So, this evocative and moving new memorial to the thousands of enslaved people who helped build and then served the university that Thomas Jefferson designed can make private conversations public. After a rainstorm, a visitor to the memorial noticed that water was slowly dripping from the memory marks. Images of enslaved people, especially during the early years of the university, are extraordinarily rare. The lack of early images of slavery doesn’t make slavery invisible, says Louis Nelson, professor of architectural history at U-Va. ADADIt was also small, and easy to miss, rather like it is easy to overlook Linnaeus’s name on Brooks Hall.

Source: Washington Post August 13, 2020 11:03 UTC