The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—or, in this case, the trees. Henry Alexander Wiencek has followed in the footsteps of his parents, Charlottesville writers and historians Donna Lucey and Henry Wiencek, with his own book, Oil Cities: The Making of North Louisiana’s Boomtowns, 1901-1930, published by the University of Texas Press in May. […]
One of the biggest stories that shocked America 100 years ago—about a farm in Georgia where Black people were essentially enslaved and at least 11 men were murdered—is pretty much forgotten today. That will change with Earl Swift’s eighth book, Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second […]
For nearly three years, the Department of Justice has investigated whether Sentara made false claims for $665 million in Affordable Care Act subsidies when it jacked its rates 266 percent in Charlottesville in 2017, making them the highest in the country. In November, the DOJ took the unusual step of petitioning a federal judge to […]
Remember back in 2017, when some here learned their health insurance premiums could jump to $3,000 a month and that Charlottesville’s rates were the highest in the country? Those eye-popping premiums have drawn the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is taking a look at how the rates for Optima Health Plan, owned […]
The statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that has roiled Charlottesville since 2016—and led to 2017’s deadly influx of white supremacists—has ceased to exist, at least as a Lost Cause icon. When parts of the bronze monument hit the crucible in a 2,200-degree furnace recently, it was a solemn and emotional experience for the […]
Things have changed a lot since Ricardo Preve arrived at the bus station in Charlottesville in 1977 without money or a passport. There weren’t many Latinos in town then, and he found the locals welcoming, if ignorant about Latin America. “It was so easy to become a citizen in the ’80s,” recalls Preve. When he […]
More than seven years after eight African Americans filed a lawsuit accusing an Albemarle police officer of racial profiling, the county has settled the complaint. “Not with a bang, but with a whimper,” says plaintiffs’ attorney Jeff Fogel, who had prepared to go to trial several times over the course of the case. “It […]
If you’ve never heard of Martin Clark, you haven’t read The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living, a cult classic, at least in this reporter’s book group. And you probably aren’t aware that Clark, a former circuit court judge, was the first judge in Virginia to remove from his courtroom a portrait of a Confederate […]
It’s been a busy publishing year for Ann Beattie, with her 22nd and 23rd books both coming out in 2023. Her most recent, Onlookers, is set in Charlottesville during the pandemic, and it’s chock-full of local references: The Pointe, Timberlake’s, Orzo, and of course, those statues. Onlookers is a collection of six stories, with some […]
On July 12, the 125th anniversary of a white lynch mob murdering John Henry James, a packed courtroom in Albemarle Circuit Court applauded when a judge dismissed an indictment for rape that was handed down in 1898, even after the prosecutor and grand jury knew that James was dead. “A mockery of the justice system,” […]