Ed Brooks
Transcript
Carlehr Swanson: Okay, before we get started with our questions. Canyou state your full name and spell it.
Edward Brooks: Edward Rydell Brooks.
Carlehr Swanson: Great? Aindrila are you looking to start with our first question.
Aindrila Choudhury: Hi! Can you tell us when and where you were born?
Edward Brooks: Birthday is May 28th 1960.I was born in Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville.
Carlehr Swanson: Okay, so what family do you have in Esmont? And how did your family end up in Esmont?
Edward Brooks: I have a lot of family, and as much I am related to both the Gardener Branch. My mother's name was Ruth Lucilla Gardner Brooks. She married a Brooks from out of the area, and my mother's father was Kenton Gardner. And the gardeners go back generations. And her mother's name was Hattie Nelson. So, we are out of the Nelson family branch, out of Keene, Virginia. And my great grandfather, who I never met either, was Jasper- Jasper and Louise Gardner, who are natives of Keane as well. and they are buried in Keane at the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. So there is another Nelson family in Esmont, but as far as I know, the 2 families were never related, so I'm from the Nelson Branch out of Keene.
Sophia Jang: Thank you for that. And what communities were you part of? Could you describe the neighborhood and communities that you grew up in.
Edward Brooks: Right. I grew up here in in that month primarily. My father's from Charlottesville. He's not really from Charlottesville, he's from Western Albemarle, but they transplanted to Charlottesville. but I claim my home community as Esmont. I went to school here at the Yancey Community Center. I was baptized, attended church at New Green Mountain Baptist Church that my mother was a pianist there for 75 years and she followed in the footsteps of my grandmother Hattie Nelson Gardner, who was also a church pianist at new Green Mountain Church. So this is a tight knit community. you know it's it's called Esmont, because that's the Post office address. but probably a more more more identified what they call the Porter’s section of Esmont which Yancy Community Center, formerly Yancy school is located. Lots of people are related up and down the road, but you know there was also just a sense of, you know, a lot of accomplishment amongst families. People either moved away, did well,and then the people that were here. You know, I knew them as community activists. Most of them NAACP. Progressive Club Garden Club. Always fighting to keep the school open since it was built in 1960. So.
Aindrila Choudhury: Thank you. We wanted to ask you about some of the staple institutions. Of this place, of Esmont that sort of like were at the center of the community and around which the community constituted itself sort of like meeting places any place that held the community together.
Edward BRooks: Yeah, right here. BF Yancey School was the was and still is the center of the African American community here at Esmont and becoming the center for all people, all, all, everybody Now that it is an officially called opening center.Now, there are a lot of things that happen here.It's been a voting precinct-Porter’s voting precinctfor decades. And so even today, you know, it's where the all of greater Esmont votes. That was really important. But the school has actually been the common denominator. But there are 7 churches, African American churches, that are loosely in the African American Church Association that each individual little community, as in Oak Ridge, Chestnut Grove, Mount Pleasant, I mean, those are those are center points for the families that are in those churches and that's you know, that's what I'm gonna say, where the institutions. NAACP was here for a long time it was called the Southern Albemarle Branch of the NAACP. It is no longer active and a little bit before my time my mother was in a group called a Household of Ruth, which is a spin off of the Odd Fellows and the fraternal, the fraternal groups were big, too, but I can only share that with you in the context of I knew who some of these folks were. Few were masons. Few were Odd fellows like Graham Paige. And that was a real thing for them. But it it wasn't in my generation. I didn't join the desire to join, but they were institutions.So school church, NAACP, fraternal organizations, and I'm saying fraternal, and I don't know the synonym for the female groups. But you know, household Ruth and Eastern star. Those were like kind of like Greek things, you know, like you got the Greek. The male Greek organizations got the female Greek organizations. Same thing happened in the fraternalpart too, yeah. Male groups. You got female groups. Yeah.
Carlehr Swanson: Great. Thank you so much. So what were some places that you attended for fun or entertainment?
