Legacy

This Story examines how UVA’s UNESCO designation has affected the University’s approach to Jefferson’s legacy and asks who is served by the continued memorialization of Jefferson through the replication of his design. We focus on particular articulations of UVA’s real estate expansion and development since the 1980s through forms of commemoration in the built landscape.

Central questions include:

●     How is Jefferson evoked in these expansions?

●     Why is the University continuing to replicate Jefferson's vision (architectural and otherwise)?

●     How has the University wrangled with its own history as represented in the landscape, in its efforts to move into the twenty-first century?

Designed by Thomas Jefferson and built primarily by enslaved laborers, the University of Virginia, along with Monticello, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) in 1987.[1] Prior to the UNESCO inscription, Monticello and UVA’s Rotunda and Academical Village were designated by the Secretary of the Interior as National Historical Landmarks in 1960, 1965, and 1971, respectively.[2]

In the case of the Academical Village and the Rotunda, the University of Virginia Foundation has been responsible for protecting and maintaining the boundaries and portals to the University and for sustaining UVA’s interpretation of Jefferson’s vision.[7]

Although the WHS property as a whole does not have a formal management plan, Monticello and the University work in tandem to sustain what UNESCO terms the “Outstanding Universal Value” of the property and protect it from potential threats, including development and environmental factors.[8] The buildings at Monticello and on UVA Grounds were selected for protection as World Heritage sites in part because Jefferson designed them.[9] WHS declared a clear link between the architectural form of the Academical Village and Jefferson’s personal ideas and ideals: “Monticello and the key buildings of the University of Virginia are directly and materially associated with the ideas and ideals of Thomas Jefferson. Both the University buildings and Monticello were directly inspired by principles derived from his deep knowledge of classical architecture and philosophy.”[10] While UVA students and administrators had long celebrated their connection to the author of the Declaration of Independence, the successful pursuit of the UNESCO designation in the 1980s encouraged university leadership to increasingly cite Jefferson’s ideals regarding education and democracy as foundational to the University and its mission, particularly in its application to the expanding built landscape.

The UNESCO designation crystallized UVA’s buildings and landscape as the direct connection to its founder. Recognizing that this legacy set UVA apart from other elite institutions, UVA leadership has sought to preserve Jefferson’s legacy in the built environment.

The UVA Design Guide and Material Palette created in 2005 and amended in 2009, 2011, and 2013 by the Office of the Architect provides guidelines to follow for the maintenance and continuation of these Jeffersonian elements across the entire university:

“Each building on Grounds should stand as a testament to the on-going story of this unique place. The Academical Village, the original ensemble of buildings that continues to act as the heart of the institution, is clearly fundamental to the identity of the University. This legacy of Jeffersonian design principles is without question the single-most important factor to consider in any proposed change to the University’s environment. The Historic Preservation Framework Plan examines in more detail, each addition made to the University as a counterpoint—at times in celebration of and at times in contrast to—of the Lawn. The entire campus, then, is a bearer of the Founder’s legacy, not just the small part touched personally by Jefferson’s hand.”[14]

The Landscape Master Plan published by the Office of the Architect in 1998 called for the designation of particular places and landscapes on Grounds as “sacred,” meaning the sites are essential and instrumental to the character and quality of the university.[15] The pursuit of UNESCO status in the 1980s thus served as a springboard for university administrators’ continued work in the 1990s to secure the land and legacy of Jefferson and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

As described in  “Foundations, ” under President John T. Casteen III (1990-2010), the University raised more than $1 billion dollars in the “Campaign for the University of Virginia (1995-2000)” and built 134 new buildings.[16]

Casteen and his leadership team frequently justified these initiatives by describing them as modern manifestations of Jefferson’s ideals.

In a President’s Report from 2001, for example, Casteen framed their fundraising efforts as a continuation of Jefferson’s own work: “Thomas Jefferson was the University of Virginia's first fundraiser. He realized his vision for the Academical Village by acquiring more than $40,000 in private contributions, which were combined with the $15,000 provided initially by the Virginia legislature. In doing so, he created a model for sustaining the University that continues to guide us today.”[17]

Thus, according to Casteen, the ambitions of UVA’s leadership, benefactors, and founder fueled the tremendous increase of fundraising and construction during the 1990s and 2000s. By attributing the creation of the Academical Village to Jefferson’s fundraising, this statement erases how enslaved laborers built the buildings and helped generate Jefferson’s wealth.

Throughout his life, Jefferson enslaved 607 persons, while several hundred free and enslaved persons labored to construct UVA and 4,000-5,000 enslaved persons worked at UVA between 1817 and 1865.[18] Only in 2007, following the Virginia General Assembly’s resolution expressing “profound regret for the Commonwealth’s role in sanctioning the immoral institution of human slavery,” did UVA change the visual landscape of the Academical Village to acknowledge these individuals. The plaque that honors their service, along with that of free laborers, is seamlessly integrated into a shadowed walkway beneath the south terrace of the Rotunda, making it nearly invisible. 

