Racial Myth & Memory I

We depart Durham on Sunday morning in a comfortable charter bus for the three and a half-hour drive to Charlottesville through scenic Virginia countryside on Route 15 and return Monday evening.

We'll stay at the newly-renovated Courtyard by Marriott Charlottesville--University Medical Center, located in convenient walking distance of both UVA and the Downtown Mall.

We'll be adding specifics about special guests and other logistics. Please note itinerary details are subject to change.

Monticello was a 5,000-acre working plantation where over 400 enslaved individuals lived and labored during Jefferson's lifetime. Learn about the men, women, and children who built his home, planted his crops, tended his gardens, and helped run his household and raise his children.

We'll take a 2.5 hour From Slavery to Freedom tour; walk Mulberry Row (which included quarters for enslaved workers); see the Burial Ground for Enslaved People; explore the Life of Sally Hemings exhibit; and reflect at the Contemplative Site dedicated on Juneteenth 2023 and memorializing 607 individuals held in bondage on our third president's various properties.

We'll also visit with Gayle Jessup White, former award-winning journalist (from the New York Times to television); author of Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy; and Monticello’s Public Relations & Community Engagement Officer.

We hope too to hear from staff of the Getting Word African American Oral History Project, a decades-long effort to collect and share the stories of Monticello's enslaved community and their descendants.

Explore the histories and legacies of James and Dolley Madison, the Enslaved Community, and the Constitution as you journey through the landscape, enslaved dwellings, and the Madisons' home, Montpelier.

Highland was the sporadic residence of fifth president James Monroe from 1799 to 1828 and a working plantation home to 53 enslaved men, women, and children who performed the bulk of its production and maintenance.

We'll visit with Dr. Maria DiBenigno, Highland Research Fellow, about the experience of enslavement in Monroe's time and the process of reinterpreting the history and the physical spaces.

Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe all served on the University's founding Board of Visitors. 

In its first decades the largest population of individuals living on Grounds at the University after students were enslaved African Americans. In histories of UVA, enslaved African Americans largely went unnamed and sometimes even unmentioned.

More recently, UVA has been more explicitly wrestling with its challenging past, including physically through the 2011 Kitty Foster Memorial and the 2020 Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. We hear firsthand about that work.

 

Lee Park's centerpiece was the bronze sculpture, unveiled in 1924, of Confederate general Robert E. Lee astride his horse Traveller.

Debate over the renaming of the park and possible removal of the statue because of the Confederacy's defense of slavery led to the Unite the Right Rally and a violent clash at and near this site on August 12, 2017, resulting in the deaths of three people and injuries to scores of others.

The statue was permanently removed from what is now known as Market Street Park in July 2021, along with an equestrian statue of Stonewall Jackson from what is now Court Square Park.

We'll explore this history with a past president of UVA's descendant community and a Quaker founder of Beloved Community Cville, a grassroots social change and equity non-profit.

 

In addition to our major site visits, we'll enjoy:

• a look at Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church, organized in 1867, and the Jefferson School that served African-American students during segregation
• Monday lunch at the circa 1784 Michie Tavern
• apple cider, apple cider donuts, and breathtaking views from Carter Mountain Orchard (you might even decide to carry home a bag of apples!)
• a stroll and dinner (at the Black-owned Soul Food Joint) along the tree-lined Downtown Mall with the First Amendment Monument, City Hall, local bookstores, Chaps Ice Cream (with a '50s ice cream parlor feel), historic buildings, and the country’s oldest self-propelled carousel (1910).

We'll also have time for reflection and sharing.

We'll host a pre-trip community-building informational meeting on Sunday 22 October. We're glad to include anyone at a distance via video-conferencing.

We're also continuing our learning with a book club.

Travelers will be invited to join an informal network including participants in the 2023 and 2024 Beloved Community Journey to share articles and other resources, attend lectures and exhibits, and otherwise connect around racial justice topics.

We're looking ahead to Spring trips to Charleston and Savannah (2025); Memphis and Mississippi (2026); and New Orleans (2027). 

Charleston

More enslaved Africans first set foot on land in Charleston than anywhere else in North America, and the interstate slave trade was just as significant there. It's no wonder John C. Calhoun and other South Carolina political figures resisted abolition at all costs and that the first shots of the Civil War came at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor.

