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Courtesy
of Alderman Library's Special Collections Department
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NEH
grant supports web-based "Race and Place" history projects
By
Robert Brickhouse
| 1867 |
J.T.S.
Taylor, a Charlottesville citizen and African-American, was
elected to Virginia's Constitutional Convention, held in Richmond
Dec. 3. Twenty-five of the 105 members were African Americans.
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| 1869
|
Twenty-seven
of the 180 newly elected General Assembly members were African
Americans. 1870 The 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution
was ratified. It gave all citizens the right to vote and gave
Congress the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
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|
1870-76
|
Virginia legislature passed several laws designed to restrict
African-American political participation. |
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1891
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Not one African-American remained in either house of the state
legislature. |
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1920
|
Three
Charlottesville African-American women successfully registered
to vote: Mrs. Maggie P. Burley, Mamie J. Farwell and Mrs. Alice
Grady. |
 |
| This
image, of a local African-American family, is from Alderman
Library's Rufus W. Holsinger Studio Collection Digital Image
Database, as is the above photo. |
This
abbreviated timeline is but a sampling of information from a University
web project that is building an archive of local African-American
history. The project recently received a $100,000 grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities to expand its offerings and
help establish similar electronic archives with historically black
colleges and universities around the state.
"Race
and Place," a history archive of the Charlottesville-Albemarle
County area during the Jim Crow era, is a joint project of the University's
Center for Digital History and the Carter G. Woodson Institute for
African-American and African Studies. It combines searchable databases
of important primary sources, including photographs, newspaper records
and census data, with historical exhibits on local African-American
life from about 1870 to 1930 from various collections at Alderman
Library.
The
two-year grant will enable U.Va. to continue to add census and court
records and other important historical resources to the archive.
With the local model and technological tools being developed as
part of it, U.Va. will also help historically black colleges and
universities around the state build similar community projects,
said Reginald D. Butler, director of the Woodson Institute, and
William G. Thomas, director of the Center for Digital History. U.Va.
is already collaborating with researchers at Norfolk State University
in developing a Tidewater African-American history digital archive.
In
the Charlottesville project, users can now search the site's databases
of African-American businesses and households, as recorded in U.S.
Census returns and Charlottesville city directories of the early
20th century. They can read local club and school announcements
as well as commentary on national events in an African-American-owned
and -operated newspaper, The Reflector. They can also explore the
political correspondence of African-Americans who struggled to retain
their voting rights in the face of statewide disenfranchisement
campaigns. Full story.
Health
premiums to rise
Open enrollment Nov.
15-Dec. 17
By
Dan Heuchert
The
rising cost of health care, and particularly drug costs, have forced
an increase in health-care premiums to take effect in January.
The
annual open-enrollment period, which runs Nov. 15 through Dec. 17,
allows employees to enroll or make changes in their health insurance
plans, and to initiate or renew flexible spending accounts. Packets
were mailed to employees' home addresses early this week. Full
story.
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