From the 1930s until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that Third Street Box Office, around the corner from the grand marquee and lobby of The Paramount theater in Charlottesville, served as the "Coloreds Only" ticket office and entrance to the Paramount Theater. A new exhibit brings people into that reality. Kori Price/Charlottesville Tomorrow
From the 1930s until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that Third Street Box Office, around the corner from the grand marquee and lobby of The Paramount theater in Charlottesville, served as the “Coloreds Only” ticket office and entrance to the Paramount Theater. A new exhibit brings people into that reality. Kori Price/Charlottesville Tomorrowby Kori Price
I’m curious about who is paying attention.
Not specifically to the art I created and installed as a part of the Paramount Theater’s Third Street Box Office project, but to our community and our collective history in Charlottesville. How often do we disrupt our daily hustle to the next meeting, to the next dinner, to the next event to be present in the spaces we pass through and the spaces we occupy?
This story was published as a part of Charlottesville Inclusive Media’s First Person Charlottesville project. Have a story to tell? Here’s how.
“Walking Dualities” is a set of four life-size photographs printed on vinyl banners. By using a longer shutter speed and capturing motion blur, Black people from our present become apparitions representing Black folks from the past, walking to go see a movie or a show. I composed two of the photographs by combining pieces of over 25 different images and placed two in-motion photographs at the box office to draw passerbys’ attention and direct it toward the Third Street Box Office.
From the 1930s until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that box office, around the corner from the grand marquee and lobby, served as the “Coloreds Only” ticket office and entrance to the Paramount Theater. After purchasing their tickets, Black patrons would have to use a separate, outdoor staircase that led to seating in the balcony.
While they might have had the best seats in the house, the intent was to keep them as invisible members of society.
Vinegar Hill Magazine is proud to be a partner of the Black Media Initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY). This initiative is a vital program that addresses the challenges faced by Black-owned media outlets in the digital age.
The initiative offers a variety of resources, including training sessions, networking opportunities, and expert consultations, all designed to help Black media thrive online. Vinegar Hill Magazine has benefited from these programs, gaining valuable insights into audience development, digital marketing, and revenue generation.
“The Black Media Initiative has been a game-changer for us,” says Sarad Davenport, COO of Vinegar Hill Magazine. “Their support has allowed us to expand our reach and connect with new audiences in a meaningful way.”
To learn more about the Black Media Initiative and its impactful work, click here to read the full story in the New York Amsterdam News.
My brother and I were born at home in the 1950s because my mother said she felt safer there than at the University of Virginia’s hospital. It was a tradition on the Garland Farm in Albemarle County that had been carried on for generations.
Family folklore was that Black women for generations often came to the farm — then the largest, Black-owned farm in the area, which my family now calls Buck Island — from Richmond to deliver their babies. Because Buck Island was perceived to be a safe space, it probably started early. Giving birth in safe spaces is a very old Black tradition that dates from slavery. Traveling to those places was common after Emancipation.
In the fall of 2017, a cousin gave me a clue as to why. She told me that an ancestor was part of a monument being built in Richmond. I attended the groundbreaking ceremony and discovered a new piece of my family’s history.
Sarah Garland Boyd Jones (represented in the statue on the left) and Maggie Lena Walker (right) met as students. Both forged new paths at the turn of the century in Virginia, Jones in medicine and Walker in banking. They are commemorated at the Virginia Women’s Monument in Richmond. Philip Cobbs/Charlottesville Tomorrow
The women’s monument on the capitol grounds in Richmond is called “Voices from the Garden,” and it commemorates 12 remarkable Virginia women in life-size bronze statues. Among them is Sarah Garland Boyd Jones. The Encyclopedia Virginia says she was the first African American woman to pass the state’s medical boards examination in 1893. And while it says she was born in Albemarle County in 1866, it does not say that she was born on the Garland Plantation.
After her birth, the family moved to Henrico County and soon to Richmond. There, she trained as a teacher with a classmate named Maggie Lena Mitchell, who later became Maggie Lena Walker, also commemorated in the garden. Walker later became the first Black woman to own a bank in the United States and they remained lifelong friends. After graduating Sarah taught at Baker School, where she met another teacher named Miles Jones; they were married on July 4, 1888. She had to give up her job because married women were prohibited from the profession. Later, her husband lost his job too when Richmond passed an ordinance limiting the number of Black male teachers.
Last year I passed a milestone, 65 years on Earth. As I reflected on my life, it occurred to me: I had spent most of my life within a football field’s length of my birthplace. I was so immersed in the place I took for granted how safe I felt there.