In June 2015 at Mother Emanuel AME, one of the South's oldest Black churches, the pastor and eight parishioners were gunned down during Scripture study by a young white supremacist. The church is on a street still named for Calhoun.

We'll build our visit around the International African American Museum (open in Summer 2023) and other important sites, from the McLeod Plantation Historic Site to the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, housed in the Avery Normal School.

Savannah

Savannah is America's first planned city, and 22 of its 24 squares remain. The trans-Atlantic slave trade brought many African-Americans through its port, and many of them formed the unique Gullah Geechee culture of the coastal communities in Georgia and South Carolina.

The Pin Point Heritage Museum, located in an oyster and crab factory on the banks of the Moon River, shares the language, religion, foodways, and stories of this Gullah Geechee community, which occupies the largest African-American owned waterfront property on the East Coast.

Sapelo Island, a 20-minute ferry ride from the mainland, features a National Estuarine Research Reserve, the mansion once owned by North Carolina tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds, Jr., and the Hog Hammock community, permanent home to about 70 full-time residents, many of whom are descended from the enslaved laborers of Sapelo's plantations. 

The First African Baptist Church (home of North America's oldest black congregation), the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters Museum, the King-Tisdell Cottage, the African American Family Monument, and other sites give us insight into the rich African American history of Savannah. 

We'll also look forward to distinctive local culinary experiences, including at the Back in the Day Bakery. Co-owner Cheryl Day's great-great-grandmother, Hannah Queen Grubbs, was an enslaved pastry chef and the James Beard Award nominee learned to bake from her grandmother during summers spent with her in Alabama. She is a co-founder of Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, which advocates for workers of color in the food industry.

Anthony returned to Carolina Friends in August 2009 as the first Director of Advancement, and in 2016 became the School's first Director of Extended Learning, which includes Summer Programs, Extended Day, after-school classes and music lessons, travel opportunities, and other enrichment options for students, adults, and families. He's also now helping launch and lead the School's new institute for teaching and learning.

He earned baccalaureate degrees magna cum laude in International Relations and History and an Asian Studies Certificate at American University and then completed an M.A. in History and received Phi Beta Kappa honors at Emory University. 

Anthony has worked as a teacher (in subjects including U.S. history, government and politics, debate, and economics), college counselor, and advisor at Holland Hall School (Tulsa, Oklahoma), Raleigh Charter High School, Durham Academy, and CFS (2002-2005).

Much of his research and teaching has focused on the intersection of politics and culture--especially race--since World War II. An Arkansas native, he helped create and lead civil rights bus tours of the South for high school students and in 2016 and 2019 Durham civil rights experiences for CFS staff.

Anthony has served in leadership and advisory roles for various professional organizations and non-profits, including Student U, Junior Leadership Durham, Youth Leadership Tulsa, Youth Services of Tulsa, GLSEN, Habitat for Humanity, and the Southern and National Associations for College Admission Counseling.

A CFS alum parent of two, Anthony co-led the Summer 2023 Beloved Community Journey and is also helping organize the Summer 2024 Quaker Journey retracing early Friends history in Northern England's breathtaking Lake District.

Tour tuition of $695 includes:

• transportation via charter coach
• one night of double-occupancy hotel lodging*
• three meals (dinner, breakfast, and lunch)
• all admission fees and guest speaker honoraria
• on-board live and multi-media programming
• resource materials about tour destinations, civil rights history, contemporary social justice issues, and other relevant topics
• the services of an experienced tour leader/historian

* individual rooms are available for an $85 supplement

The tuition won't include:

• incidental purchases, including at Carter Mountain Orchards and other stops
• room service and other hotel incidentals
• alcohol with a meal
• trip/travel insurance

A $175 deposit will be due at the time of application and refundable if we can fill your space.

We'd love to have you and a diverse group of participants "get on board" for this powerful personal and community journey. We'll have some funds available to help Carolina Friends staff members participate and, thanks to trip revenues, a very modest amount for educators in charter and traditional public schools as well as independent schools who couldn't afford to go without partial support.

Registration is open using this Google form.

If you'd like us to keep you updated on other transformational travel-learning experiences, please complete this brief notification form.