Morven’s Enslaved and Descendant Communities
Legacies of Enslavement at UVA’s Morven Farm
Morven is a nearly 3000-acre UVA-owned estate in rural Albemarle County, home to UVA's Sustainability Lab and the Morven Summer Institute (MSI). It is also a muti-layered historical and cultural landscape, home to generations of enslaved peoples and their descendants.
Last summer, MSI launched a new course — AAS 4005/ARH 4500: Morven's Enslaved and Descendant Communities — that invites students to explore the site's history from the perspective of those who have been excluded far too long from the official narrative.
Come join instructors Lenora McQueen and Scot French for a brief talk, followed by Q & A, about the course and their students' preliminary research findings. Learn about the unique activities planned for this year's 10-day summer session, including an archaeologist-guided site tour, hands-on archival research, digital transcription workshops, and a day-long field trip to Richmond.
Scot French is a digital public historian specializing in the study of cultural landscapes associated with 19th and 20th century African American history. He has worked closely with community partners to document & interpret Charlottesville-area sites of memory, including the historic Jefferson School (now the African American Heritage Center) and Vinegar Hill residential and business district (demolished in the 1960s).
Lenora McQueen is an educator, researcher, and preservation advocate whose ancestors were enslaved at Morven. Her ongoing, multi-year campaign to document and preserve Richmond's Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground (where her Morven ancestor Kitty Cary is buried) culminated last year in a National Register of Historic Places listing for the site.
https://virginia.zoom.us/j/94272996058?pwd=bVg0cUJxZElKR3l2T0Z4WURNVThVQT09
Meeting ID: 942 7299 6058
Passcode: 473913