Ten miles southeast of Charlottesville, where Buck Island Creek joins the Rivanna River, our family farm did not have a formal name. It was often called the Garland Farm. When I was born, it was the largest Black-owned farm in Albemarle County, at more than 600 acres. I took for granted that I could walk all day and never have anyone ask me what I was doing there. I belonged there, it had belonged to my family for generations. I felt at one with the land.
Now, I simply call it Buck Island.
Today, there is little evidence of our family farm’s existence. Everyday, hundreds of commuters on Thomas Jefferson Parkway pass by it on their way to Charlottesville. A small white church is the little left of a once vibrant community.
A road sign on Thomas Jefferson Parkway identifies Buck Island Creek. There are no markers to signify where the Garland family farm once stood. Kori Price/Charlottesville Tomorrow
A few years ago, when I looked for Buck Island Creek on Google Maps, I was surprised that it was mislabeled. Buck Island Creek begins near Buck Island, but the fork to the west is mislabeled as the Rivanna River. The place I remember so well had disappeared from the map.
But there is hope in preserving the story of Buck Island’s past.
(The following article discusses grief in detail. It may contain information that is triggering or upsetting to some readers. If you are experiencing grief or have experienced grief in the past, please consider your own well-being before reading this article.)
Grief is something no one wants to go through, but we all have to face it sooner or later. In my life, I have had a lot of grief. I have lost my father, mother, all of my brothers, my daughter, and my husband.
Our sixth child, a daughter, died as a baby when she was only four months and three weeks old. This caused me to go into a very deep depression. I couldn’t do anything for myself, my children, or my husband. I felt like I was in a glass box watching the world go on around me. This went on for a few months. I became like one of my children, with them doing for me. The doctor wanted to put me in the hospital on medication, but my husband said no to that. Our oldest daughter came into the house and said, “Varina is gone, but you still have us.” I know, without a doubt, that God used our six-year-old to bring me back to reality.
Marian Dixion, 80, currently resides at the senior living facility called Timberlake Place on East Market Street. Before her daughter’s passing on January 31, 1963, she used to live at 357 12th Street Northwest, which is still standing today. The family then moved to a house located at the bottom of Preston Avenue, opposite Trinity Episcopal Church, which has now been replaced by apartments primarily occupied by University of Virginia students.
Healing Her words seemed to become like a fist in the midst of my stomach, and I began to cry for the first time since Varina had died. Although at the funeral, all through the funeral and burial, I had not cried. Those words caused me to cry for over an hour or three hours. Grief was eating me up inside and I had no control over it. A few days later, I was back to being a wife, a mother, and a mother to my family.
Grief can take your very life away if you don’t get help. Mine came by prayer and God using our child at that time.
After that, I lost my mother first, which was hard. But I was much older and could cope with it better. My dad died of cancer a bit later.
Learning to Live with Grief Grief of my husband was easier for me because we talked about it. And I knew what he wanted because of his sickness. Our daughter was the worst of all. Because in your mind, you expect your child to bury you, not the other way around. I was even mad at God for a while. I had to come to understand that no one has control over how long we live or when we will die. I asked God to forgive me and I thank him for the years we had together.
To those of you who are grieving, try not to think about the bad, but to think about the good times together. Silly things you did will take away the sadness. You will smile again and not cry. Joy will come in a special way that only God can give you. You will always miss them. But lonely days will pass. New things will begin to unfold for you. If you did all you could do for them in life, you will have no regrets when they are gone.
Photo of Marian in her younger years. Provided by Mariam Dixon.
Grief is a difficult experience, but it is something that we all have to go through at some point in our lives. It is important to remember that you are not alone and that there are people who can help you through this difficult time. If you are grieving, please reach out to a friend, family member, or counselor for support.
If you are experiencing grief, you are not alone. There is help available.
Call 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, a free, confidential 24/7 service that can provide support and resources to people in emotional distress.
In addition, there are a number of local services available to help people cope with grief, including:
Help Happens Here: https://helphappenshere.org/mentalhealthservices/
The Center: https://thecentercville.org/programs/detail/category/support-groups
Hospice of the Piedmont: https://hopva.org/grief-and-healing/
Please reach out for help if you need it.
Additional information about the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline:
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a national network of over 200 crisis centers that provides free and confidential support 24/7.
The Lifeline connects people with a trained crisis counselor who can provide emotional support, resources, and referrals to other services.
The Lifeline is available to anyone who needs it, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
If you are in immediate danger of harming yourself or someone else, please call 911.
