In mid-January, the revamped Jefferson City School Center held its opening ceremony and official rechristening at the site of the 90-year-old Jefferson School, a historically rich building that previously housed the first site of racial integration in Charlottesville. The center is now home to nine nonprofit tenants and seeks to celebrate the building’s history while serving as a resource for the community.
The Jefferson School, which first opened as Jefferson High School in 1926, was once a major cultural and social center for the African-American community in Vinegar Hill. During the city’s massive resistance campaign in the 1960s, that community was divided when a sweeping demolition project destroyed several buildings in an ultimately failed effort to resist racial integration.
“The effects of the Vinegar Hill demolition, segregation and integration, and [the] Jefferson School closing, are still felt today,” said University alumnus Louis Lopez who has been working on the $18 million renovation for five years.
The renewal project preserved many historical features of the original building — chairs from the original auditorium, for example, line the new hallways. The auditorium, the oldest part of the original structure, now houses an African-American Heritage Center in an effort to maintain the center’s connections to the community and its history.
“[We want] to advocate and diversify cultural opportunities [in the community], adding a new component to the environment, and using the cultural capital of African-Americans to do it, ” the center’s executive director Andrea Douglas said.
The center has scheduled exhibit openings for March, June and September so far.
The University will also have a presence in the development of the center, said Julie Caruccio, director of community engagement in the office of student affairs. Each Friday until June, human resource staff will hold office hours in the center as part of a pilot program to strengthen University and community relations.
“This is a very innovative space, and there will undoubtedly be ways that the tenants, faculty and students can engage to serve the community,” Caruccio said. “I see incredible opportunities for fieldwork, research and service learning. We need to be there and be a part of that.”
In addition to the heritage center, the new complex will also house the Carver Recreation Center, Common Ground Healing Arts, a community center for seniors, Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle, Martha Jefferson Hospital, Piedmont Family YMCA, Piedmont Virginia Community College and the Women’s Initiative.
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