Library of Virginia hosts documentary screenings on displacement and community history

Filmmakers Lorenzo Dickerson and Jordy Yager will present and discuss their Emmy and Telly Award–winning film Raised/Razed on Friday, November 7th, from 2 to 4 p.m. The documentary examines the destruction of Vinegar Hill, Charlottesville’s oldest African American neighborhood, through the lens of residents who faced racially discriminatory urban renewal policies. The film also situates Vinegar Hill’s story within the broader national history of federally backed redevelopment programs. Registration for the event is available here.

Dickerson, founder of the Maupintown Film Festival and Maupintown Media, produces documentaries that highlight African American history and culture in Virginia. Yager, a journalist and digital humanities director at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, has led mapping and oral history projects focused on racial covenants and African American community heritage in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

On Friday, December 12th, from 2 to 4 p.m., the Library will screen Rock Castle Home, followed by a discussion with director and executive producer Charles D. Thompson Jr., a professor of cultural anthropology and documentary studies at Duke University. Registration is available here.

The film tells the story of families displaced from Rock Castle Gorge during the creation of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the 1930s. While the area became part of a national effort to promote tourism, local farm families were forced to leave their land. The documentary follows descendants who work to preserve their community’s memory through stories and photographs.

More information about the House to Highway exhibition and related events is available on the Library of Virginia’s website here. Programming support is provided by Virginia Humanities and the Mellon Foundation.