In this video, Eddie Harris, Katrina Spencer, Angilee Shah, Charles Lewis and Sarad talk about Vinegar Hill Magazine. This video short explores why Vinegar Hill Magazine came into existence in the first place and about its growth over the years. It also, speaks to the Charlottesville Inclusive Media project, a partnership between Vinegar Hill, Charlottesville Tomorrow, and the In My Humble Opinion radio show. Learn more about how Vinegar Hill is leaning into its mission of creating a more inclusive social narrative in Central Virginia and beyond. (Video produced by Lifeview Marketing and Visuals)
Charles A. Lewis (In My Humble Opinion), Tracie Powell (The Pivot Fund), and Angilee Shah (Charlottesville Tomorrow) spoke about the news and information needs of community members at the Virginia Local News Summit at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture on April 20, 2023. Nina Wilder/Virginia Humanities
First Person Charlottesville is gaining momentum!
Charlottesville Inclusive Media’s collaborative project to raise up the voices of community members was featured at the American Press Institute Local News Summit on Opinion, Civic Discourse and Sustainability in April, as a new model for local opinion pages. We are reimagining local opinion pages by focusing on lived experiences, rather than just opinions.
We’re also a finalist for 2023 The Next Challenge for Media and Journalism Future of News contest! It’s an award to “a startup pioneering new ways to report the news and provide communities with fact-based insight, analysis, and information” that could help supercharge our work. It’s a program of Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group which identifies, elevates and invests in groundbreaking media ventures.
One part of the contest is about you, the public! A $10,000 award will go to the finalist in each division with the most votes! Vote for Charlottesville Inclusive Media here! You will be able to vote after a quick verification using your mobile phone number (which is not stored or shared by the organizers).
Want to learn more about this powerful partnership? Sarad Davenport of Vinegar Hill Magazine, Charles Lewis of In My Humble Opinion, and Angilee Shah of Charlottesville Tomorrow will talk about Charlottesville Inclusive Media’s origins, how the partnership is seeking to change the news ecosystem of central Virginia, and the first year of First Person Charlottesville at the Collaborative Media Summit in Washington, D.C. in June — and it will be streamed live!
Here’s where you can see the presentation at 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday, June 7.
Darryl Morin (at the podium), president of Forward Latino, spoke at a press conference of gun violence prevention groups on Nov. 7, 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin. They spoke in support of measures to expand universal background checks and create a red flag law to allow the removal of firearms from people who pose a danger to themselves or others. Karly Scholz (second from the left) was in high school and had experienced a lockdown that year. She says that while legislative change is imperative, she focuses now on helping young people change their culture around guns. Claire Wesenberg/Courtesy
by Karly Scholz
The first time I confronted gun violence, I was 15 years old at Madison West High School in Wisconsin in 2018. We were celebrating Valentine’s Day when a student threatened a security guard with a gun and the whole school went on lockdown until he was disarmed and in custody.
The second time, I was 19 at the University of Virginia in 2022. I went on lockdown in a library overnight — but this time, three students were killed.
Since that first encounter, gun violence has been constantly on my mind. Community safety alerts flood my email inbox, updates on school shootings around the country — recently, a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee at the end of March — flood my home screen. The chatter about how to protect our communities serves as an incessant reminder of the epidemic that our country is facing.
In August 2022, a driver ran her car into Katrina Spencer’s apartment near the Barracks Road and Emmet Street intersection. There were no physical injuries — and life went on. Courtesy of Katrina Spencer
by Katrina Spencer
If you’ve never had your neighbor’s 2003 Ford Taurus station wagon jump a curb and enter your residential living room, let me tell you: it’s disruptive. You’ll definitely have to cancel your meetings for the rest of the afternoon.
You remember the Kool-Aid commercials from the ‘90s when a big-ass pitcher of fruity, red, sweetened water made its entrance on the scene? Like, “Wham-O! Oh yeah! I’m here and I brought sucrose for everyone!” It’s like that, but with more shards of glass and broken brick. And, of course, no sugar spike.
When you arrive downstairs on scene to inspect the damage seconds letter, trapped inside your home because the bush your neighbor has utterly demolished is blocking your exit, she is dutifully parking, being sure to put her sun visor in place because even significant, life-threatening property damage shouldn’t keep one from protecting their car’s interior from the damaging rays of the summer sun! Let’s all maintain decorum!
In my younger years, I was full of misplaced energy and lacked focus. To be completely honest, I had no clue what I wanted to pursue, and the expectations facing me and my friends– young Black men, many of us from single-parent homes– were not high.
