Bridge builders: Charlottesville’s unsung heroes

By Kay Slaughter Each day, people cross the Drewary J. Brown Bridge on West Main Street oblivious of this memorial to Charlottesville’s history. Nothing announces the bridge over the railroad tracks as a special space. It was rebuilt in 1998 and renamed by City Council for Brown, a civil rights leader who had recently died. […]

Gaston’s history: Idealism spurred civil rights activist

When Paul Gaston came to the University of Virginia in 1957, it was overwhelmingly white and male, and segregation was the order of the day. And that’s why the young history professor and early civil rights activist chose it for his life’s work. He brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Old Cabell Hall in 1963, […]