Object Lesson: Monuments and Memory in Charlottesville

A century apart, Charlottesville's public squares became stages for white supremacy, with mobs in 1917 and 2017 both asserting racial hierarchies through ritualized displays of intimidation. The study reveals how racism is inscribed into the city's fabric—its streets, buildings, and monuments—reinforcing silent geographies of race. While visual memory of such events may have dimmed in an image-saturated age, the legacy persists, particularly in monuments commissioned by elites between 1917 and 1924, which transformed the cityscape while masking deeper racial tensions.

Nelson. (2018). Object Lesson: Monuments and Memory in Charlottesville. Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 25(2), 17. https://doi.org/10.5749/buildland.25.2.0017