Edward Brooks: House parties and school events. you know there would be some things here like and I used to have like a Miss Black Albemarle pageant, andthat was always held here. There were Mayday events that were held here.And I'm calling. I'm phrasing this because the older generation can tell you about these places they went to like Julia's Inn, which was a jukebox place that I guess they would have parties, and in the Cozy Corner. which I'm just really learning about as we go throughthis project and places that were not in existence when I came along. But my parents and different ones.They know about these places, and you know the King Community Center, I think, would hold social events. and there was a place, too, on a place called Camp Spring seemed like there was a little place there that folks have parties in, but again not really rolling in my years, but to generation just before me they had placesthat they wentspecifically for light entertainment.
Aindrila Choudhury: Thank you. So we wanted to shift a bit and ask youabout the schools that you attended. So you talked about the Yancey school, and you also talked about theYancey school being turned intoa community center, and sort of like being a being the center of the community for yours. Butcould you talk to other experiences in the school? You could talk about historical facts or memories, or if there were other schools that you attended. And anything. Your experience in these schools.
Edward Brooks: That's a great question, because there, there are more schools that are probably a part of my narrative that you know I'mnot going to just share out, but, like my mother, was very active in the NAACP here in the community and there were a handful of African Americansthat totallybelieved in. You know what Thurgood Marshall had advocated, for in 1954, and the unanimous desegregation ruling of the Supreme Court -Brown versus Board of Education. So I say that to preference with my mother, along with another handful of African Americans, who were mostly connected to the NAACP, sent me toScottsville Elementary in my first grade year of 1966.
I'm going to frame this for you in the context of... it would take a whole lot more conversation. But you know, the brown versus Board of Education decision is in ‘54. Charlottesville is beginning its integration on the Federal Court order and ‘58, ‘59, which is known as the Charlottesville toil. I didn't even know about the Albemarle 26. You can Google that find a lot of information on the Albemarle 26. But I didn't have an understanding of the pupil placement program that Virginia was running. So you know, there are 26 African Americans who partially integrate Albemarle County schools in ‘63, ‘64, ‘65, and My mother along with others we went past Yancey. Yancey opens in ‘60. I now know that it wasn't officially a segregatedschool. but because the white students that live nearby did not want to attend here. They still went to Scottsville. And so my mother, along with a handful of other African Americans, sent sent us to Scottsville, too. Because.you know, we kind of believe, or they believe that. And somehow that those schools were getting more funding. It's what Thurgood Marshall wanted to see happen. and so for one year I went to Scottsville Elementary. And then, in 1967, 13 years after the Board decision, Albemarle County fully integrates, but it comes with a price. And umm...this was not a term.
But you guys are graduating undergraduate students. You'll love this if you look up the term Equalization School. That is exactly what this is. Yancey is an equalization school. And there are a thousand of schools like this across the South. They were basically built to maintain segregation. But it was done very smoothly in that. you know, after the the situation in Farmville, with forgetting the name for. But anyway, you know, schools were closed for 5 yearsin Farmville, Prince County. School boards came up with all sorts of money to buildbrick schools for African Americans. And so Yancey is the prototype of a what's called an equalization school. It's one-storey, L-Shaped hallways, short, short, short hallway, long hallway, lots of windows. And African Americans loved it. You built you built a brick school after you had gone to all of these wooden schools. And it was a big deal. Burley opened in ‘51, Albemarle County opens Yancey and Murray Elementary and Ivy looks just like Yancey. I mean just not today, because they've added on, and Yancey's been added on to as well. But they were. They were blueprint schools. And then Rose Hill elementary, which is the community Lab school today. It's right there in Charlottesville. It was a countyschool as well. And so I come back to Yancy in ‘67 for second grade to a school that had for the first six years of African American principal all black teachers a black secretary black janitors.