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UNESCO designation in 2012, University Architect David Neuman reflected on the preservation of the Academical Village: “This is the paradigm of the American campus. This is not a historical relic we are struggling with. It still functions well, we have classes and events and we serve meals and house students. It has always continued to be adaptable.”[19] As the University continues to expand and replicate Jefferson’s original vision, it is imperative that the University consistently asks questions about how Jefferson’s legacy is remembered, retold, and revived. Who is memorialized by this “historical relic” and to whom is this “paradigm of the American campus” attributed?

These romantic, classical notions of tying the buildings to the landscape and their mutual Jeffersonian inheritance is present in remarks by Casteen in 1995 upon reflection on the new construction across Grounds: “The spirit of excitement and creativity that characterizes the University these days is especially apparent in the construction underway across Grounds. Not since Jefferson's workmen laid foundations for the lawn has the University embarked on such an extensive and comprehensive building program… No matter how impressive each of these new buildings and building complexes is in its own right, they all pay homage to Jefferson's academical village, the University's historic heart.”[23] As the University expands off Central Grounds, it continuously resurrects Jefferson as the original architect—an action cemented by the replication of his original design now radiating out from the original Academical Village.

The University’s messaging on Jefferson has begun to shift since the early 2000s, most notably due to the work of student and community activists, faculty, and the  President’s Commission on Slavery and the University  (PCSU). Casteen’s successor President Teresa A. Sullivan created the PCSU in 2013 in response to a proposal presented that year by Dr. Marcus Martin, Vice President and Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity. In 2016, however, students and faculty publicly criticized Sullivan for invoking Jefferson’s ideals in response to instances of discrimination on campus and then Donald Trump’s election to office.[29] Following this reproach, as well as criticism of her handling of the Unite the Right rally in August of 2017, Sullivan in 2018 also established the  President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation  (PCUAS) to “conduct research, acknowledge our difficult past, atone, and continue to engage with the community” regarding UVA’s role in the era of racial segregation.[30]

In 2018, the PCSU submitted a summary of their research and findings to President Sullivan. Their report focused especially on the numbers, activities, and lives of enslaved persons at UVA and their central role in “designing, funding, building, and maintaining the school.”[31] The Commission attempted to fulfill its charge to “consider appropriate memorialization,” by engaging in listening sessions with the broader Charlottesville community about the design, placement, and construction of a more fitting memorial, as well as renaming and recontextualizing areas on Grounds.[32] Regarding the plaque placed beneath the Rotunda in 2007, they noted that while it “was a step in the right direction, many viewed it to be insufficient recognition of the enslaved laborers’ contributions.”[33]

Within the past decade, and especially since the initiation of the PCSU, the University has begun to make visual changes to the UNESCO site to memorialize the work and lives of enslaved persons, while also honoring the more recent history of African Americans at the University.

• In 2010, the  Roy Willis plaque  was placed at 43 West Lawn for the first African American graduate of the University in 1962. 
• The  Henry Martin plaque , placed in the ground near the UVA chapel in 2012, commemorates a man born into slavery who worked as the University’s head janitor and bell-ringer from at least 1868 until his retirement in 1909.
• On Founder’s Day in 2015, a  tree  was planted on the Lawn in front of Pavilion II in memory of enslaved workers who served the University.
• When the new Rotunda visitor’s center opened in 2016 after its renovation, the  exhibition  included new content that had not previously been presented on this site related to the history of slavery at the early University.
• A  brochure on “Slavery at the University, ” created by undergraduate students, was made available at the Rotunda Visitors’ Center in 2016. The brochure identifies some of the few remaining structures used only by enslaved workers.
• A  walking tour map  and  web app , also created by undergraduates in 2015-2016 and published in 2017, highlights 17 sites on grounds related to the history of slavery and early African American life at the University.[34] The original research for this map, which will be shown further below, extends well beyond the Academical Village and the nineteenth century.

The most recent realization of efforts to memorialize the history of African Americans at UVA and on the UNESCO site is the  Memorial to Enslaved Laborers , a project developed by the PCSU in 2016 and initially scheduled for completion and dedication in April of 2020. It is hoped that students will engage with the enclosed, circular space in their classes and as a meetings space. Importantly, it was placed next to a main road running alongside Central Grounds so as to engage the greater Charlottesville community, and is now included as a stop on the newly instituted Liberation and Freedom Day march, which honors the emancipation of enslaved people in Charlottesville during the Civil War.

