Race and Place in Charlottesville

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The University of Virginia's serpentine walls that border its famous Gardens originally rose to an impressive eight feet tall. Learn more about the hard work that took place behind these walls during the university's early years... and the hard stories of the men and women who walked the alleys between them every day. 

We welcome archaeologist Benjamin Ford of Rivanna Archaeological Services to this episode.  

At surface level, the University of Virginia's Academical Village has always represented a landscape of opportunity, community, and academic possibility. Take a short flight of stairs from the Lawn, however, and you'll find a different story—the story of Lucy Cotrell—unveiled in the basements of UVA's famous Pavilions. 

Thomas Jefferson has long been lauded as the architect of the University of Virginia's distinctive Academical Village. But what—or better, who—did it take to actually build it? See the Lawn with new eyes as we meet Sam McCarpenter, an enslaved black man, in episode 2 of "Race and Place in Charlottesville." 

A production of the Center for Christian Study.

Motivated by Jesus' command in Scripture to love our neighbors, Louis Nelson begins his "Race and Place in Charlottesville" tour with this statement: "We cannot possibly love our neighbor if we don't know our neighbor or know our neighbor's story." Standing at the foot of UVA's Rotunda, Nelson (Board Chair at the Center for Christian Study and Architectural History Professor at UVA) brings to light the ways in which the slave trade—first from West Africa and then within the American South—impacted the landscape of a small university town in Albemarle County. 

"Race and Place in Charlottesville" is a production of the Center for Christian Study.

Preview a tour of race and racism in Charlottesville led by Study Center Board Chair and Architectural History professor Louis Nelson. 

New episodes will be released each weekday in February, starting Friday, February 1. Stay tuned!