Month: July 2019

A Trip to The American Civil War Museum

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

by Nathan Burns

Nathan Burns is a junior from Newtown, Pennsylvania double-majoring in French and Leadership Studies and minoring in English. This summer of 2019 marks Nathan’s first time working with the Race & Racism Project. On campus, Nathan is also a writing consultant and a member of the dining services student advisory committee.

I find it fitting to begin this blog post at the end of my experience at The American Civil War Museum mostly because of a t-shirt I saw hanging in the gift shop. Blazoned in bold white capitals against black fabric, the shirt read, “I AM MY ANCESTORS’ WILDEST DREAMS”. The phrase stayed with me as I left the gift shop and stepped into the warm summer rain. I stared back at the museum from the outside and marveled at the blend of past and present architecture, noticing the brick ruins of the historic Tredegar Iron Works enveloped by the steel and glass modern design of the current museum. In this moment, I couldn’t help but reflect on our team discussion with public historian Free Egunfemi on the topic of ancestral self-determination. I ask myself now as I write this post: how and where did I see this idea of self-determination at work in the museum’s exhibit? In other words, where did I see resistance against the traditional historical narrative of the Civil War, and how might this resistance inform the ways we remember our past in the present?

 

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Maggie Walker and Arthur Ashe’s Monuments

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

by Jisu Song

Jisu Song is a sophomore from Richmond, Virginia not decided in major but minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). She has been involved with the Race & Racism Project since 2019 and is currently serving in the Oral History Team. As a student, she is an executive member in WILL*, member of Sirens, and a peer advisors and mentors. She hopes to work for global audiences.

On a Monday afternoon, after the intense discussion about how many historical ideas are geared towards western culture, I visited different monuments and statue in the city of Richmond, we were assigned to visit the Black historical figure’s statues. As a resident of Richmond for 5 years, I realized that I have never visited these sites, in fact, I did not hear Arthur Ashe’s name before I visited the statue. I was aware of Maggie Walker from the Governor School’s name. However, I was not able to fully know what she had accomplished during her lifetime. I was not familiar with both of their achievement and work that they have done in this city. To learn more about the great historical figures who born in Richmond and worked for a better world, I researched and visited the sites.

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Reflection on the Arthur Ashe Monument

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

by Joy Lim

Joy Lim is a Sophomore from Dallas, Texas majoring in Rhetoric/Communication Studies + Sociology and minoring in Anthropology. She is involved in the Westhampton College Government Association (WCGA), Alpha Phi Omega (APO), Delta Gamma (DG), Korean American Student Association (KASA), YouthLife, and is a mentor in the Peer Advisors and Mentors program (PAM). This is her first year working with the Race & Racism Project but she is interested in continuing this work in the future. She hopes to explore social justice issues not just on the University of Richmond campus but around the world as she continues her studies.

The most memorable monument that I visited was the Arthur Ashe monument located on Monument Avenue. Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, Virginia and was the first African American man to be ranked as the number one tennis player in the world. As the monument resides in the middle of two streets, my friend and I parked further down the street, walked all the way to the left side of the monument, crossed the street, and approached the monument from the back. While walking down the street, we came across another statue just before the Arthur Ashe monument, which was quite disturbing. I had never seen the statue before and was alarmed at what I interpreted the statue to mean. Once I got home, I looked up the statue that we had seen and learned that it was a monument to Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate naval officer. I was shocked at the statue’s imagery of tens of people struggling to lift up the world as a statue of Maury sits on a throne – of sorts – in front of them. After encountering this statue that glorified white privilege and entitlement, we came across the unpretentious monument of Arthur Ashe.

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How Long Shall the Wicked Triumph?

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

by Gabby Kiser

Gabby Kiser is a junior from Williamsburg, Virginia majoring in English and minoring in History. This is her first summer with the Race & Racism Project. She is also the general manager of WDCE 90.1 FM, a design editor for The Messenger, and a Bunk content wrangler.

