Virginia Humanities

In Pursuit of Truth

An Evening with the National Book Awards

On March 24, 2018, during the twenty-fourth annual Virginia Festival of the Book, 2017 National Book Awards finalists Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Never Caught) and David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) joined 2017 National Book Awards longlisted author Kevin Young (Bunk) in a discussion of the stories and facts their books brought to light, the hidden […]

Summer Teacher Institute to Focus on Racism and Racial Bias

Virginia Humanities at the University of Virginia will hold a summer institute for Virginia educators from across the Commonwealth June 18-20 at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in Charlottesville. Forty-one teachers, instructional coaches, and librarians will take part in the institute, which is part of a project funded by a grant from the […]

Young Charlottesville To Speak Out About Race

A Three-Day Series on Anti-Racism

On Thursday, June 21, Virginia Humanities will kick off #UnmaskingCville, a three-day series on anti-racism, led by Charlottesville youth and young adults. The series will include three events held June 21-23 at Piedmont Virginia Community College. Inspired by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear The Mask”, the Unmasking series first launched in Richmond in the […]

#Unmasking Cville

A three-part learning series, presented by Virginia Humanities The three-day #UnmaskingCville experience offers a safe space for candid and solution-centered dialogue about racism, led entirely by Charlottesville youth and young adults. #UnmaskingCville is not just talk. By the end of the series, participants will feel more empowered and be better equipped to dismantle racism and […]

Our Civil Rights: A Common Table Series

Facilitated by Ina Dixon, a PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill, Our Civil Rights: Our Common Table is a discussion series exploring the history of food and race in the South, as well as in our local community. Our Civil Rights: Our Common Table is a program of Virginia Humanities and takes place on the second-to-last […]

Together We Rise

An original community presentation and performance starring Brookland Park residents and students from John Marshall and Community High! Take a journey back in time with us to the days, months and years leading up to September 6th, 1960 when Carol Swann and Gloria Meade climbed the steps of Chandler Junior High (now Community High) and […]

Building a Community: The Cape Charles Elementary Rosenwald School

The Cape Charles Museum and Welcome Center has a new exhibition opening May 12th. “Building a Community: The Cape Charles Elementary (Rosenwald) School” tells the story of African American education across the rural south during the period of legal segregation, through the local lens of the Cape Charles Elementary School. The exhibition is on view […]

Uncovering a Slave Narrative

You have two chances to join author and Virginia Humanities Fellow Kristen Green for a free, public talk about her research project on Mary Lumpkin, who was purchased as a child by the notorious Virginia slave trader Robert Lumpkin. This one takes place May 1 in Charlottesville.

Uncovering the Story of an Enslaved Woman at Lumpkin’s Jail

Virginia Humanities Fellow Kristen Green is working on a book that will tell the story of Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who is believed to have given birth to at least five children fathered by Robert Lumpkin.