08/05/2025
Throwback Thursday ... Remembering when the 8th District's Hickory Hill Center was a Chesterfield High school for African Americans, long before its annexation by Richmond. Immense thanks go out to the Hickory Hill Historical Association and Members Eric Hunter Sr. and Monica Esparza, to name but a few, for their unwavering work and persistent efforts to obtain historical designation for that site, which serves as a Richmond rec & Parks community Center, and a hub for community events and civic meetings. All of those labors culminated on April 25 2025, when the Group held a program marking that achievement - an event that further demonstrated the 8th District's determined march away from old established isolating and exclusionary practices and embarking on a path of communication and inclusion for all People - particularly residents of Richmond's 8th District; which finally saw a facility used to educate and perfect African American heritage and knowledge given historical acclaim instead of earmarked demolition. Given a place in history, instead of conversion into a parking lot, or a residential home, or a fire station burning training site, or any other use that masked or obliterated its original use and affiliation with African Americans, or their unmatched successes. Can't say it enough, kudos to that extraordinary group for their hard, oft solitary, work towards the day, the moment, when building preservation was made certain. I attended a few of their meetings there, where only some 5-8 were in attendance, and where they echoed the difficulties they faced from lacking support, funds, and the cooperation of local leadership. Oh, what a victory indeed! Not for them or for the Group, but for everyday, common, folk. Common folk who overcame Richmond's historical DNA of disenfranchising and invisibilizing its African American populus and the places and things they cherished. From Richmond's Mayor to Virginia Senator, to former RPS Board Chair, to longstanding Richmond voices against oppression, to bright, articulate, and sharp students from Thomas Boushall who articulated the bios of the panelists, to former Chesterfield students who actually attended school at Hickory Hill, all were in attendance. It was great to see the conceiver of Richmond's Enslavement Trail, the Honorable Sa'ad El-Amin, in attendance, and seated adjacent to me, both as members of a panel invited to entertain questions as to and speak about and the reverberating trend of familial and cultural destruction and the denigration of people of color, or as Sa'ad put it, giving the appearance that civil rights have been granted when in actuality the issue is one of human rights. The unsettled question of exactly who and who is not human raging both here in Richmond and around the globe. The event was masterful for its purpose and its design, but was even more epochal for its throwback reunions of Sa'ad and myself - two first and onlys. We laughed as we noted that I was the only person to picket City Hall when Maggie L Walker High School was closed and Sa'ad was the only member of Richmond's City Council to vote in favor of restoring and reopening Maggie L Walker High School. Actions touching the very garment and manifestation of Richmond's DNA embedded and deprivationally select habits towards its African American citizens, and the communities they built, lived in, and desired to call their own and pass on to their heirs. Jackson Ward, Navy Hill, Carver, New Town, West End, Fulton, Church Hill, Sugar Hill, Blackwell, any places that uplifted evidenced pride, ancestors' toils, battles won, honors earned, all eradicated. You may want to take in the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center before it is sent along that path of DNA embedded cultural destruction in favor of providing a parking lot for a new ball diamond, at a payment of pennies to RPS for its conveyance. The more things change ... the more everyone else gets to realize the benefits. Don't forget to take your own self-guided African American Tour by visiting the Hickory Hill site and experiencing that real-time history firsthand, and then plan to re-visit once the Historical Marker is placed there - which of course will be advised here when that occurs. Thanks for your continued trust and support ... Emmett Jay, for African American Tours of Richmond ... Darkumentary of a People .... 2004-2025(c)(R)
