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EGACY Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • Oct. 14, 2020
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‘Black Space Matters’ exhibit changes asphalt lot to garden INDIA ESPY-JONES
CNS — A local activist transformed a vacant lot outside the Institute for Contemporary Art in Richmond to highlight issues of food security and the importance of Black and brown community spaces. The “Commonwealth” exhibit at Virginia Commonwealth University’s ICA features work from 10 artists including an outdoor installation created by activist and community farmer Duron Chavis who builds gardens throughout Richmond. The full exhibit seeks to examine how common resources influence the wealth and well-being of communities. Chavis proposed the resiliency garden exhibit in 2019 during
a public forum at the ICA. The resiliency garden—food grown to weather the tough times and to have food independence— is installed in an asphalt lot at Grace and Belvidere streets next to the ICA and features 30 raised beds of fruits,
vegetables and flowers. An extension of the garden exhibit is the “Black Space Matters” mural by Southside artist Silly Genius. A wall in
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FERNANDA LAGUNA: AS EVERYBODY
If someone showed you who they were, would you look? What might you learn from looking? In her first U.S. exhibition, Argentinian artist Fernanda Laguna invites us into her world. Through painting, writing, community work, and activism we see through her eyes, each medium revealing another layer of her character.
Opens Oct. 10, 2020 icavcu.org Legacy_5.5x5_FALL 2020.indd 1
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Bringing greenery to RVA’s hottest ‘hoods DAVID TRAN The Greening Southside Richmond Project is looking to tackle the issues of extreme heat and socioeconomic disparities caused by racist, discriminatory housing practices in Richmond’s vulnerable neighborhoods — one tree at a time. On a hot summer afternoon in Richmond, one may find plenty of shade to relax under at the Lombardy & Park Avenue Triangle, or while taking a stroll around The Fan or the Museum District. That is not the case for all of Richmond. Immediately south of the James River, there is a noticeable absence of trees in parks and neighborhoods, and a sea of heat-absorbing asphalt blanketed throughout the area.
A new initiative, Greening Southside Richmond Project, is planning to plant more than 650 trees in Southside neighborhoods vulnerable to extreme heat — which is linked to decades of racist housing policies — by the end of 2023. The project organizers, which is composed of local environmental groups, Richmond city officials, and other local partners, said in a press release that the trees will help cool down neighborhoods, reduce electricity bills, and decrease stress levels. The trees also can absorb polluted runoff when it rains, reducing risks of pollution and flooding. Approximately 250 of the 650 trees will be planted throughout Southside, said Ann Jurcyzk,
Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Virginia Director of Outreach and Advocacy. The rest of the trees will be distributed to residents to plant in their own backyards. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Chesapeake Bay, is one of the organizations leading the greening initiative. In past years, it has worked in Southside in efforts of improving water quality in neighborhoods such as Broad Rock. Through these past initiatives, CBF developed relationships with local partners, Jurcyzk said, and wanted to further foster such relationships to ensure that the project will best meet the community’s needs. “The hope is that residents, through the outreach that [the Greening project] is going to do, they’ll
(from page 1) the lot is painted, with fruit making the word Black and beneath the garden in big, yellow letters is “Space Matters.” The garden beds have historic quotes from civil rights leaders Kwame Ture and Malcolm X, among other activists. “Black Space Matters means that Black people need space,” Chavis said. “We need space that is explicitly designed, planned, and implemented by Black and brown people.” Chavis, along with a crew of volunteers, started building the garden on Aug. 10 while the ICA temporarily closed to install other exhibits. “We invited him to think with us about how to activate a vacant lot next to the ICA,” said Stephanie Smith, ICA chief curator. “You could think about what it means to take a space and institutional resources, then give them over to an activist.” Chavis seeks to address lack of food access through his activism. Food insecurity, defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food,” is an issue in Richmond’s low-income neighborhoods. The city had over 35,000 food insecure people in 2018, according to Feeding America, a network of more than 200 food banks. “In a conversation about food justice, Black people are predominately impacted by lack of food access,” Chavis said. “We need space to
Duron L. Chavis address that issue.” Low income communities need access to resources and necessary skills to solve food wealth issues on their own, he said.