On the 17th floor of the VCU Medical Center’s West Hospital rests an unexpected beast. Sure, there’s a plaque in the 1st floor lobby that states the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chapel is just an elevator trip away, but, if I hadn’t done research before showing up, I certainly wouldn’t have anticipated seeing its marble archway behind an unmarked wooden door, sharing the hall with an employee-only restroom and a spattering of what appear to be used waiting-room chairs.

The bits of information I could find online about this place were from three sources: a fairly recent blog post by Selden Richardson in the Shockhoe Examiner, a response from Richardson to a reader, and a MoveOn petition that appears to have gone online in 2015. There are no tours, no maps, and no information at the site aside from memorial plaques placed by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1960 upon the chapel’s opening. The room has lights at both end, but its pews lie in darkness. West Hospital doesn’t even hold patients anymore, and narrowly evaded demolition about ten years ago. Still, its chapel is open for whoever wants to see it.

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The Story Beneath Our Feet

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

by Meghna Melkote

Meghna Melkote is a rising sophomore from Scranton, Pennsylvania majoring in Political Science and Philosophy and minoring in Music. This is her first summer working with the Race & Racism Project as a member of Team Archive. She is involved with the Mock Trial and Debate teams, performs in chamber music ensembles, is a member of the Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity, and is a content curator for public history platform bunkhistory.org. 

I visited Lumpkin’s Jail (also known as the Devil’s Half Acre) and the African Burial Ground in Richmond–Lumpkin’s Jail was the largest slave-holding facility in Richmond during the mid 19th century. The jail historically has been home to the typical cruel and unusual treatment of enslaved people by Robert Lumpkin, who purchased the property and created a two story brick slave jail that held enslaved people until they were sold. After emancipation, a historically black seminary was founded and later on, a parking lot covered the area. We also visited the African Burial Ground, or, as it was originally titled in a city map, the “Burial Ground for Negroes.” As we learned from the historical markers on the site, it was a poor quality burial ground, with the danger of heavy rains washing the remnants and land into the James River, and also was where convicts were hung. After a new site opened, the grave site was abandoned and the construction of what would later become I-95 destroyed the land. In the 1990s, activists like Defenders for Freedom, Justice, & Equality and the Slave Trail Commission began working on commemorating and memorializing the site. It currently rests as a large field with information signs explaining the history, surrounded by memorials – it is not clear who left the current ones, but it is known that memorials left by survivors had disintegrated with time. Read more

The Importance of Community History

Irina Rogova Uncategorized , ,

by Shira Greer

Shira Greer is a rising sophomore from Fairfax, Virginia majoring in Political Science and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This is her first summer working with the Race & Racism Project. On campus she is also a Richmond Scholar, an Oliver Hill Scholar, a Peer Advisor and Mentor, and a member of the Executive Council for a Multicultural Space at the University.

For my first site visit, I chose to go to the Pocahontas Island Black History Museum in Petersburg, Virginia. Like much of Virginia, Petersburg is full of rich history, and Pocahontas Island is no exception: it was home to at least two stops on the Underground Railroad as well as one of the first free black communities in United States, though enslaved Africans and white people lived on the land as well. As such, the area’s history spans from before the Revolutionary War to today, and the area is listed on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. Although Pocahontas Island has government recognition, Preservation Virginia listed it as one of the most endangered historic sites in Virginia due to a lack of funding to adequately restore the important properties on the island in order to communicate the area’s historical significance. Accordingly, the Black History Museum is privately owned and operated by Richard Stewart, a 76 year old Pocahontas Island native. He began the museum in 2003 out of a desire to share his love for the area’s history with visitors to the museum.

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Activist Archiving as Empathy Work

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

by Nathan Burns

Nathan Burns is a junior from Newtown, Pennsylvania double-majoring in French and Leadership Studies and minoring in English. This summer of 2019 marks Nathan’s first time working with the Race & Racism Project. On campus, Nathan is also a writing consultant and a member of the dining services student advisory committee.

