Pilgrims’ report: What they brought back from civil rights pilgrimage
A month ago, around 100 locals set off on two buses to Montgomery, Alabama, carrying soil from the site where John Henry James was lynched in 1898 in Albemarle County. […]
Journey begins: #cvillepilgrimage commemorates, reclaims local lynching
About 50 people gathered in the woods beside the train tracks running west of Charlottesville early July 7. The morning was cool and birds could be heard chirping in the […]
Artist Frank Walker captures the value of human life
It’s a humid but not hot Saturday evening in early May. Jazz floats through the auditorium of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, filling in the spaces between laughter, […]
Confronting a shameful past: Search for 1898 lynching site narrows
As big a role as history plays in Charlottesville’s identity, some events, like an 1898 lynching, were pretty much buried or forgotten until Jane Smith was doing historical research and […]
‘Complicit’: Pilgrimage acknowledges Charlottesville’s legacy of lynching
The lynching of John Henry James in Albemarle in 1898 for allegedly assaulting a white woman was both horrific—and all too common in the era of Jim Crow. More than […]
Stages of life: The Charlottesville Players Guild steps into the spotlight for its second act
She’d been here before. During a recent rehearsal of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, a feeling of recollection overcame Brenda Brown-Grooms as she recited her lines. She was […]
Jitney is fueled by authenticity and emotion
Lights go up on the wood-paneled stage in the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center auditorium to reveal the inside of a jitney cab station in Pittsburgh. It’s early fall […]
Power players: the ones making the biggest impact
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 […]
Fundraising shortfall: City grant helps keep heritage center afloat
When Charlottesville decided to keep the historic Jefferson School and its prime real estate as a community center rather than selling it for condos, a complicated financial structure was required […]
A Vinegar Hill memorial you can actually see
A forthcoming addition to the Downtown Mall will commemorate Vinegar Hill, the historically African-American neighborhood that saw displacement of 158 families when city residents voted to develop the land in the […]