Mapping the Memories of Fauquier’s African-American Communities A By Pat Reilly
large quilt greets visitors at the entrance to the Afro-American Historical Association (AAHA) in The Plains. Patches of cloth in earth-toned designs appliqued in the shape of an 1868 land plat tell a story of Blackwelltown. Each patch represents a lot with the names of the owners on it. The significance of those lots lies in the date. It’s 1868, post-Civil War Virginia. The landowners were all African-American. AAHA Collections Manager Norma Logan made the memory quilt, and AAHA co-founder and director Karen Hughes White can reel off the family ties of the landowners as if they were still her neighbors. She’s been researching, documenting and preserving the history of African-Americans in her native Fauquier for more than thirty years. Her goal, she said, is “a more complete history” of the county than what she learned in its schools.
Karen Hughes White
for
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MIDDLEBURG SUSTAINABLE COMMITTEE| Autumn 2022
