Events

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!

Last Friday’s Fish Fry Fundraiser at the Jefferson School was a big success in every way:

• Attendance was great —200+ people signed up, 59 of them at the sponsor levels. Thank you all!
• Actually, attendance was even greater — another 100 people were a block away at the Federal Building protesting the Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, and when they heard Sen Lucas was speaking they came over to hear her… so in the end, we had a crowd of 300!
• Financial success — we think this will put us in a good financial position to work hard on all the political issues facing us.