In 1963, Gundars Osvalds was a 16-year old student at Albemarle High School. When he heard of the impending urban renewal project in the African American community of Vinegar Hill located in downtown Charlottesville, he decided he would go and take photographs of “life in the neighborhood.” Already the photographer for his high school newspaper and interested in making pictures similar to those in Life Magazine, he set out to walk the unfamiliar area.

Osvalds to this point had no experience with Charlottesville’s African American community; for him this excursion would be comparable to “visiting a foreign country.”