CSIJ 200: Race & Racism in America

A review of the historic singularities and contemporary significance of aspects of Jackson Ward’s legacy.

The East Marshall Street Well Project at Virginia Commonwealth University addresses the discovery of human remains and artifacts from the 19th century found in an abandoned well on the MCV Campus in 1994. The project aims to ensure the remains, primarily of African descent, receive appropriate study, memorialization, and reburial, reflecting the dignity they were denied in life and death.

A guided, virtual tour of the distinct, but easy to overlook sites around Richmond, VA that tells the story of the Black experience throughout history.

Commentary by the Southern Poverty Law Center on the Hidden In Plain Site Virtual Tour

An interactive map that shows area descriptions created by the agents of the federal government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation between 1935 and 1940.

The Project Gabriel final report provides the full recommendations of Project Gabriel, an independent commission of civic and scholarly leaders. It represents a menu of options to be vetted and considered that would fulfill the directives of Virginia’s Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program (Va. Code § 23.1-615.1), which was passed in 2021 and directs Virginia’s five oldest colleges and universities, including VCU, to research their historic involvement with slavery, to identify enslaved people who were forced to perform labor for those institutions and to provide a tangible benefit for individuals or communities with connections to enslaved labor to break cycles of poverty.

Using the Just City Essays as a model, urban planner and consultant Ebony Walden collaborated with Dr. Meghan Gough from VCU's Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and urban farmer and activist Duron Chavis, to create a similar collection of 24 essays along with 7 video interviews and an 8-episode podcast series focused on racial equity In Richmond.

The Richmond Transparency and Accountability Project (RTAP) builds safer, healthier communities by disrupting mass incarceration at its source: police policies and procedures. RTAP organizes black and brown people, legal experts, and policy analysts to achieve policing practices that reduce physical, economic, and emotional trauma on the most policed neighborhoods in the city.

A report conducted by the School of Education at VCU and the Center for Education and Civil Rights at Penn State. "Explores the landscape of school segregation in Virginia and lays out a variety of state-level policy recommendations designed to help local divisions better understand and address the role boundaries play in structuring segregation"

The Medical College of Virginia had been intimately connected with the institution of slavery from its founding in 1838 through the Civil War. This study documented the ways in which slavery remained central to MCV as a first step in helping Virginia Commonwealth University grapple with a troubled and problematic past.

Timeline from 1850-present detailing housing events in Richmond.

The Race and Racism at the University of Richmond Project is an interdisciplinary initiative that documents, interrogates, and catalyzes community discussions on the history of race and racism at the university. Focused around student-centered research and community-based learning, this project contributes to broader conversations surrounding the role of the university in the local, regional, and national community.

Rhoades' reporting brings awareness to the racial disparities within this school district, discrimination against minority students within the classroom, and stereotyping of students who come from low-income neighborhoods.

This article examines newspapers, archival collections, interviews, and personal papers to place Richmond, Virginia, at the center of the national debate about public–private revitalization projects.