Virginia

Facing the site of the Davis Monument on the south side of Monument Avenue is the John Kerr Branch House, one of the largest single-family dwellings ever built in the city of Richmond. John Kerr Branch, a powerful local banker, bought the land from his father, one of the major landholders during the development of Monument Avenue. Branch was involved in the development of Union Station, two blocks to the north, and asked Pope to design a house for him.

Monument Avenue exemplifies the complex history of Virginia, and Richmond in particular, in its connection to slavery, the Civil War, and decades of de jure and de facto segregation in the public realm. When originally laid out Monument Avenue was a grand thoroughfare in the tradition of earlier boulevards in Europe and America, 140-feet wide, divided by a grassy median, and lined with trees. The historic section of Monument Avenue stretches out from the old city limits at Franklin Street for one and one-half miles. It was planned with a dual purpose.

The Maggie L. Walker Statue and Plaza is located on West Broad Street, one of Richmond’s major thoroughfares. It is the city’s first monument to a woman and one of a few dedicated to a person of color. Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934) was a leading figure in the quest for the social and financial advancement of African Americans. The daughter of a formerly enslaved woman and white immigrant father, Walker became a prominent business leader in Richmond, establishing a newspaper, the St. Luke Herald, in 1902, and the following year chartering the St.

The cluster of buildings known as the South Lawn dramatically extends the University of Virginia in a new direction across the old Lynchburg Road, now Jefferson Park Avenue. Initially, Thomas Jefferson’s design for the Lawn ended with Pavilions IX and X and a dramatic view of the mountains to the south. He intended for more buildings to be added on either side of the Lawn as the university expanded, but that the view should remain open.

The concept for this memorial to enslaved laborers began in 2010 as a student-led effort to recognize and honor the estimated 4,000 or more enslaved people who lived and worked at the University of Virginia between 1817 and 1865, helping to construct and maintain its original buildings.

Shady Grove Rosenwald School is one of the 366 schools (plus 4 teacher cottages and 12 industrial shops) built in Virginia between 1917 and 1932 with funding from the Rosenwald rural school building program. This program, a partnership between philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and educational leader Booker T. Washington, was an effort to improve the quality of public education for African American children in the rural South during the era of segregation. Rosenwald provided construction funds that were matched by local communities, which also covered operating expenses.

A memorial, interpretative center, and park are in the planning stages for this site, which has been used for trade and commerce since the 1730s and became the center of the slave trade in Richmond and the upper South from circa 1800 until 1865. The larger area, known variously as Shockoe Bottom, Shockoe Basin, or Shockoe Creek, is located east of downtown, on the James River and stretches inland along the creek at the base of Shockoe and Church hills.

Kehinde Wiley’s 27-foot-tall, 60,000-pound bronze equestrian statue confronts the legacy of slavery and the glorification of the Confederacy. The statue depicts a young African American man astride a rearing horse. The rider wears his dreadlocks in a high ponytail and is dressed in a hoodie, ripped jeans, and Nike high-tops. The statue rests on a large stone podium in a small plaza in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Jefferson’s “academical village” centered on the Rotunda, located on the north end of an open lawn lined with pavilions. Inspired by Benjamin Henry Latrobe's suggestion that a domed central building occupy the head of the Lawn, Jefferson turned to the Pantheon (118-125 CE) in Rome for its design, although with a reduced scale.