The kitchen was the perfect place for a young man full of misplaced energy and difficulties focusing. The pace was relentless, which forced me to be fully present. There was always something new to learn, which kept me fully engaged. And the work meant something– we were feeding people, and I was proud every time a plate I had worked on left the kitchen. It didn’t hurt that, like many teens, I was drawn to fire and knives– and now I was getting paid to work with them.
Antwon and the neighborhood kids in Niagara Falls, NY | Photo contributed by author.
I was raised in Niagara Falls, New York, by a loving mom who also happened to be a foster parent. I was blessed with the opportunity to watch my mother walk in her purpose every single day. She created an environment of love and support for all kids, including family, kids in the neighborhood, and most importantly the 250+ kids she raised during her career. My mom touched so many lives and inspired me and all of my siblings to pursue our passions, but that was easier said than done. Before I walked into the restaurant’s kitchen, I had no clue what I wanted to pursue, and the expectations facing me and my friends– young Black men, many of us from single-parent homes– were not high.
Antwon and his mother. Photo contributed by author.
Inspired by my first kitchen experience, the following school year, I took a cooking class as an elective. What started as a hobby quickly evolved under the instruction of a caring and supportive teacher, and I developed a passion for cooking and decided to apply and enroll in the Culinary Institute of America. I was the first, and only, of my friends to ‘make it out’ of the grind of the environment we’d been raised in, where crime dominated, drugs offered false hopes, and often our most proximate role models were ex-pimps, gangsters and hustlers.
Knowing how far I’d come and how much further I wanted to go, I created a list of goals to succeed in the world of fine dining. Where I was growing up, my community had big Caribbean influences and I would live vicariously through stories about people’s homelands, cultures, and food. When I had an opportunity to select my internship for school, I thought of those stories, and the pictures of palm trees that I taped up in my childhood bedroom. I decided to intern in the Caribbean. While there, I fell in love with the culture and cuisine, which led to me traveling and working in different countries throughout the region.
In the years that followed, I quickly checked goals off my list. I did a three year apprentice program, training under certified master chefs, which led to my ascension through the culinary ranks; moving from Sous Chef, to Chef de Cusine, Executive Sous, Executive Chef, and Food and Beverage Director. I worked with extremely talented teams and collectively, we achieved success and accolades. Yet despite meeting the goals I had set years prior, I found myself unfulfilled. I didn’t feel connected to any community in particular after years of moving from job to job.
In early 2017, my wife and I moved to Charlottesville. I had accepted the role of helping to open a new concept, where I would serve as Executive Chef. The owners hired me to recruit and build a kitchen team. From the very start, finding qualified staff was a challenge– few of the candidates who applied for roles had much culinary experience, and even fewer understood the soft skills needed to be successful as a career professional.
While the process of building a team from the ground up was a challenge, I began to realize how passionate I was about teaching others. And, as I gained more insights into the labor shortages facing other restaurants, I began to wonder if there was an opportunity to start a program that focused on providing both culinary and life skills. I started researching programs across the country and was only able to find a handful that were providing the type of training that I envisioned. One of those programs, Liberty’s Kitchen, was located in New Orleans. An amazing woman by the name of Janet Gorence Davas has built it from the ashes of Hurricane Katrina’s impacts. I reached out to Janet and she was welcoming and supportive. My research, conversation, and experiences led me to conclude that most culinary training was out of touch with the realities of the restaurant industry and the needs of both students and employers.
While I had a seed of an idea, I was not sure how to launch the concept. I had helped grow and improve established businesses, but I had never founded one from scratch. With only my concept in hand, I joined a local entrepreneurship program, which helped me shape my vision, setting the foundation to what is now known as Culinary Concepts AB.
One of the biggest lessons I learned in the early stages of evolution was called customer discovery, which gives you the opportunity to speak with and interview people who you think would be your ideal customer. Confident in my idea, I made a survey, put on a suit and tie, and approached 50 local restaurants. I explained that I could help them with their staffing issues. I went door to door, sidewalk to sidewalk parked car to parked car. I distributed flyers and spoke with people. I learned which time of day was best to go to Cherry Hill, to Belmont, to South Street. After weeks of effort, six people applied to my class. I accepted four of the applicants.
Culinary School Graduation (Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY). Photo contributed by author.
Today, we are fortunate to have many talented partners and team members who support our mission. We’ve expanded our programming to reach students who are preparing to leave the Charlottesville-Albemarle jail and who need to find careers after re-entry. We are equipped to build custom programs to work with high schoolers, families looking to develop healthy eating habits, kids learning their first kitchen skills, and more.