In addition to these new, physical memorials, exhibits, and resources for understanding the contributions of African Americans at UVA within the landscape, the University has also made important changes to the naming of three existing structures on Grounds that honored UVA-affiliated proponents of eugenics.[35]

•  Pinn Hall, September 2017 : The School of Medicine’s Jordan Hall, originally named in 1972 after Harvey Jordan, was renamed to honor 1967 graduate Dr. Vivian Pinn, the only African American and the only woman in her class.
•  Yen House, September 2017 : The dorm Lewis Hall, dedicated in 1984 to Ivey Foreman Lews, was renamed after W.W. Yen, the first Chinese student to earn a degree from the University.
•  Collins Wing, August 2019 : The Barringer Wing at the UVA Medical Center West Complex, originally named for  Paul Brandon Barringer,  was renamed the Collins Wing in honor of UVA alumnus Dr. Francis S. Collins, one of America’s most eminent scientists.

University President Edwin Alderman (1903-27) was another eugenics supporter whose name still looms large on Central Grounds in the forms of Alderman Library, Alderman Road, and, consequently, the Alderman Road Residence Area. As of September 2019, the conversation surrounding the naming of Alderman library was reportedly “ongoing.”[36]

Another effort in re-naming includes the recontextualization of the Curry School of Education and Human Development and its building, Ruffner Hall. The Curry School created a committee to research the history and legacies of William Henry Ruffner and Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, both of whom had ties to the Confederacy and defended slavery. The committee created a  website  that shared their research and produced recommendations that were submitted to the President’s Office in January 2019.[37]

Newly constructed buildings have also been dedicated in memory of enslaved African Americans.

•  Gibbons House , 2015: a new dorm with a permanent educational exhibit that was named after William and Isabella Gibbons, lifelong contributors to the greater Charlottesville community who were enslaved by different professors for more than 20 years before their emancipation.
•  Skipwith Hall , 2017: A new building dedicated in honor of Peyton Skipwith, an enslaved laborer freed in 1833 who quarried stone for UVA.

We acknowledge, as does the PCSU, that “reinscribing this previously hidden history back onto the built landscape” is a manifold process that includes “making it visible in multiple formats (signage, interpretive panels, maps, tours, digital media, print, classes), and moving forward with plans for more memorialization and rituals of remembrance that keep the history and meaning alive for future generations.”[38] The PCSU is not the only group taking action, however.

Jefferson and his contributions to modern conceptions of governance and education have informed the University’s self-image in various forms over the past two hundred years. The University’s goals are best captured by Presidential Plans, as they indicate how the presidents aim to lead and define the University under their tenure. Casteen’s primary plan was “Virginia 2020,” and Sullivan’s “Cornerstone Plan” served as the springboard for the most recent plan, President James E. Ryan’s “Great and Good Plan.” Each of these presidents emphasize how students are trained to engage in democracy, become good citizens, and provide service to their local, national, and global communities.

Ryan’s “Great and Good Plan” describes its “new” emphasis on service, community-building, and improving relations with UVA’s local neighbors as a means to rectify the “imperfect vision” of Jefferson: “When this University was founded, its primary mission was to prepare students to become citizen-leaders who would serve our fledgling democracy. The vision was imperfect, of course, as it included only white males as participants in this project. But the core idea—that UVA exists to serve the public—remains both relevant and compelling. In an era of increasing skepticism about the contributions of universities, we will rededicate ourselves to the original animating purpose of the University and look for ways to better serve our community, the Commonwealth, and beyond.”[46] Thus, this most recent Presidential Plan explicitly links University ambitions with its ability to fulfill its “neighborly” vision: “The initiatives are linked by the foundational belief that we will be both a great and good university if we...live our values by being of service to others and by being a good neighbor to the Charlottesville region.”[47] The Unite the Right Rally in August 2017, less than a year before the start of Ryan’s presidential tenure, has underscored the continued necessity to evaluate the relationship between Jefferson’s “imperfect vision” and the ambitions of the University today. Another step in the University’s reckoning with its founding and history of exploitation is to examine the relationship of the University to the developed landscape of Charlottesville. Can the University, in its ever-increasing land and development, continue replicating the architectural vision of its founder and be a good neighbor at the same time?