When I walked in the doors in ‘67, white principal all white teachers except one was priced fourth grade The secretary was white and the janitor was black. And so that's how it happened - white parents were not gonna come to Yancey unless the administration changed. And so it did And African Americans didn't want to be bust. So they stayed And somehow this this mixture worked for both communities in a strange way. So I'm here until sixth grade, seventh and eighth grade I'll go back to Scottsville Junior High. For one year all of the Alamo County students ninth grade students went to a journey which was formerly Jack Jewett middle school right behind Album all high school and then I went to Albemarle High School from Tenth through twelfth grade. So it was some back and forth in there. But there was only one high school until I got to the twelfth way when Western Albemarle all opened and that was for students that was basically on the western side of the county
Sophia Jang: Thank you. So of course you're just talking about the schooling and we wantto ask if you recall any other major historic events that affected Esmont and how they impacted you and your family friends and community whether that's government policies or changing in funding and other things
Edward Brooks: Yeah I can't think of anything that was you know cataclysmic in that time period other than again...and I wasn't I wasn't as acutely and keenly aware of it as then as I am now That you know all of these things were swirling around with the State of Virginia and how to handle massive I mean how to handle integration slash desegregation You know I didn't understand the massive resistance movement at that time. You know Dr. King was murdered in ‘68, assassinated in ‘68. I just know that that was something that I remember you know definitely being in the news at 8 years old but it I don't think it had any immediate impact you know from a systemic way, you know, what was going on you know in the school division. I can't think of any external events that had a spillover roll down cascading effect on just how we live you know in Esmont.
Carlehr Swanson: Thank you. So what changes would you say you've seenin your lifetime in Esmont?
Edward Brooks: Well on the positive side, from the time when we were young, we did get streetlights. We did get street lights at point. That's a big deal. I remember that being a big deal. I know that. This was after I was an adult and married, but Simpson park which is across the street from Yancey. It was a big deal to get our own park in the community, and it's right across here from the school, and that's a big deal. I do remember, like there were things like the Garden Club. My mother was a part of something called a Progressive Club... the NAACP. Those organizations are no longer functional, operational in the community. Yeah, those are the big changes. We do have small, what I would call housing developments. One is on Emory Lane, which was kind of spearheaded through the Piedmont Housing Alliance. It might have been called something else, and then we have a habitat village, which is also right across from the school and was a forerunner to Simpson Park. But Habitat did build a own subdivision. That's right across the street. That's Major. Still there still people living there. Those are the big things highlighted by the streetlights which still no sidewalks, sidewalks, not in the rural area. So yeah. Thank you. What were some of your favorite places in Esmont, and what memory stories events do you associate with them?
Edward Brooks: You know, some of my biggest memories is simply like... I can't remember way back when just May Day...I just I can't remember there being a May day there at here at Yancey school, when we were in elementary school. I remember there being Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Sunday afternoon baseball like. You know, black community baseball teams were huge and you know, I will go to those games. But you know it goes back to the time when baseball was a huge thing for African Americans. You know, it's not so much today. But yeah, you know, baseball was a big thing. That's what I remember from a community perspective of getting involved. Oh, the Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts. I remember being a part of it, but it was brief. And I was more involved with my mother. I was more involved with 4 H. For 4 H. Club member, which doesn't seem like we had a very strong 4 H. Club, but I went to 4 H. Camp in the summers, and then when I got in high school I was involved with the program. That's no longer at Uva. My wife actually worked in it in the last years, but I was a part of the upward barrel program, which is a national program. But I was at the Uva campus and in high school life-changing experience. Positive ways, changing experience, learning how to work with people for weeks, that you know from other counties from Green County, Madison County, Buckingham, you know, went to see my first Broadway show through, upward bound with the whiz and Stephanie Mills on Broadway. That was a big deal. But yeah, but that wasn't necessarily Esmont. But there were other people from Esmont that actually were a part of that program. Probably something that was huge in this community. But again, I didn't end up doing it. I wanted to do it, but every summer there were lots of teenagers that went to Connecticut to pick tobacco and they would come back with money. And I could never figure out why tobacco was growing in Connecticut but it was cigar tobacco and this program had been going on for decades. And there were like lots of people in the summer. But get on the bus and go to Connecticut to pick tobacco and you know I didn't do it, and glad I didn't do it. I don't want to disparage the people that did because it kept them occupied and they came back with cash.
