlottesville High School students, alongside eight of Shetterly’s.
“Portraits of Change”
The UVA McIntire School of
Commerce
Through April 10
Highlighting leadership in business and commerce.
“Americans Who Tell the Truth @ Charlottesville”
Washington Hall, Hotel B, UVA
Through April 10
Featuring portraits of eight civil rights activists.
“Created Equal: Portraits of Civil Rights Heroes”
Monticello
Through March 31
Featuring portraits of three iconic civil rights activists.
Wes Bellamy speaks at the Monumental Justice Virginia Campaign press conference. Photo: John Robinson
The campaign to take down Charlottesville’s statues of Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee has taken on a new tenor with the election of a Democrat-majority government in Virginia.
The Monumental Justice Virginia Campaign, a new organization dedicated to removal of the statues, launched with a press conference at the Free Speech Wall on December 26. A larger rally will be held in Richmond on January 8.
At the press conference, activists once again stated the case against the statues. A collection of supporters stood behind the speakers, holding crisp blue posters with the slogan “Monumentally Wrong” and large red Xs over images of the Lee and Jackson statues.
“This is an opportunity for Virginia to get on the right side of history,” said Lisa Woolfork, an associate professor at UVA. “These statues are not neutral objects, they are racist relics forced upon communities who do not worship the white supremacy they maintain.”
“It is past time to correct these monumental lies with some monumental justice,” Woolfork said.
Advocates for removal of the statues see a legal path forward that seemed unlikely before: The passage of a bill that would give control over statues back to localities.
Delegate-elect Sally Hudson has promised to introduce such a bill when the General Assembly session begins on January 8. Former delegate David Toscano proposed similar bills in the last two General Assembly sessions, but neither made it out of committee.
Though the movement’s hopes rest on Hudson and her legislation, the new delegate made sure to emphasize the broad coalition that has formed in opposition to the monuments.
“Movements like Monumental Justice change the world. Politicians just cut the ribbon,” Hudson said. “We wouldn’t be here today without the activists and artists and educators and all of the elected leaders who have elevated this issue.”
“Thank you to every member of our community who has done the very ordinary yet essential work of correcting our public memory,” Hudson said, “Of sharing a fuller understanding of our history neighbor to neighbor and friend to friend.”
Woolfork read a statement from Zyahna Bryant, the student activist whose 2016 petition helped start the statue fervor. “Our public spaces should reflect the principles we strive for, one of them being freedom,” Bryant wrote.
In her statement, Bryant made sure to underscore that removing the statues will not fix the larger systemic inequalities in the area. “We must also focus on the structural and situational change that must come along with removals as a package deal,” she wrote.
Hudson acknowledged Bryant’s point. “In the days ahead, my colleagues and I will be introducing substantive legislation to confront white supremacy in all of its modern incarnations,” Hudson said. “Whether that is mass incarceration or segregation or the persistent inequity in our every institution.”
Former councilor Wes Bellamy spoke with his young daughter in his arms.
“If our General Assembly cannot act now to remove these beacons of hate, I don’t know when we will have the courage to do so,” he said.
For Bellamy, structural change and statue removal aren’t mutually exclusive.
“People ask me, ‘Why can’t we focus on affordable housing? Why can’t we focus on schools?’” Bellamy said. “We can walk and chew gum simultaneously. In fact, we have an obligation to walk and chew gum simultaneously.”
“The time for those statues to move was yesteryear,” Bellamy said. “It’s time to put up or shut up.”