understand that trees reduce particulate matter, and reduce the asthma rates in the city,” Jurcyzk said. As part of the Greening Southside initiative, Southside Releaf, a community organization that is dedicated to addressing environmental disparities in Richmond’s Southside, will work closely with Southside residents; it will hold free workshops on tree care and conservation landscaping. Through Groundwork RVA’s Green Workforce Program — another partner of the Greening Southside project — local youth and high school graduates are able partake in hands-on training for environmental jobs through
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“We do not need anybody to come into our community to drop off food,” Chavis said. He’s been doing work like this since 2012 and doesn’t have a hard count of how many garden beds have been built. “Dozens, oh god, it’s all across the city,” he said. Chavis amplified his efforts this year because of the pandemic. He fundraised and received a grant, according to a VPM report, to build over 200 resiliency gardens with the help of volunteers. Quilian Riano, an architect at New York studio DSGN AGNC, designed the concept drawing for the ICA garden, which was envisioned as a public space for conversation and lecture. The completed garden is near identical to the original design except with an added texture and dimension, Riano said. The “Commonwealth” exhibit will be open until Jan. 17, 2021. After the exhibit ends, the gardens’ supplies and plants will be redistributed to other resiliency garden project locations throughout Richmond. Chavis collaborates with other groups and people to help people grow their own food during the pandemic. Tickets to the indoor exhibitions can be reserved on the ICA website. Exhibits include a video performance by indigenous artist Tanya Lukin Linklater, Carolina Caycedo’s “Distressed Debt” and a sculpture by Lukin Linklater and Tiffany Shaw-Collinge.
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(from page 2) planting and landscaping, which Jurcyzk said is an important part of the outreach. “I think that [kids] have this innate appreciation for things that are alive,” she said.“It just sparks their curiosity. We want to reach people with a message: trees are for healthy communities.” The City of Richmond Department Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities is helping identity sites to plant the 250 trees as well as monitor the growth of them. The department has a number of recreation facilities and parks in mind, said Michael Gee, Operations and Labor Crew Chief for the Southern District. Some include Hickory Hill Community Center, Swansboro Playground, and T.B. Smith Community Center. Facilities were prioritized based on its lack of tree canopy coverage. In addition to helping reduce extreme heat, the department’s goal is to increase these spaces’ aesthetic beauty. “A football field can get pretty hot in September and October, especially in the city,” Gee said. “So giving folks a place to get a bit of a break from the heat was something that we’ve been talking about for a while.” Gee’s role is to ensure the trees are suited for the sites and the surrounding area it is planted on, such as the right soil, sunshade, and soil moisture. It can be something as simple as making sure a tree with thorns is not next to a bench, or a tree that produces a lot of plant litter is not near a roadway. As part of the Greening Southside project, CBF also is working with Branch’s Baptist Church to transform parts of its parking lot into greenery. This is not the first time the organization has worked with the church to remove its asphalt; in the past, CBF helped to reduce the stormwater runoff by planting trees. Oscar Contreas, a deacon Branch’s Baptist Church, said he is excited to be working with CBF again
Branch’s Baptist Church members plant an oak tree in the playground. PHOTO: Kenny Fletcher because of the benefits it will bring to not only the church, but the surrounding community as well. “One of the nice things about this project [is] that the community will come together,” he said. “When you plant a tree or make an area green, you’ll see the progress. So as you drive by [the church], you know you were a part of it, and I think that that creates community.” Parts of the church’s parking lot as well as their unused basketball court will be turned into a green space to provide shade and to cool down the area. The addition of a green space to the church, Contreas said, can be a model for other Southside churches and businesses to mitigate the longterm effects of historical racist policies. These racist housing policies, such as redlining — a systemic
practice of denying mortgage loans and other investment to areas deemed “declining” or “hazardous” — have led to racial socioeconomic disparities in neighborhoods, such as more heat-absorbing concrete and fewer trees, the project organizers said; these neighborhoods were majority-Black and Hispanic. The act of negligence contributed to historical inequities and a cycle of divestment, as reported by the New York Times. White neighborhoods had the leverage to lobby city governments for green spaces, while Black neighborhoods were often targets for city planners to build industries and warehouses, often with a lot of asphalt and little vegetation. Former redlined areas can be up to 13 degrees hotter than their
non-redlined counterparts in the same city, according to a study by the Science Museum of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Portland State University. Heat waves can be more dangerous for these hot neighborhoods, increasing heatrelated illness. According to research by the Science Museum of Virginia, Richmond is an urban heat island, with the warmest ZIP codes having the highest rates of heat-related ambulance calls. CBF received a small watershed grant of $227, 467 for the Greening Southside Richmond Project from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It also received $80,000 in additional funds from local supporters. Jurczyk said the kickoff meeting for the project is planned for December 2020.
