Our Mission
Highlighting African American history and culture of the African diaspora.
Our mission is to produce theater from and for the Black perspective and to create an atmosphere of collaboration and introspection. We formed because theater from a Black perspective was missing from Charlottesville’s artistic community. Alice Walker said, “if art doesn’t make us better then, what is it for.” Through CPG we aim to create foster artists and represent the uniqueness of the Black experience.
Our Beliefs
We believe that engaging with the nuances of African American history and culture leads to a
deeper understanding of American history and culture.
Our Goals
Our Center is a convening space for visitors to consider the intersections of local and global social practice and to gain a greater understanding of ourselves and others.
Our Work
Through a series of interdisciplinary programs we describe the cultural production and historical relevance of Black people from the post-Emancipation era to the present moment.
ABOUT US
Our History
The Jefferson School opened in the fall of 1865 as a Freedman’s School. First located on West Main Street at the site of the Delavan hotel, which it shared with the burgeoning First Baptist Church, it was both a graded and a normal school. In 1894 the Jefferson Graded School moved to 4th Street NW in the area that would evolve to be the Center of African American social and commercial life. The Jefferson High School opened in 1926 consolidating Black education into one area. It continued as the only Black high school in the city until 1951, when Jackson P. Burley High School was opened. The Jefferson School then reverted to an elementary school until its closing as a Black school in 1965.
Our Future
The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center opened in 2013 as an anchor tenant of the Jefferson School City Center. It offers a wide range of interdisciplinary programming including its permanent exhibition, Pride Overcomes Prejudice, that tells the history of the Jefferson School through the voices of alumni and community members. It further offers rotating contemporary art exhibitions featuring artists of the diaspora, lectures, a film and theater program, as well as six annual public celebrations. The Heritage Center is also home to the Isabella Gibbons Local History and Digital Humanities Center, which researches the history of Albemarle County and the surrounding region from enslavement through the present.
Our Staff
Andrea Douglas, Executive Director
Dr. Andrea Douglas, holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. in arts management and finance from Binghamton University, NY. Douglas has taught graduate and undergraduate classes in African American, contemporary, and art theory, and has published exhibition catalogues and scholarly articles. From 2004 – 2010 she was Curator of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art at the University of Virginia Art Museum.
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Andrea Douglas
Executive Director
Dr. Andrea Douglas, holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. in arts management and finance from Binghamton University, NY. Douglas has taught graduate and undergraduate classes in African American, contemporary, and art theory, and has published exhibition catalogues and scholarly articles. From 2004 -2010 she was Curator of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art at the University of Virginia Art Museum.
Presently, she is the co-chair of the President’s Commission on the Age of Segregation at the University of Virginia and sits on Monticello’s Advisory Committee on African American Affairs as well as the state’s History of Lynching in Virginia Working Group. She has served on the City of Charlottesville Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Monuments and Public Spaces, the University of Virginia’s President’s Commission on Slavery at the University and was chair of the city’s PLACE Design Task Force.
Jordy Yager, Digital Humanities Fellow
Jordy Yager began working with the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in 2017 when he helped launch the African American Oral History Project with local filmmakers Lorenzo Dickerson and Ty Cooper. In 2018, he continued that work with a project grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation to map racist housing policies and the corresponding life outcomes for a forthcoming exhibit at the JSAAHC.
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Jordy Yager
Digital Humanities Fello
Jordy Yager began working with the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in 2017 when he helped launch the African American Oral History Project with local filmmakers Lorenzo Dickerson and Ty Cooper. In 2018, he continued that work with a project grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation to map racist housing policies and the corresponding life outcomes for a forthcoming exhibit at the JSAAHC.
He is a graduate of Charlottesville High School, earned his B.A. in Sanskrit, and his M.A. in Journalism from Boston University. For the last 12 years he has worked as a daily journalist, primarily in Washington D.C. and his hometown of Charlottesville, where he focuses on issues of race and equity.
Kimalee Dickerson, Embracing Our Narrative Teacher Institute, Program Director
Dr. Kimalee Dickerson holds her B.A. and Ph.D in Education from the University of Virginia as well as her J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She joined the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to oversee the Embracing Our Narratives program in 2019 during its planning stages.
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Andrea Douglas
EON Teacher Institute, Program Director
Dr. Kimalee Dickerson holds her B.A. and Ph.D in Education from the University of Virginia as well as her J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She joined the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to oversee the Embracing Our Narratives program in 2019 during its planning stages. The project will offer a one week course exploring the history of Charlottesville and Albemarle County taught through the lens of African American people. In particular, the course will be structured around the topic of African American land ownership from the 18th century and the beginnings of free black communities, through the 20th century, including the development of Charlottesville’s public housing.
Leslie M. Scott-Jones, Associate Curator of Education and Public Programs
Leslie M. Scott-Jones joined JSAAHC torwards the end 2017. She studied theater education at VCU. Leslie has been writing, acting and directing since her teens. The world premiere of her first play Desire Moments was part of the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival. She has gone on to write several plays, novellas, and short stories. Book Ends, her first full length novel, hit the shelves Valentine’s Day Weekend 2016.
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Andrea Douglas
Artistic Director
Leslie M. Scott-Jones joined JSAAHC torwards the end of 2017. She studied theater education at VCU. Leslie has been writing, acting and directing since her teens. The world premiere of her first play Desire Moments was part of the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival. She has gone on to write several plays, novellas, and short stories. Book Ends, her first full length novel, hit the shelves Valentine’s Day Weekend 2016.
Leslie has been active in Charlottesville community theater for over ten years. She is the Artistic Director of the Charlottesville Player’s Guild at the Heritage Center and most recently starred in Hambone and directing Jitney by August Wilson with the Guild. Leslie played Louise in Seven Guitars by August Wilson which ran in November 2017 with UVa.’s Drama Department. Leslie is the co-founder of EugeneMartin LLC, an artist development firm in Charlottesville, Va. She is mother to two children and Mimi to two grandsons.
Our Sponsors
Hours
Heritage Center
Tuesday – Friday 3.00 am – 6.00 pm
Saturday 10 am – 12 pm
Closed Sunday
Tuesday – Friday 3.00 am – 6.00 pm
Saturday 10 am – 12 pm
Closed Sunday
Jefferson Heritage African American Center © 2020. All Rights Reserved
