This book begins with a chronology that starts with the year 1607 and ends with more than a page of entries for 2017. What ensues are fourteen essays by fifteen University of Virginia professors brought together by two distinguished U. Va. history professor editors, one African-American, Dr. Claudrena N. Harold, and the other Caucasian, Dr. Louis P. Nelson. The essays provide the historical context for race relations at U.Va. that began with the slave labor that built the University and continued with the rarely challenged perpetuation of “Lost Cause” teaching and legitimation of “massive resistance” to integration. This led up to Charlottesville as the chosen site for the white supremacist demonstrations of August 11th and 12th 2017 that killed Heather Heyer. “This is a hallmark of thoughtful, responsible intellectual leadership. As a concerned American, a proud UVA alumna, and a scholar of race and politics, I recommend this book to anyone who seeks to broaden their perspective on the overlapping issues of white supremacy, free speech, public policy and the role of the university in promoting equality.” – Andra Gillespie. “This book delivers engaging, wide-ranging responses to the dramatic days of August 11 and 12 in Charlottesville. It will be a genuinely important contribution to both the specifics of those incidents and the histories behind them and has much to offer readers trying to make sense of those bewildering events.” - Nicole Hemmer.
Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 2018. 225 pages with an Index, photos, and a Foreword by Grace Elizabeth Hale. Hardback in dust jacket, $39.50. Trade paperback.