The early 2000s expansion of the University through the South Lawn Project serves as a case study on how University real estate development directly impacts the citizens and neighborhoods of Charlottesville, particularly those residing on the borders of the University. The South Lawn Project constructed two new buildings—Nau Hall and Gibson Hall. These buildings are connected to the southern tip of the Academical Village via a terrace walkway spanning Jefferson Park Avenue, and opens a green corridor to the Catherine Foster Historic Site (dedicated March 2011) and more distantly, the medical complex in the east (now the site of the ongoing  Brandon Avenue Project ). The space not only mimics the organization of the Lawn, but contains a similar emphasis on a “Virginian” landscape: the complex contains several terraces and gardens, and native Virginia plants were planted and an existing stream was resurfaced.[48] This project spanned the first decade of the new millennium and cost $105 million—$43.8 million drawn from the University and $61.2 million drawn from private donors.[49]

University leadership and architectural faculty disagreed over the design of the expensive project. The University hired Polshek Partnership in 2001 to conduct the design work for the South Lawn Project, but they parted ways with the University in 2006 after a clash over design preferences. The proposed Polshek design was deemed too modern by head university officials, who sought a more Jeffersonian look. Several UVA professors expressed disappointment at the leadership’s desire for a Jefferson-inspired design.

Architecture Professor Jason Johnson, for example, stated: “The idea that UVA wants the South Lawn to be a nostalgic pastiche is offensive. The UVA grounds and recent projects like the Darden School are more like theme parks than living, breathing, contemporary institutions.” Ultimately over 30 UVA architecture professors signed an open letter submitted to The Cavalier Daily that, according to Dave McNair of The Hook, called for “a full-scale revolt against the University’s promotion of ‘faux Jeffersonian architecture,’” and “accused the Board of Visitors and the administration of allowing public relations and marketing to dictate their design decisions, and of perpetuating an architecture with ‘symbolic, synthetic veneers lacking any virtue beyond familiarity.’” In 2006, the new firm attached to the project, Moore Ruble Yudell, proposed a new design that sought to reconcile Jeffersonian and modern aesthetics. UVA approved the design, and Moore Ruble Yudell remained the design team for the rest of the project.[50]

At the dedication of the South Lawn in October 2010, Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Meredith Jung-En Woo celebrated the new complex as a fulfillment and extension of Jefferson’s vision: “[Jefferson] wished to leave open the southern end of the Lawn, a dramatic vista looking out toward the mountains, to remind us of our indefinite and incessant quest for truth….The South Lawn in our mind’s eye opens up the Lawn and, with it, the future.”[51] Echoing the visionary rhetoric adopted by the University in its Presidential Plans, Woo’s statement before hundreds of people, including Virginia elected officials, UVA alumni, and current students, framed the expanding University as fundamentally predestined. UVA’s expansion south of Jefferson Park Avenue is therefore told as a narrative of promise and “quest.”

Yet, the land was not barren or uninhabited in the years between Jefferson’s initial imagining of the Lawn’s southern viewshed and the South Lawn dedication in 2010. In 1993, construction workers found evidence of burials while expanding a parking lot, prompting a full archaeological survey and historical research investigation. This research revealed that for most of the nineteenth century, the majority of the land south of the Lawn along what is now Jefferson Park Avenue was home to “Canada,” a community that many enslaved people and free people who worked at the University called home.[52] The origin of the name Canada is unknown; but it can be interpreted either as an homage to the nation that symbolized freedom for many enslaved Africans or as a degrading term that emphasized the “otherness” of a free black community. After the end of Reconstruction, Canada transitioned from a community that housed both white and black Charlottesville residents to an almost all-black neighborhood. Near the close of the nineteenth century, UVA built Cabell Hall (now Old Cabell Hall) to block sight and access to Canada from the Lawn. Bought up by white landlords and UVA over the first few decades of the twentieth century, the community known as Canada seemingly disappeared and was largely forgotten until the 1993 discovery.[53]

In 2011, UVA completed the Catherine Foster Historic Site, a memorial that commemorates a free black woman who was part of the Canada community, and whose family home was discovered during the archaeological survey. The “shadowcatcher” structure marks the site of the home and part of the land which “Kitty” Foster purchased in 1833 while working as a laundress for individuals at the University. Three generations of Fosters lived there and many were buried in the adjacent community gravesite, now demarcated by stones. The memorial is meant to represent Foster’s story of resilience in this period and, according to undergraduate student Kasey Roper of ABCD Magazine, the “enduring Canada community, a place of interracial coexistence as well as a crucial part of understanding the University’s relationship with the larger Charlottesville area.”[54] The site, Roper explains, acts as “a reminder of the University’s deep historical connection to the local community, as well as to institutions of racism and white supremacy.”[55]

Despite UVA’s efforts to memorialize this neighborhood, current undergraduates have marked the site as one that deserves further investigation and recontextualization, as seen in the map in Section IV. The memorial—an abstract, hollowed structure of beams that casts a shadow marking the footprint of the original house—is meant to evoke its hidden history. But although Foster’s property once extended to what is now Brandon Avenue, the current site only preserves about half of her land, and also attempts to memorialize the much larger neighborhood of Canada. Nevertheless, Professor Ervin Jordan, research archivist for the Special Collections Library and member of the Venable Lane [Foster Site] Task Force, commented that “if it wasn’t for the discovery of the grave site of the Foster family, we might have forgotten that there was a community there.”[56] Much like the extensive historic area it represents, the structure is all but lost in the visual landscape.

