Updated 03/12/2023

Orientation to Cville 2022

The Orientation to Cville series is open to everyone, but is particularly designed to provide context for students who are doing (or plan to do) clinical or pro bono work in the community, and is required attendance for some clinics. Part 1 featured tours of Vinegar Hill and the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.

• Part 1, which includes tours we have arranged at the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center (near downtown) and the U.Guides African-American History Tour (including Memorial to Enslaved Laborers) by signing up at this link.

• Part 2, Oct. 4, 3:30-4:45 in Caplin Pavilion (watch the video here), focuses on UVA’s fraught history in its relationship with both the Black and Native American communities in this area, and the work being done to repair the harm done. Prof. Sarah Shalf will moderate a discussion with panelists including Louis Nelson, Vice Provost for Academic Outreach and Professor of Architectural History, Rufus Elliott, a citizen and formal tribal administrator of the Monacan Indian Nation and Equity Center Community Fellow-in-Residence, Niya Bates Col ’12, Arch. ’15, former Director of African American History and Getting Word Oral History Project at Monticello, and Cauline Yates, committee member, Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVa. Snacks provided!

• Part 3: Community Activism in Cville: A Focus On Affordable Housing, Tuesday, November 1, at 3:30 p.m. in WB104. (Video here.) This panel features some of Charlottesville's most successful community organizers and activists who will talk about their work as it pertains to the affordable housing crisis in Charlottesville, with a focus on housing policy advocacy following the notorious "Summer of Hate" in Charlottesville 2017. This panel will feature Harold Folley, community organizer at the Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) and member of UVA's President's Council; Joy Johnson, recent winner of the Cushing Niles Dolbeare Lifetime Service Award from the National Low Income Housing Coalition and founder of Charlottesville’s Public Housing Association of Residents; Carmelita Wood, who spent her childhood in Vinegar Hill and is now President of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association; and Moriah Wilkins, current Skadden Fellow at LAJC whose focus is on racial and housing justice using a community lawyering approach.  Participants are strongly encouraged to watch Raised/Razed, available at https://www.pbs.org/video/raisedrazed-bg0gek/, prior to attending the panel for relevant historical context. Students are invited to remain in WB104 for Robin Leiter-White’s Housing Law & Poverty class, featuring guest Lyle Solla-Yates of the Charlottesville Housing Commission, from 5-7pm.