For me, the hardest part of my initial research process has been finding the courage to acknowledge my identity in my work. Over the past few weeks of team discussions and metadata creation, I have realized that it is nearly impossible to do archival research and not notice how my identity as a white-passing male and member of the LGBTQ+ community influences my emotional response to any source I encounter. Before my experience with the Race & Racism at UR Project, I was taught to conceal my identity during the research process in an attempt to remain unbiased and neutral toward knowledge. On a positive note, this detachment allowed me to focus on “objective” truth and facts when recounting history. However, in a team meeting a few weeks ago led by Sojourna Cunningham, we discussed the negative consequences that arise from this insistence on historical neutrality. We determined that one of these negative consequences was the erasure of empathy and emotional connection to history. Another was the erasure of marginalized perspectives deemed unnecessary, even threatening, to the upkeep of “neutral” historical narratives that prioritize monocultural whiteness. I reflected after this team discussion that for most of my academic career, I have been trained to hide my own perspective. I have willingly obliged in hiding my identity in order to remain supposedly unbiased toward my dealing with knowledge, yet in doing so, I perpetuate a lie, a lie that I could ever be truly unemotional in my reactions to and presentations of knowledge. While working with the Race and Racism Project, I intend to not simply deal with knowledge, but to feel it. To feel upset, heartbroken, angry, and joyful. It is important to feel connected to the stories and people I read about because this project and this research, as I am beginning to understand, is empathy work in that it requires emotional connection, to feel from the perspective of my own identity.

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“I Am Alone”: Minority Students’ Literary Expression

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

by Gabby Kiser

Gabby Kiser is a junior from Williamsburg, Virginia majoring in English and minoring in History. This is her first summer with the Race & Racism Project. She is also the general manager of WDCE 90.1 FM, a design editor for The Messenger, and a Bunk content wrangler.

Researching the documents held in the University’s archive reaffirms that many things on this campus have stayed the same. What’s shown in these yearbooks, these photos, and these Collegian articles is so physically close to where I sit today. I’ve found myself wondering if the pictured room in Gray Court is the same one I lived in last year. I’ve looked up while I’m in the Tyler Haynes Commons to get the same vantage point captured in a certain shot. This spatial inseparability makes it all the more painful that the Gray dorm room in the picture has a Confederate flag on the wall, or that my view of the Commons is nearly identical, except for a banner for the gender-norm obsessed Women’s Lifestyle Committee. Just how far am I from the inequity enforced in these photos?

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Commemorative Justice is the Key to Honoring the Past, and Moving Forward

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

by Sabrina Garcia

Sabrina Garcia is a junior from, Waldwick, New Jersey double majoring in Leadership Studies and English and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). This is her first year working on the Race & Racism Project, on Team Archive. Sabrina is in the WILL* Program, works as a writing consultant, and is training to be a PSMA. She hopes to dedicate her career to social justice and believes in the mission of Race & Racism wholeheartedly.

Learning about archival methodologies may sound lackluster, however what one can do with archival methodologies is imperative to recovering the histories of marginalized people. Being taught the process of metadata entry was important to understanding the techniques of archiving, however when combined with the impactful concepts and principles that were presented to me through lectures by Dr. Andrea Simpson, Sojourna Cunningham, and Free Egunfemi, the techniques became all the more powerful. These women presented methods and modes of approaching research that works against the natural modes of archiving, and each of them are using archiving to break down hierarchies of power in the academic institution and beyond.

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Blackness is Vast

Irina Rogova Uncategorized ,

by Johnnette Johnson

Johnnette Johnson is a rising senior from Marksville, Louisiana majoring in American Studies and French. Though her journey with the Race & Racism Project only began this summer, she has been involved in racial justice and community work since her matriculation at UR. A peer mentor and UR Downtown ambassador, when she’s not on campus or with family she’s out enjoying nature. She hopes to continue doing the work of commemorative justice and collective healing.

Our experiences construct who we are and how we see the world. A single person’s mindset, molded by their life experience, can easily take on a bias that manifests itself in the form of judgement or predisposition.

These facts are seemingly digestible. But when it is time be critical of oneself, personal bias is a hard cookie to swallow. Uninvited and unannounced, this process of self-analysis fell into my lap during my first interview with Mr. James “JR” Reed (’81).

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