K-20 Anti-Racist Educational Activism in Post-2017 Charlottesville
In May, July, and August 2017, white supremacist rallies were held in which KKK members and other white supremacists gathered shouting racist and antisemitic slogans, coined the Summer of Hate (Bromwich, 2017; Spencer & Stevens, 2017). At the August 2017 rally, counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed when an automobile drove into a crowd of counter-protesters (Astor et al., 2017). While media attention centered around these events on August 11-12, Charlottesville activists and public historians drew connections to the historical racism and inequities of the area. Since the Summer of Hate, community activists, organizations, and scholars advocated for antiracist policy changes around issues of systemic inequities, discrimination, and racism in housing, policing, and education. In July 2021, Charlottesville City removed the Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Lewis & Clark statutes, an initiative started by Author Bryant that sparked much of the backlash in 2017.
This article focuses on activism after 2017, challenging white supremacy in K-20 educational policy. It is derived from the accounts of community activists, leaders of community organizations, and educational researchers who have engaged in anti-racist and equity policy reforms in two local Charlottesville area public school districts, Charlottesville City Public Schools (CCS) and the surrounding Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS), as well as at the University of Virginia (UVA). CCS and ACPS are two distinct Virginia public preK-12 school divisions serving the Charlottesville metro area. This interpretive qualitative analysis is framed by various pathways to challenge white supremacy in educational institutions (Heidemann, 2022). It draws from various qualitative data sources centered on the authors’ and participants’ lived experiences and autoethnographic accounts of challenging white supremacy in Charlottesville’s public educational institutions. The emphasis here is on community and scholar activism challenging white supremacy in educational institutions.