Furthermore, the memorial’s physical presence pales in comparison to the recognizable imprints of the Lawn in the adjacent South Lawn and ongoing Brandon Avenue project. Roper’s article also addressed a general lack of awareness about the site, quoting one UVA undergraduate who admitted, “I didn’t realize this was a memorial.”[57] UVA History Professor Kirt von Daacke, who co-chairs the PCUAS, attributed this lack of awareness to the design of the South Lawn.[58] Jefferson’s built legacy again supersedes that of the nearby African American community that enabled its original construction. The profuse memorialization of Jefferson has been displayed through the University’s self-fashioning and stated goals, prominent representations of his likeness in statues and images on Grounds, and the honoring of his intellect in the replication of the design of the Academical Village throughout Charlottesville and Albemarle County. With the Foster memorial, the lives and contributions of an entire community integral to the University’s history are abstracted to one home’s design, whose footprint is reduced from the original property size, and whose inhabitants are not represented figurally. While the Foster Historic Site aims to memorialize the land’s nineteenth-century black residents, the South Lawn Project as a whole promotes the revival of Jefferson’s architectural vision. The additional Brandon Avenue replication of the Academical Village on the other side of the site further constricts how the University can pay tribute to the past two centuries of the neighborhood’s history. Moreover, it appears as though Jefferson’s vision has all but replaced the former area of Canada twice over.

Ryan promises to continue efforts to tell a more truthful history of the University, one that necessarily includes the voices and accomplishments of women and people of color and acknowledges overlooked “agents of change” with visual markers on Grounds.[59] In January of 2020, Ryan announced several decisions to make changes to UVA’s historic landscape, in large part a response to the April 2018 report submitted by the Advisory Committee on the Future of the Historic Landscape at UVA.[60] The report identifies “change agents” as “persons who have caused or led the University to reinvent itself,” such as the four women who sued the University for admission in 1969, eventually forcing UVA to accept coeducation.[61] Additionally, the Committee urges the University “to commit itself financially to support research and classes aimed at increasing the students, faculty and staff, alumni, and the larger public’s engagement with the history and historical landscape of the University.” On the digital side, the President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation is working with undergraduates to research spaces of historical significance and to create a walking tour similar to the 2017 “Walking Tour: Enslaved African Americans at the University of Virginia.” However, part of this proposition also requires implementing “visible historic symbols.”[62]

The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers is a starting point for potentially significant symbolic change to UVA’s historic landscape. In an interesting comparison to the Catherine Foster Memorial, local residents expressed the need for a more representational structure which should be “easily recognizable and visible in what it should stand for,” as something abstract “would require too much explanation.”[63] One resident commented, “The enslaved laborers were marginalized. Therefore, the memorial should be prominently accessible, visible and memorable.”[64] As described earlier in this Story, the memorial is indeed in an accessible location, adjacent to the Rotunda, and its symbolic, circular form matches the Rotunda’s circumference and invites gathering. The site also provides a historic timeline of slavery at UVA.

Yet, as opposed to the statues of Jefferson around Grounds, the most direct representation of the enslaved workers exists in the names carved into the stone (with gaps for many more yet unnamed), as well as a set of enlarged eyes on the outer edge that belong to Isabella Gibbons—leaving the site with a somewhat disembodied feel. During its construction between 2016 and 2019, the fencing blocking off the site was decorated with 32 enlarged posters of photographed portraits of African American residents of Charlottesville from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Many of them, such as Henry Martin, had direct connections to UVA or were likely related to former enslaved workers. This display was part of the  Holsinger Portrait Project , dedicated to researching this collection of portraits by R.W. Holsinger and co-directed by UVA professor of African History, John Edwin Mason. Mason and others invited current Charlottesville residents to view the portraits and some have made family connections to over a century ago.[65] These are some of the untold stories now coming to light that reveal the relationships between the UVA’s history of slavery and segregation and a larger community of African Americans in Charlottesville, both past and present. Unfortunately, the least visually abstract part of the memorial and a concrete connection between the histories it seeks to represent and our current moment, will not be included in its final form.

As stated by Frank Dukes, a professor of architecture who has worked on Charlottesville’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces (with Professor Mason) and an organizer of UCARE (a group that worked with UVA students and proposed a memorial in 2007): “The [UVA] monument is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s just part of the overall truth-telling effort; changing the landscape is part of the effort of repair.”[66] While we recognize that memory and history, especially for enslaved peoples, must extend beyond visual representation, the physical landscape of UVA continues to privilege and preserve Jefferson’s perspective in spaces that were and are shared by essential contributing members of the University community who have been overlooked. The question thus remains, how will UVA’s continued expansion and development honor these Charlottesville residents’ legacy?

