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, […]

West2nd smackdown: Council rejects permit despite meeting city requirements

When Mayor Nikuyah Walker chaired her first City Council meeting February 5, citizens got to see how previously out-of-control meetings would be run under a new regime—and learned that  the heckling continues both for councilors and for the West2nd developer seeking a special use permit that was rejected for reasons that had little to do […]

In brief: ‘Hit piece,’ the unshrouder and more

But her emails Independent City Council candidate Nikuyah Walker was the target of a November 4 story in the Daily Progress that she and her supporters called a “hit piece”—three days before the election—in which an anonymous source in City Hall questions her ability to “work collaboratively with city officials.” The story described her emails […]

It’s Eugene Williams Day

Charlottesville’s legendary civil rights leader turned 90 November 6, and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy presented him with a proclamation declaring the day Eugene Williams Day at a birthday celebration November 4 at Boar’s Head Inn. Williams grew up on Dice Street in a house with no plumbing, unlike the white-owned abodes on nearby Ridge Street. He […]