Remembering and Forgetting Teachers and Students in the Struggle: Racism and Historical Memory in the Shadow of Jefferson's University

• In Event: Whose Memory Matters? Race and the Making of America's Historical Monuments and Curricula

Abstract

This article examines how Black teachers and students from the long Civil Rights Movement are remembered and forgotten within public space. It uses Charlottesville, Virginia, a city that has lived and continues to live in the shadow of Jefferson’s University, as a case study. In particular, it focuses on the historical markers and interrogates the collective narrative generated by these markers. Drawing upon secondary sources and primary sources such as archival materials, memoirs by Black teachers, school yearbooks and periodicals, and oral history interviews, I argue that the focus on the struggles of Black students within public pedagogy has obscured the role played by Black teachers during the era of school desegregation.

Author

• Alexander Hyres, University of Utah