The expanding University reshapes neighborhoods, land, and history in its own vision. As the University today has launched two major new projects at Brandon Avenue and the Emmet/Ivy Corridor, which plan to once more mimic the Lawn’s form, university leaders must ask themselves: what are the various impacts of this replication and whose voices are elevated by these designs? The University claims it “has served Virginia, the nation, and the world” and continues to “look for ways to better serve our community, the Commonwealth, and beyond.”[67] In order to start to answer how the University has served its local communities since the 1980s, our Stories have attempted to reveal the complicated relationship between the University’s Jeffersonian messaging, real estate expansion, and the neighborhoods and histories their development replaces. 

Replicating Jefferson’s vision across UVA Grounds has consequences not just for the peoples displaced and neighborhoods erased by university expansion (as we have tried to delineate here), but also with respect to who feels welcome at UVA and what UVA represents nationally. The proliferation of colonnades, green lawns, and neoclassical references are not purely visual markers of a “collegiate” space. At the University of Virginia, this built environment is inherently tied to a longer history of black oppression. White supremacists chose to end their torch-lit march on August 11, 2017, at the Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda; in so doing, they sought to lay claim to Jefferson’s legacy, while illustrating their sense of belonging in the shadow of Jeffersonian architecture. In a New York Times Opinion column from August 19, 2017, former white nationalist R. Derek Black highlighted the connections between Jefferson’s “imperfect vision” and the philosophy of white supremacists/nationalists: “Until Trump’s comments, few critics seemed to identify the larger relationship the alt-right sees between its beliefs and the ideals of the American founders. Charlottesville is synonymous with Jefferson.”[68] Though the events of August 2017 came as a shock to many white Charlottesville residents, UVA students, and staff, the local racist legacy in the city—intimately connected to regional and national histories—was not a revelation for many non-white residents, students, faculty, and staff of UVA and greater Charlottesville.[69] In “Black Charlottesville Has Seen This All Before,” Vann R. Newkirk II, staff writer for The Atlantic, recounted black residents’ impressions of the August 11-12 events, and detailed the long history of white supremacy in Charlottesville throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: “What I encountered in Charlottesville wasn’t fear, but familiarity. Black Charlottesville has dealt with racism, has been born and raised under statues of Lee and Jefferson, and has fought the Klan. And it has lived with—and lives with—white supremacy.”[70] As Newkirk’s interviewees suggested, black Charlottesville residents are all too familiar with how memorialization of historical figures in the built environment shapes the lived experience of people for generations to come. 

In this Story, we aimed to reveal how embedded Jefferson and his ideals are in the landscape, messaging, policy, and ambitions of the University, in order to highlight the points of friction and contradiction between UVA’s actions and its espoused values. By focusing on University policy since the 1980s, we hope to add depth and  data  to the continuation of these conversations on a local and national level. Our “ Future Directions ” page reviews some of the conclusions we have drawn and poses additional questions generated by the data and stories we encountered. For more on other projects dealing with race and history in Charlottesville and at UVA, see “ Other Digital Projects ” in our “Additional Resources.”

Landing Image:  Rotunda and Lawn  (Founder's Day Procession), April 11, 1924, Accession #RG-30/1/10.011, University of Virginia Visual History Collection, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

[1] The official document designating Monticello and the University of Virginia as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (no. 442):  Advisory Body Evaluation (ICOMOS) , April 1987. For information on process of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site, see: “ World Heritage Committee ,” “ World Heritage List Nominations ,” “ Tentative Lists ,” “ Criteria for Selection ,” UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020. See also: Matt Kelly, “ A World Heritage Site, U.Va. Stays Historic, Modern and in Use Daily ,” UVA Today, December 14, 2012.

[2] “Protection and Management Requirements” in  Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020.

[3]  Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020; “Criterion I” and “Criterion VI” in  Advisory Body Evaluation (ICOMOS) , April 1987.

[4] “Brief synthesis” in  Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020. See also: “Criterion I” in  Advisory Body Evaluation (ICOMOS) , April 1987.

[5]  Advisory Body Evaluation (ICOMOS) , April 1987, 2.

[6] “Integrity” and “Authenticity” in  Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020.

[7] “ About the UVA Foundation ,” University of Virginia Foundation, [2002-2011], Wayback Machine, Internet Archive, accessed April 18, 2020.

[8] “Protection and Management Requirements” in  Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020.

[9] For more information on the criteria for selection as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, see: “ The Criteria for Selection ,” UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020.

[10] “Criterion (vi)” in  Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , UNESCO, accessed May 5, 2020.

