The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is drawing community members’ attention to Liberation and Freedom Days for the fifth time since the celebration’s inception in 2017. After earning $25,000 from last year’s race, this year JSAAHC is aiming to raise $45,000 to help support Black-run organizations in Charlottesville, with primary funding coming from those who register to run or walk a course throughout Charlottesville between March 1 and March 6.
The organizations set to receive funding from the race span interest areas from radio to public housing, technology and coding to education. Once race costs are paid, all donations will be split evenly amongst the organizations.
The race intends to highlight Liberation and Freedom Day, a holiday celebrated annually March 3 that is unique to the City of Charlottesville. The holiday was first celebrated in 2017 to commemorate March 3 through 6 — the days in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Charlottesville. There, University and City officials surrendered to the Union troops at the University Chapel. As they left, many enslaved laborers followed the Union troops north through Virginia, escaping bondage.
Much of the story behind Liberation and Freedom Days was lost to history until 2016, when Charlottesville City Council sought a commission to tell a more full story of Charlottesville history. On May 28 of that year, the Council approved a resolution to create the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces with one task of “identifying additional opportunities within the City to enhance a holistic reflection of our history.” The Commission then voted unanimously to submit to Council a recommendation to designate March 3 through 6 Liberation and Freedom Days.
This year, funds from the JSAAHC fundraiser will be directed to 101.3 Jamz, a Charlottesville-area radio station that plays urban and R&B music, the African American Teaching Fellows, which aims to address the racial disparity in the number of Black teachers in schools, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, whose mission is to help preserve the honor and legacy of African American in the Charlottesville area, the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP, the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents, which advocates for and with Charlottesville-area residents in public housing, the Black-run Vinegar Hill Magazine and We Code Too, a programming and coding program that aims to increase the number of Black and Brown girls in technology.
“All of these organizations are run by Black leaders and serve the community directly,” said Andrea Douglas, the executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, in an email to The Cavalier Daily.
Sign-ups for the race opened Feb. 6 and will remain open until the final race day. Individuals can register and donate to the event as well as make their own fundraisers to help support the cause.
The race’s route is substantial — 9.03 hilly miles across the City that takes runners and walkers by some of the city’s most prominent Black-owned businesses and important sites of African American history. Participants will then follow the course past the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, which was unveiled in April 2021.
Moving through Grounds, the race crosses both the Kitty Foster Memorial outside of Nau Hall and the African American Burial Ground located at the corner of McCormick Rd. and Alderman Rd.
The landmark memorializes Kitty Foster, a free African American woman and leader in the Charlottesville community who maintained a plot of land just south of the University between 1833 and her death in 1863. Upon her death — 43 years after Foster was freed from slavery — Foster passed the land to her female descendants, who stewarded over it until 1906.
The Kitty Foster Memorial is a metal skeleton of what Foster’s property looked like, and demarcates the location where 32 graves of Foster and her descendants were excavated in the 1990s. During the day, the structure’s shadows give visitors the sense that they are walking through Foster’s home.
Further along the route, on Alderman Rd., is the location where, in 2012, working crews building out the larger cemetery adjacent to McCormick road revealed a series of graves belonging to enslaved laborers who worked at the University. In total, excavation crews discovered 67 graves from the original burial ground created in 1828, two years after the first class of students arrived at the University.
The University was built and maintained by enslaved laborers between when construction began in 1817 and the end of the Civil War in 1865. Over those decades, more than 4,000 enslaved laborers built the University from the ground up — laying bricks, carving quarried stone and terracing the Lawn — and kept the University running by doing students’ laundry, cooking for faculty and students and blacksmithing among other roles.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, located between the Rotunda and the Corner, honors the lives of the over 4,000 enslaved laborers which constructed and ran the University’s everyday activities between 1817 and 1865. The President’s Comission on Slavery and the University, created in 2013, worked with construction teams and descendants of enslaved laborers to create a memorial accessible to the community. After a year-long postponement of the dedication due to COVID-19, the memorial was officially dedicated in April 2021.
“The event's 9.7-mile route allows you to appreciate some of Charlottesville’s rolling hills, engage with some of the City’s African American businesses and most importantly, learn about our local African American history,” the race description reads.
Last year, Liberation and Freedom Days events were hosted by both JSAAHC and the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at the University. DEC’s event included pre-filmed performances and conversations among descendants of enslaved laborers at the University as well as a virtual tour of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
JSAAHC’s 2021 Liberation and Freedom Days celebration included 12 events beginning Feb. 28 of last year. The 2021 Liberation and Freedom Days event also included a Reparations Run or Walk.
Janette B. Martin, president of the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP, said it is important to celebrate Liberation and Freedom Days to remember the county’s history with enslavement. At the end of the Civil War, more than 53 percent — 14,000 out of a total 26,000 — of the residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County were enslaved, according to JSAAHC.
Eager to support its next generation, the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP will be directing any funding raised towards its youth group, which it sees as crucial to carrying on the work of the NAACP in the future.
“We use the funds which we garner from the Liberation and Freedom Walk to support programs, training and youth conventions,” Martin said.
Jaquan Middleton, program director at 101.3 Jamz — the primary station for urban and R&B music in Charlottesville — said that celebrating the holiday is extremely important.
“It's very important to stay rooted and know your history and where you came from and what people try to do to make a better life for us right now,” Middleton said.
Middleton said the station used funds from last year’s race to improve their website and upgrade their studio. This time around, station leadership hopes to use the money to bolster their presence in the Charlottesville community by purchasing a wrapped van that can be used for community events such as backpack giveaways, which the station already conducts.
“101 Jamz is always going to continue to be a factor in the community, and we appreciate you guys shining some light onto what we're doing over here,” Middleton said.
Douglas expressed her firm belief in the work each benefiting organization does, noting that staffers and volunteers in these organizations work tirelessly to benefit the greater Charlottesville community.
“Together they address the media, housing, education and civil action sectors,” Douglas said in an email statement to The Cavalier Daily. “While doing yeoman's work they have small staffs and while some have dedicated fundraising staff, the majority do not.”
JSAAHC’s fundraising efforts have come to be a staple in the efforts to recognize African-American history in Charlottesville. In anticipation of the festivities of Liberation and Freedom Days, the fundraising will help to provide attention to the celebrations of freedom and community and uplift the organizations that form its foundation.
“After years of being enslaved, to become liberated and allowed to express freedom is something that will always be remembered and celebrated,” Martin said.
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