Unnamed Interviewer: Yeah. Thank you. And one of the last questions in the list, and then maybe we'll take follow up questions is, what do you value most about what you do now? And could you talk about the changes or how Esmont has changed your worldview?
Edward Brooks: Yeah, I I consider this position that I'm in to be a godsend. My major is in broadcasting. and let me back up a little bit on. I kind of chased a basketball hoop dream. I'm, I wasn't a great basketball player in high school, but I love the game. So I ended up attending college at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I made the team as a walk on, you know, kind of a low, level division one program. But you know I was proud and I was on the team. I didn't play. so I transferred to a small junior college in Texas. It's called Claritin Junior College. Southwa is south of Amarillo. Played with some really great ball players. Kind of got it in my mind that I didn't have what they had. And so I ended up going to finishing up my college experience at Buffalo State, Sunny Buffalo State where I got a broadcasting degree, and it actually is called broadcasting degree. So I met my wife there. She's from DC. I'm from Virginia and I ended up working in radio in DC. Gospel music radio. which kind of fit my narrative. My mother was piano, church pianist, player. I enjoyed doing it. It was a daytime station, though not a lot of money involved, but I enjoy doing it. And then I we moved to Charlottesville. I ended up working for State Farm insurance for years. and I went from underwriter to education and training to public affairs associate. It was great. travel all over Virginia and North Carolina, but I didn't want to move to the headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois. so I left and started business, which was a of a not so good chapter in my life. But I survived and I worked in Monticello for years, and at Highland as a guest services, person, part time. And then I ended up being a historical interpreter for one year. But it was part time. and I've prefaced all of that to say I was not looking for this position. This brand new job called public Affairs Coordinator... Community Engagement Board program coordinator. And it was here at Yancey. It was here at Esmont. and I don't want to do it, because I knew too many people but my wife thought it was a good idea, because it was full time with benefits. so I did it, and I'm so happy I did it.
This is like life changing work. and to be sitting in the office of you know where I went to school and charged with working under the banner of whether or not we can make this rural community an equitable place, an equitable living space within the context of Albemarle County which is an affluent place. And I say that also because Albemarle County was an agrarian community. We only had one high school. So now you know, it is a suburban ring, I mean percent of the people in the Albemarle County live in the urban ring or in Crozet, which is a growth area. And so those of us that are indigenous to this rural community, you know we never heard the words equity, you know equity and inclusion. You know you're born in the country. You live in the country. You just kind of like, you know, we live in the country, we proud to be from the country and there's a lot of things and services that you don't have. but you kind of feel good. But it's a lot of land ownership stuff like that. So you feel good about that. But there are disparities there. There are income disparities. There are educational disparities. And we are surrounded by properties and land owners that were former plantations. and there are a lot of our ancestors that worked on these former plantations as farm hands. and what they, what they stressed and what they wanted was to send as many children to college as they could. and so they did this through scholarships, through the Martin Luther King program annual programs and fraternities and sororities. Given monies and a lot of people have gotten college degrees, and they live in other places. And so the changes are is that you know there is.
I use this word very cautiously, but there is gentrification that's going on in Southern Albemarle. A lot of people that move here because one they can get they can get a farm or they can get land that they can have a garden on. They move from places like Detroit, Los Angeles, and they're all around us. And they don't want growth or any industrialization. So we fight with that because a lot of the people in Esmont, African American, who have done well and done well means that they are able to own their homes and a lot of them have sent their children or their grandchildren to college but they did that off of working in manufacturing plants. So there used to be a funeral tire plant in Scottsville. That is no more. You know. I have relatives that would drive to town every day, leaving at 4, 35 o'clock in the morning to work at GE on the other side of Albemarle County. People that worked at Frank X. Morton frozen foods. Calm down business systems. These are all places that made widgets that you can't find the widgets anymore. Right? And so that's kind of the story there and then. There are a lot of people that worked at the hospital but not as many as worked in these different plants. But Uva. It has employed a lot of people, and there are still a few people who work for U. Va. Today. But they're not in the professional. You know they're not doctors and professors and that type of thing. They they work for the university. So my wife works for the Uva Equity Center. Now, I'll call the Star Hill Pathways program, but she's a transplant. She's from DC. But she worked in human resources for Albemarle County for 12 years. And then she went to the up or down program as a program manager. And now she's at Star Hills. And so, you know, we're talking about things like, and this is what drives me.