[11] John T. Casteen, III, “ Building for Posterity ,” President’s Report 1995-1996, University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[12] “ Part A – Current Policies ,” in Board of Visitors Minutes, November 7, 1997, The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.

[13] John T. Casteen, III, “ Virginia 2020: Building a Bridge to the Future ,” President’s Report 2000-2001, University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[14] Office of the Architect for the University of Virginia, “ UVA Design Guide and Material Palette ,” 2013, 36, accessed April 24, 2020.

[15] Office of the Architect for the University of Virginia, “ Landscape Framework Plan ,” 2019.

[16] Robert Viccellio, “ The Builder: John Casteen Retires after Two Decades as UVA President ,” Virginia Magazine, Summer 2010.

[17] John T. Casteen, III, “ The Will to Fulfill Our Aspirations ,” President’s Report 2000-2001, University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[18] “ Report to President Teresa A. Sullivan 2018 ,” President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, The University of Virginia, 2018, 15, 52.

[19] Matt Kelly, “ A World Heritage Site, U.VA. Stays Historic, Modern and In Use Daily ,” UVA Today, December 14, 2012.

[20] John T. Casteen, III, “ Readying the Grounds for the 21st Century ,” President’s Report 1994-1995, University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[21] Robert A.M. Stern Architects, “ Darden School of Business Administration ,” 1996, accessed April 24, 2020.

[22] “ Darden’s Charlottesville Grounds ,” UVA Darden, accessed April 24, 2020.

[23] John T. Casteen, III, “ Readying the Grounds for the 21st Century ,” President’s Report 1994-1995, University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[24] “ Fontaine Master Plan ,” Office of the Architect, September 2018, .

[25] “ The Park ,” UVA Research Park, UVA Foundation, accessed April 28, 2020.

[26] Office of the Architect for the University of Virginia, “ Brandon Avenue Master Plan ,” November 2016, 11. It was first indicated as a potential space for redevelopment in the 2008  UVA Grounds Plan , accessed May 5, 2020.

[27] For information on the planning, design, and implementation of the Emmet-Ivy Corridor Project, see: “ Emmet-Ivy Final Report – March 7, 2019 ,” Board of Visitors Meeting Documents, February 27-March 1, 2019, The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.

[28] “ About the Station ,” Mountain Lake Biological Station, University of Virginia, accessed April 28, 2020. Image citation: “ Station Grounds Map ,” Mountain Lake Biological Station, University of Virginia, accessed April 28, 2020.

[29] “ Letter to President Sullivan From Members of the UVA Community ,” November 2016; Travis M. Andrews, “ Group of U-Va. Students, Faculty ‘Deeply Offended’ by Thomas Jefferson being Quoted at School he Founded ,” The Washington Post, November 15, 2016.

[30]  President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation , University of Virginia, accessed May 2, 2020. For more on criticism of Sullivan’s handling of August 11-12, 2017, see: Jack Stripling, “ Inside the U. of Virginia’s Response to a Chaotic White-Supremacist Rally ,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 20, 2017.

[31] “ Report to President Teresa A. Sullivan 2018 ,” President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, The University of Virginia, 2018, 9, 15-19.

[32]  President’s Commission on Slavery and the University , University of Virginia, accessed April 27, 2020.

[33] “ Report to President Teresa A. Sullivan 2018 ,” President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, The University of Virginia, 2018, 81.

[34] These UVA students include Alice Burgess (2015-16 Memorial for Enslaved Laborers Chair & University Guide), Henry Hoffman (University Guide), Moses Abraham (University Guide, BSA,  JUEL  project research staffer), and Lili Bettolo (University Guide).  New Enslaved African Americans Walking Tour Map for 2017 , President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, University of Virginia, accessed May 3, 2020.

[35] For more on those who promoted eugenic science at UVA, see: P. Preston Reynolds, “ UVA and the History of Race: Eugenics, the Racial Integrity Act, Health Disparities ,” UVA Today, January 9, 2020.

[36] Zach Rosenthal, “ Fliers Posted around Grounds Advocate for Renaming of Alderman Library ,” The Cavalier Daily, September 18, 2019.

[37] “ Who and How We Memorialize ,” Curry School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia, accessed May 1, 2020; Ruth Serven Smith, “ UVa Mulling Curry School Name Change ,” The Daily Progress, November 19, 2018.

[38] “ Report to President Teresa A. Sullivan 2018 ,” President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, The University of Virginia, 2018, 6-7.

[39] Before the PCSU was created, groups such as the one planning the  Memorial for Enslaved Laborers  (MEL), the  UVa IDEA Fund  (Inclusion Diversity Equity Access), and  University and Community Action for Racial Equity  (UCARE) had already begun dynamic projects surrounding the topic of slavery at UVA and in Charlottesville more broadly.

