Charlottesville unveils historical marker about sales of enslaved people

WMRA | By Randi B. Hagi

Published March 3, 2025 at 7:45 PM EST

Jalane Schmidt is an associate professor of religious studies at UVa, a member of the Charlottesville Historic Resources Committee, and director of the Memory Project at UVa. Schmidt wrote the text of the historical marker and spoke at an unveiling event on March 3.

The city of Charlottesville unveiled a state historical marker on Monday that recognizes the sales of enslaved men, women, and children on Court Square in the 18th and 19th centuries. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.

More than 75 people gathered outside the Albemarle County Courthouse on Monday afternoon, March 3 – a day that Charlottesville recognizes as Liberation and Freedom Day. That's the anniversary of the arrival of Union cavalry in 1865, when many enslaved residents – who made up more than half the population of Albemarle County – escaped bondage.

DeTeasa Brown Gathers, past president of The Descendants of Enslaved Communities at the University of Virginia, spoke at the marker's unveiling.

DeTeasa Brown Gathers, past president of The Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVa, addresses the crowd.

DETEASA BROWN GATHERS: I want to mention about the location of it being upright. Alright, let's say upright!

CROWD: Upright! [applause]

BROWN GATHERS: Things that represent our Black community mostly have been on the ground in this community. Has been hidden. Has been in spaces that you have not been able to see it.

Jalane Schmidt, associate professor of religious studies at UVa, wrote the marker's text after holding discussions with descendants of enslaved people and conducting extensive historical research with her graduate students – including a review of the receipts of sale of human beings that are archived at the courthouse.

JALANE SCHMIDT: We thought it was very important to mention the name Fountain Hughes … enslaved residents of our community who left a record of what these sales did to families here. … And also the name Thomas Jefferson, to note that the very largest sale on record that we have … was the sale from his estate in 1829.

Local residents and community leaders applaud the unveiling of the historical marker.

Cauline Yates, a member of the leadership team of the Descendants of Enslaved Communities, was a part of those discussions.

CAULINE YATES: As a community, as a state, and as a nation … there wasn't a lot of truth about slavery. There were comments that African Americans liked being in slavery, because without slavery, where would they be? They wouldn't know anything. And that's not true, because of the patents and the different things that were built by African Americans to help them with their daily life. … They did design and invent a lot of things. So we're just looking for the truth.

This marker is one of 20 approved by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources each year.

This state historical marker is the twenty-seventh located in the city of Charlottesville. — The historical marker includes the names of Fountain Hughes and Maria Perkins, whose firsthand accounts of enslavement in Charlottesville survive to the present day. Hughes was interviewed at age 101 in 1949, a recording of which is available from the Library of Congress.