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Pride Overcomes Prejudice considers the history of peoples of African descent in Charlottesville. Beginning with an examination of enslavement in Albemarle County, it suggests the importance of chattel labor by considering the conditions that allowed the area to become the 4th richest slave holding region in the Commonwealth. It continues into the 19th century by drawing on the oral and written histories of African Americans who participated in local, regional, and national struggles for racial equality as students, teachers, and alumni of Jefferson School, ca. 1865-1965 and beyond. Their memories, painstakingly recorded for each period of the school’s history, infuse the historic Jefferson School campus and surrounding cultural landscape with meaning and significance and provide a unique, intergenerational perspective that is largely missing from other Civil Rights/School Desegregation historic sites. The permanent exhibit.
Imbedded in Pride Overcomes Prejudice is Vinegar Hill 1963: A Day in the Neighborhood, an exhibition of photographs by Gundars Osvald of Vinegar Hill, the Black economic center that began in 1870 and continued until it was raised in 1964. Osvald’s images are bracketed by images of pre and post demolition of the 20 acres of property that included 129 homes and 29 black owned businesses.
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Heritage Center
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Saturday 10 am – 1 pm
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