[40] Lisa Provence, “ 21st Century Lens: UVA’s Troubled History of Race ,” C-ville Weekly, May 15, 2015.

[41] Katja Cresanti and Geremia Di Maro, “ Student Council Passes Bill to Create Ad Hoc Committee to Examine the History of Monuments, Buildings and Historical Areas on Grounds ,” The Cavalier Daily, April 19, 2019.

[42] These include UVA’s McIntire Amphitheater, the McIntire School of Commerce, McIntire Department of Art, and McIntire Department of Music. For more on McIntire and his donations to UVA and the city of Charlottesville, see: Lisa Provence, “ Paul Goodloe McIntire: Goodwill to all men? ” C-ville Weekly, March 30, 2016; Abby Clukey, “ Facing the legacy of Paul Goodloe McIntire ,” The Cavalier Daily, November 16, 2017.

[43] John T. Casteen, III, “ Virginia 2020: Building a Bridge to the Future ,” President’s Report 2000-2001, University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[44] “ The Cornerstone Plan: A Strategic Plan for the Academic Division of the University of Virginia ,” The University of Virginia, 9, accessed April 24, 2020.

[45] “ Great and Good: The 2030 Plan ,” The University of Virginia, August 2019.

[46] “ Great and Good: The 2030 Plan ,” The University of Virginia, August 2019, 22.

[47] “ Great and Good: The 2030 Plan ,” The University of Virginia, August 2019, 25.

[48] “ South Lawn Project ,” The University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[49] “ South Lawn Project ,” The University of Virginia, accessed April 24, 2020.

[50] Dave McNair, “ ON ARCHITECTURE- Am not! Are so!: Architects scrap over South Lawn Project ,” The Hook, April 20, 2006. See also: Courteney Stuart, “ South Lawn Setback: Modernist Architects off the Job ,” The Hook, June 9, 2005.

[51] Marian Anderfuren, “ 10 Years in the Making, South Lawn is Dedicated at U.VA. ,” UVA Today, October 25, 2010.

[52] The archaeological report prepared for the University of Virginia describes how this portion of land between what is now Oakhurst Circle and West Main Street was divided into three major plots, which are believed to have been part of the historically black Canada neighborhood. See: Rivanna Archaeological Consulting, “ The Foster Family-Venable Lane Site Report of Archaeological Investigations ,” November 2003, 28-29.

[53] Kasey Roper, “ Catching the Shadow ,” ABCD Magazine, March 11, 2019.

[54] Kasey Roper, “ Catching the Shadow ,” ABCD Magazine, March 11, 2019.

[55] Kasey Roper, “ Catching the Shadow ,” ABCD Magazine, March 11, 2019.

[56] Chiara Canzi, “ Free blacks remembered at South Lawn ,” March 10, 2009. 

[57] Kasey Roper, “ Catching the Shadow ,” ABCD Magazine, March 11, 2019.

[58] Kasey Roper, “ Catching the Shadow ,” ABCD Magazine, March 11, 2019.

[59] Caroline Newman, “ President Ryan Announces Additions to UVA’s Historic Landscape ,” UVA Today, January 30, 2020.

[60] The committee was co-chaired by President Emeritus John T. Casteen and Professor of African American and African Studies and History Claudrena Harold.

[61] “Report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the Historic Landscape at the University of Virginia” in  Dean’s Working Group , University of Virginia, April 2018, 3, accessed May 4, 2020.

[62] “Report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the Historic Landscape at the University of Virginia” in  Dean’s Working Group , University of Virginia, April 2018, 1, 4, accessed May 4, 2020.

[63] Anne E. Bromley, “ Local residents mull design issues for UVA memorial to enslaved laborers ,” UVA Today, December 5, 2016.

[64] Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia, “ Community Voices and Recent News ,” accessed May 5, 2020.

[65] Erin O’Hare, “ Show and tell: Holsinger Portrait Project develops a more complete picture of local history with photographs of African Americans ,” C-ville Weekly, July 3, 2019.

[66] Ruth Severn Smith, “ UVa slavery monument takes shape ,” The Daily Progress, July 16, 2019.

[67] “ Great and Good: The 2030 Plan ,” The University of Virginia, August 2019, 22.

[68] R. Derek Black, “ What White Nationalism Gets Right About American History ,” The New York Times, August 19, 2017.

[69] Debbie Elliott, “ ‘Unite the Right’ Rally Forced Charlottesville to Rethink Town’s Racial History ,” All Things Considered, NPR, August 9, 2018.

[70] Vann R. Newkirk II, “ Black Charlottesville Has Seen This All Before ,” The Atlantic, August 18, 2017.