This is a question you ask, which is why I love being here? Because I mean, we fought hard. We fought hard to keep Yancey from closing as a school. But the problem was is that as people have left, there's not as many children here as there once were. They redistricized some of the students from the area to Scottsville elementary, and they've been trying to for 40 years to close Yancey and combine it with Scottsville. and they finally succeeded in 2017, and they did that with a representative Grant page from our community sitting on the school board, and they they pulled a fast one. and you know he was kind of out of the loop, and you know they had the votes already, and they 5 to 2. They voted to close us because we had gotten down to like a hundred students over time. And you know, because of the urban ring. Albemarle County has elementary schools that have 400, 500, 600 students. And then you're looking in the rural areas where these elementary schools, because of the policies of the county. They're only 200 students in this outer ring. And so, you know, we were in a position where we happened to be just 7 miles from the other community elementary school. And so from a position or point of scale. You know, they were like, Hey, we could just combine these schools. but we always had enough political influence to keep it from happening. and it's hard because this school was birthed out of land that was purchased in 1905, and you know, it was supposed to always be a school. and the Esmont High School was right here on this property. but you know it did close when Burley opened in ‘51, and you know. But again Yancey came in his place. and if people proud of this brick building, right, red brick building that set here. But it's set here because the county wanted to say, if we build a school for you, will you not want to integrate. and you know people like, sure, I don't want to go to school with you, anyway, right? But that wasn't the position of my family, but there were plenty of African Americans who were like, Oh, we'll go to school with you, anyway. So you know, Bill, us the school? So those are the things that don't get talked about a lot. But it's the truth. It's a part of the. It's part of the real truth of what goes on. So you know. My, I'm tasked here every day. I love getting up and come to work. I love trying to figure out. You know.
How can I get the people of the community to understand that there's a difference between an advanced diploma and a standard diploma. There's a difference between understanding that you cannot buy a house in Albemarle County with an average household income of 45 to $50,000 a year. You know the average house now, even here in Esmont is is $200,000. And up. So you know, these are issues that I'm working with on the internal side meaning of community that I know and I'm working with it on an external side to the county policy holder makers to say, you know. you know you you look, you recruit people to this community that live in the subdivisions to work at the University, who are making 75, $80,000 individually, some a lot more. But that's a tax base that drives the county budget, which for the first time this year 629 million dollars. That's like it's never been that high. But there's plenty of people, I mean. There's plenty of people to charge real estate taxes, too. So we're dealing with out here as well trying to say you know we have to have for the next generation even a higher aspiration of of education, in order to be able to command the better salary and and we got the county has to look at it and say that everybody out here doesn't own a bed and breakfast or a venue. You know, there are people that haven't owned this stuff. Uva mapping black landscapes class is real, real, real, real, real, real because we're going to put some things on the map that have never been on the map. and it's going to educate internally and external. so I could keep going.
Carlehr Swanson: Wow, thank you so much. All very important things that people don't talk about enough. So that was great. I had a question for kind of for my own interest. So you talked about your mom playing the piano in church, and then her mom playing the piano. So kinda how did your mom's mom start playing the piano? And also what were some like staple musical elements of your church services growing up.