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The LEGACY
Op/Ed & Letters About monsters and communists On Oct 8, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, appeared to be melting down. Over the course of the day, he called for the imprisonment of his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, as well as his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and called Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris a “monster” and a “communist.” He also announced that he would not take part in the planned Oct. 15 town hall debate if it were turned into an on-line event. Now the debate is canceled. He released a video addressed to seniors, who are leaving him in droves, calling them “my favorite people in the world”, and speculated that he could continue to hold rallies as early as the weekend, before his quarantine period was over. He called into the Fox News Channel twice, ranting. Of his bout with coronavirus, he said: “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young.” He is erratic enough that the House is considering a bill seeking to enforce the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, designed to provide an exit ramp for a
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president who is experiencing physical or mental impairments that make him unable to lead the nation. The bill, advanced by speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, will not pass, but it will keep focus on what seems to be the president’s precarious mental state. Vice President Mike Pence, who was supposed to go to Indiana to vote on Oct. 9, after campaigning in Arizona, cancelled his scheduled events and headed back to Washington, D. C. Everything emerging from the White House is murky and confused, but there is one recent event that is crystal clear: The FBI announced it has stopped a terrorist plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put her “on trial” for treason. Six men have been charged in the plot, and are now facing life in prison if convicted. Another seven have been charged with planning to storm the state capitol building and start a civil war. They face up to 20 years in prison. Whitmer called out Trump for refusing to denounce such domestic terrorists. At the first debate with Biden, Trump told the
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white supremacist neo-fascist Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.” In April, after Whitmer shut down the state to combat coronavirus, Trump tweeted: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
and at least three of the more than 13 men now charged were among those who entered the state’s senate
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P.T. Hoffsteader, Esq.
‘Monsters & Communists’ (from page 4) chamber with guns on April 30 to protest Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders.
Rather than express sympathy with Whitmer or denounce the terrorists, Trump attacked Whitmer on Twitter. Attorney General William Barr, who has been out
of the public eye since last the coronavirus super spreader event at the White House Rose Garden in honor of Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee to take the seat
of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, has not commented. Heather Cox Richardson Political historian & author
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Newport News: Text-to-911 option now available The city of Newport News wants residents to know they can now Text-to-911. In the event of an emergency, the Newport News Police Department recommends that if you can voice call 911, you should. By calling, dispatchers can gather more information, listen for distress in a caller’s voice, and
Fairfield meeting to highlight roles of Henrico EDA, county boards
Fairfield District Supervisor Frank J. Thornton (pictured) will discuss the activities and impact of the Henrico County Economic Development Authority (EDA) at a constituent meeting set for 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19 at the Eastern Henrico Recreation Center, 1440 N. Laburnum Ave. Individuals attending will be required to wear a face covering and undergo a temperature check. The meeting also will be streamed live on the Henrico County Government YouTube channel. Viewers can submit questions in the video’s comment section or by email to dav127@ henrico.us. In addition to highlighting the EDA, Thornton will provide insight into the roles and responsibilities of the county’s 39 appointed boards and commissions.
gather background information — all important information for first responders when going to an emergency. Text-to-911 is the ability to send a text message to reach a 911 dispatcher from your mobile phone or device. Text-to-911 should only be used for the following:
If you need help, but cannot safely speak on the phone or are unable to speak. (Examples include abduction, domestic violence or an active shooter situation.) If you are deaf, hard of hearing or speech disabled, and there is no TTY available. A few things to bear in
mind, according to the city’s communications office: Provide your location first. Then, explain the emergency and be prepared to answer questions, if possible. Do not send photos or videos to 911. And do not copy others on the message to 911 as Text-to-911 cannot include more than one person.
Route 602 Chuckatuck Creek Bridge Replacement Isle of Wight County Willingess to Hold a Public Hearing Find out about the proposed Route 602 (Longview Drive) bridge replacement project that will replace the existing bridge structure crossing over Chuckatuck Creek in Isle of Wight County. The purpose of the project is to replace the current structurally deficient bridge with a new 74-foot-long, two-span bridge that will consist of a 25-foot-wide roadway with one travel lane in each direction. Longview Drive will be closed at the bridge to through traffic with a detour in place for the duration of construction, which is estimated to begin in 2021 and last approximately six months. Review the project information and environemental document in the form of a Categorical Exclusion (CE) at the VDOT Hampton Roads District Office located at 7511 Burbage Drive, Suffolk, VA 23435, 757956-3207, TTY/TDD 711, or at the VDOT Franklin Residency Office, 23116 Meherrin Road, Courtland, VA 23837, 757-956-3207. Please call ahead to ensure the availability of appropriate personnel to answer your questions. If your concerns cannot be satisfied, VDOT is willing to hold a public hearing. You may request that a public hearing be held by sending a written request to Mr. Kean Boyer, P.E., MASCE, Virginia Department of Transportation, 7511 Burbage Drive, Suffolk, VA 23435 on or prior to October 30, 2020. If a request for a public hearing is received, notice of date, time and place of the hearing will be posted. In compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act, Section 106 and 36 CFR Part 800, information concerning the potential effects of the proposed project on properties listed in or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places is provided in the environmental documentation. VDOT ensures nondiscrimination and equal employment in all programs and activities in accordance with Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For more information or special assistance for persons with disabilities or limited English proficiency, contact VDOT’s Civil Rights Division at 757-9563000 or TTY/TDD 711. State Project: 0602-046-727
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