I’ve spent years in the culinary industry, and my feelings towards it are complex. My love of food and gathering people around the table have only grown stronger in the years since I was a teen dicing carrots and working the fry station. But I’ve also seen the ugly side of the industry, in dozens of restaurants, states, and countries. Turnover is high, and workers are often treated as disposable. Kitchen culture can be macho, toxic, and even dangerous. While a major draw to the industry is the low barriers to entry, this can also mean that many folks show up to work with major unaddressed challenges, including trauma, difficulties with emotional management, and confusion over unfamiliar or unarticulated expectations.
My vision is to change the culinary industry from the ground up. This may sound far-fetched at first glance, but my experience over the past three years running my business have taught me the profound impact of meeting people where they are, offering mentorship, and teaching life skills that help people succeed. This isn’t only about supporting people who work in kitchens– part of what makes Culinary Concepts so successful is that we also work with employers to ensure that they are offering living wages, healthy kitchen cultures, and realistic work expectations. This approach creates a virtuous cycle. Our grads are committed to their own professionalism, success, and our employers are aware that recruiting and sustaining top talent pays off in lower turnover and more successful kitchens.
So far, we’ve collectively trained over 150 students through our GOCook and Phoenix programs that focus on students with significant barriers to employment. And we’re grateful to the broader community that supports us– our model is partially supported by offering private, group, and corporate cooking classes. We’re honored that folks with greater means and a passion for food spend their dollars locally on these classes and in so doing, help support our mission.
GO Cook graduating class with Antwon and city officials.
Culinary Concepts AB is a product of my whole story. CCAB wouldn’t exist without my mom, who expressed her love in her actions and taught me to walk in my passion. The streets help me develop my swag, common sense and most importantly how to navigate. Through my travels, which exposed me to so many unique people and cultures, I’ve learned that everyone has something to contribute. And through my career, I’ve learned the value of mindset– that with drive, collaboration, and commitment to excellence, anyone can excel in the culinary arts. CCAB’s ambitious vision is essential to our community’s well-being– creating a culinary industry that elevates its workers, their families, and our whole community. The message I want to get across to everyone that interacts with Culinary Concepts is that you get what you focus on. I’ve decided to focus on using my craft to make the world a better place for all of us.
Learn more about CCAB’s work and how you can support our efforts by visiting our website.
Adrienne Dent, a substitute crossing guard for Charlottesville City Schools, is advocating on behalf of her colleagues for the city to better enforce speed limits around schools. “It is our hope that, when new signs indicating camera enforcement go up, drivers will truly slow down,” she writes.
by Adrienne Dent
Next Monday, I’ll appear before City Council to represent the Charlottesville City Schools crossing guards to appeal for a pilot program to enforce speed limits by camera.
It’s a new intervention legalized by the Virginia General Assembly in 2020. We hope to pilot three critical high traffic, high speed and high risk areas: one at Clark Elementary, soon to be officially renamed “Summit,” one at Buford Middle School on Cherry Avenue, and also at yet-to-be-renamed Johnson Elementary.
See it from our perspective. At Buford on Cherry Avenue, vehicles tear up the hill from Roosevelt Brown Boulevard. From the crossing post just over the crest of the hill, you hear the engines engaging hard before you see the hood. Does the digital sign facing those oncoming cars, the one that flashes “Your Speed Is __,” encourage folks to accelerate faster? From the other direction toward Fry’s Spring, cars often cruise past the flashing school zone sign without slowing down.
Mithrellas Curtis has spent many Christmases at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia.
by Mithrellas Curtis
“Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright,” I sang softly, harmonizing with my mom and sisters.
About 20 years ago, in Saltville, Virginia, Silmarien, Gwynniel and I sat huddled around our mother on a sagging couch. Even in the dinky apartment, they looked like a trio of angels, bathed in the soft blue glow from the fake, white Christmas tree in our living room.
It was around 3 a.m. — still Christmas Eve to us — and we finally finished last-minute Christmas preparations that had started right after we put my two young brothers to bed. I don’t know if Mark and Joseph, 8 and 9 years old then, still believed in Santa, but us older gals (I was 17 years old) enjoyed the ruse.
After we tucked the boys in, we tramped out to the parking lot and retrieved their gifts from the trunk of Mom’s Ford Mustang, our breath puffing before us in the frigid air. Back inside, we spent several hours trying to be quiet and stifled laughter as we joked and teased each other, tackling our Christmas night to-do list.
