Events

Local photojournalist and artist Ézé Amos is the creator of the exhibit “The Story of Us: Reclaiming the Narrative of #Charlottesville through Portraits of Community Resilience”, 36 larger-than-life 10′ x 8′ photos mounted front and back on trees all along the Downtown Mall. Each photo will have a QR code linking to a 3-minute recording of the person highlighted in the photo describing that moment in their own words and voice. Eze donated the photos to the City, which will install them August 9-10 (this exhibit is the City’s only anniversary commemoration event).

Ézé is collaborating with us to offer the community two free events meant to help Charlottesville deeply engage with our collective experiences of A12 through the exhibit:

• Wednesday August 10, 6:30pm — Meeting in the Downtown Library’s Swanson Case Room, Ézé will facilitate a town hall-style presentation in which he will both explain the genesis and intentionality behind “The Story of Us” and also offer attendees a chance to share their emotions and memories of their experiences of that weekend. Come in person or use this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85683422230

• Saturday August 13, 11am — Ézé will lead a roughly hour long guided walking tour of the exhibit,  photos. The meetup spot will be the Downtown Mall water fountain at the intersection with 2nd Street NE.

You won’t want to miss these powerful presentations and the chance to engage with Ézé about his very compelling exhibit (two samples below). Please spread the word, please bring family and friends!

If you want to help the Josh Throneburg Campaign #FlipThe5th and unseat Bob (No)Good, here are some options:

1. Join us this Thursday, August 4th, from 5-7pm at IX Park for our Weekly Thursday Night of Action (a bit of socializing, a good bit of strategizing)!

This week we’ll be focussing on phone banking and canvassing. There’ll be a printed phone list for folks to choose from to call into. If you wish to canvas please download “MiniVan” (download the app from these Apple or Android links if you don’t already have it) and you can even create an ActionID before Thursday to save time.

If you plan to attend, please sign up using this link:
https://www.mobilize.us/joshforvirginia/event/475179/

There will be training on MiniVan for those who need a refresher of haven’t ever used it (don’t worry, it’s not hard!).

2. If you can’t attend this Thursday, here’s the weekly schedule of other opportunities you can sign up:

• Wednesday Nights Virtual Phone Bank / 6:30pm – 8:30pm
• Thursday Nights J4VA & Generation Ratify Virginia Virtual Phone Bank / 6:30pm-8:30pm
• Sunday Evenings Virtual Phone Bank / 1pm – 4pm
• Sunday Evenings Virtual Text Bank / 4pm – 6pm
• Saturday Canvassing in Charlottesville (meet at The Dairy Market) / 10am – Noon & 1pm – 3pm

Sign up for any of these events here: https://www.mobilize.us/joshforvirginia/

Thanks for your support!

Oscar-nominated documentary director Julie Cohen (past works include the acclaimed “RBG” about Ruth Bader Ginsburg) will give a special Zoom talk + Q&A to Charlottesville on August 3rd at 6:30pm for her just-released film “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” (see trailer here). The new movie tells the extraordinary story of former Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ relentless and ultimately successful fight to recover from a 2011 assassination attemp, and her new life as one of the most effective activists in the battle against gun violence. More details on the Event Page.

We’ve organized the event, which is co-sponsored by Moms Demand Action Charlottesville, The B.U.C.K Squad, and Students Demand Action at UVA (the latter three groups are not affiliated with the Democratic Party) to continue bringing attention to the curse of gun violence and spotlight the work citizen activists are doing locally and nationwide.

 

Here’s a handy graphic showing the contrast on the issues of Education, Procuring Investments in our region, Gun Safety, Women’s Rights and Abortion Rights, and corporate price gouging (an important factor in the current inflation):

• • • • Starting this Saturday, July 9th, and continuing every Saturday until Election Day, we’ll be canvassing in Charlottesville every Saturday, meeting at the Dairy Market (946 Grady Ave.) at 10am and/or 1pm. Check out https://www.mobilize.us/joshforvirginia to sign up!
    • Phone banking happens on Wednesdays 6:30-8:30pm, “virtual” phone banking Sundays 1:00-4:00 PM. Experienced phone bankers and canvassers — please contact Chris Burton at chris@joshforvirginia.com .

    If you want to plug into the campaign or have suggestions, reach out to Trent Fisher, the Campaign’s new point person for Charlottesville and Albemarle, at trent@joshforvirginia.com or by texting 434-825-5487.

Filmmaker Lorenzo Dickerson and writer Jordy Yager, local creators of the very well-received May 2022 movie Raised/Razed about the life and destruction of Vinegar Hill, will speak at 6:30pm on July 28th at the Central Library. You can attend this event either in person (Swanson Case Room 125, formerly named the McIntire Room) or via this Zoom link.

Lorenzo and Jordy will share hard truths about the federal Urban Renewal program and its impact on scores of American cities (Durham, NC is also profiled) through a deep dive into the history and demolition of Vinegar Hill, Charlottesville’s oldest African American neighborhood. They chart the lives of its residents as they faced racially discriminatory policies and a city government that saw them as obstacles to “progress”, and they identify some of the most important take-aways from this history.

Many of us watched Raised/Razed at its PBS premiere; if you haven’t seen it yet it’s only an hour long and is available at no charge on the VPM website <https://vpm.org/raisedrazed>. Please watch (or re-watch!) the film before their talk and come with questions about (1) their journalistic & cinematic storytelling and (2) what they learned in the process of making the film.

Notes:

• This is, at the filmmakers’ request, a Dems-only event… just for this one, don’t spread the word but do come yourself!
• This will be the first event with an in-person option as well as Zoom in our co-sponsored series with Albemarle Dems since Covid began!