Nearly two years after arriving in Charlottesville, COVID is still here—and it’s more prevalent than ever. On January 10, the Blue Ridge Health District reported 610 new cases, the most in a single day. Before the surge of the last three weeks, the highest single-day case total was 245, in February of 2020. The surge […]
Before the U.S. abolished slavery in 1865, thousands of enslaved Black Americans escaped from Southern plantations and fled to Canada, where slavery was officially banned in 1834. Many used the Underground Railroad—an extensive network of secret routes, safe houses, free and enslaved Black Americans, and white abolitionists—to make the dangerous journey to freedom. The former […]
Just over a year ago, the world watched in horror as thousands of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. Though activists and watchdog groups had warned law enforcement about the attack for weeks, police failed to adequately prepare for the violent mob. […]
Charlottesville’s most famous monument made national headlines last week, when City Council voted to hand the statue of Robert E. Lee over to the Jefferson School African American History Center, which will melt it down and reshape the metal into a new piece of art. Across the street, meanwhile, a less conspicuous but no less […]
“Typically, everyone just goes away. They make these agreements and people go away,” says former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney. But she’s not going away. Two months after her controversial termination, Brackney—the city’s first Black woman police chief—filed a string of formal complaints against the city, accusing government leaders of directly retaliating against her efforts […]
Since South Africa reported the omicron variant to the World Health Organization on November 24, this new form of coronavirus has been detected in at least 38 countries. At press time, omicron had not yet been identified in Virginia, but several dozen cases have been reported in at least 17 states, including Maryland, New Jersey, […]
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August, more than 70,000 Afghans have fled to the United States. For weeks, many refugees stayed at temporary resettlement camps located on military bases across the country, as they waited for their immigration processing to be completed. But over the past two months, the federal government has […]
Charlottesville finally removed its statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in July. Since then, the spaces where the racist monuments once stood have been empty, as the city decides what should go there. During a virtual forum hosted by the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project last week, Black activists Bree Newsome […]
Hattie Billmeier was a little nervous, but excited. She rolled up her sleeve, and in a “split second” it was all over—she got her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. “It felt good,” says Billmeier, a second grader at Venable Elementary School. “It just gives you a little pinch.” Afterwards, Billmeier and her cousins, who […]
Two months after her controversial firing, former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney has filed formal complaints against the city, and is threatening to bring a lawsuit. In complaints submitted to CPD’s human resources department, the local Office of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the NAACP, Brackney—the city’s first Black woman police chief—says […]