Edward Brooks: That's a great question. I do not know how my grandmother and I never met my grandmother. She died in 1952. I do not know how she learned how to play. but the family house is right next to where I grew up, and I am working to buy that property from my cousins. Cause they don't have a they don't have an interest in preserving the structure. and I do but I know from working at Monticello. That preservation is expensive. but there's not enough black architecture in our community that has been preserved. and that's because there have been wooden. My mother learned to play from her mother. My mother always had a piano in the house. My mother played by ear. She was the only one of her siblings that went to college. She did go to Saint Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Virginia. which is an Episcopal school, HBCU, that has closed for lack of funding. but my mother really valued education. She knew a little music, but what she played was by ear. For the most part we had a stable minister and Reverend Nyland. who was here for years, and that's who I started out under.
And then Reverend Rice, Reverend Dr. Rice came in. What's interesting about church in the rural area is that your pastors are most of the time from other places. So Reverend Nyland was from a community called Buck Ann Buchanan County. That's way down in Southwest Virginia. I don't even know how you got here every Sunday. Reverend Rice was from Amherst today. Reverend Woodson, who is the President of Mount Pleasant, is from Richmond. He drives up here. That's just how it was. And revival services were every first Sunday in August. and that still happens today. Post Covid. I think they still want to continue to do it. I got baptized at the age of. Revival services every year. Spring revival every year. There was choirs in the church. Men's course, young adult choir. Junior choir men's course. My mother had a lot of groups that she played for gospel groups. So. I have fond memories of. And then Sunday school.
We went to Sunday School before we went to church. And Spring revival was around Easter. and that would rotate sunrise services was. I remember being dragged out of the bed. I went to those. of them a lot. and then people would get happy. It would get happy in the Holy Ghost right? Old ladies would would do the Jigabeg, I think some type of Jigabeg right. and then they would fall out. and we used to laugh And communion service was once a month. So those are my fond reflections of church services, and I will mention this because that I still enjoy, but it's not so much today. But my uncles. They were in quartet groups and quartet groups were big. They would come through, and then they had the local quartet groups, and they had great harmony. They had great harmony. and everybody could play an instrument seem like. but I could never learn to play the piano. It was right in the house my whole life. and I tried to. and I just couldn't get it. So anyway, yeah. Thank you for that.
Carlehr Swanson: Do you remember the name of your uncle's quartet group?
Edward Brooks: Yes, the boys of Zion. Yeah, the boys of Zion. But there were Corte groups all around, but they were the best. They were the best. So yeah, good memories. And I don't see people putting together singing groups anymore. Just the youth have changed, you know. Oh, and I didn't mention this to you guys. We would play basketball outside on the asphalt court here at Yancey. I think that hurt our knees, but we didn't know it. But that's like in the summertime. you know, we would gather at the school, and there would be bunches of guys around and playing ball. and like we don't even see. I mean, it's a little gathering to play ball, but not like it was when we were coming up, like I said, you know the baseball teams. There's not even enough people to play baseball any. Yeah. So like my children, it's like I got them in a league. Now I'm in a little league. Real league. my children. No problem. Any more follow-up questions.
Aindrila Choudhury: Yeah, I had one about I had a clarification, and and and questions about the gentrification that you spoke about with some caution. So we also heard a little bit about this from Karl, who talked about the push for sort of like making the place remain idyllic and pristine and resisting any sort of like any developmental projects that would benefit the community and are of necessity in the community. So the clarification is, are you saying that it is sort of like an influx of affluent populations from these places around the US? That's sort of like leading to this and are these people? So do these people. Just stay here for a while and then go back if they don't sort of like need. These. you know the things that sustain the community, the developmental projects. Is there also sort of like, do you see the change or a push for these things? Also in the policy?
Edward Brooks: Yeah, I will. I can only share this with you because I work for Albemarle County. So I picked it up. But you know. I heard like years ago, when I first started with the county in January of, that a thousand new people move to Albemarle County every year. and we have a book called the Esmont History Book. I think you all got it. But on one of those pages it does clarify that in. I think there were only or cents is maybe. in, there were only, people in Albemarle County. And so today, as of, the official county population per census of. so I would say by, that there would be a hundred, people recorded which would make a thousand people exactly from the time that there were something like that. So There are people who want to move here for the for the benefit of the university. But it's still relatively small. and it's got some sheep to it, you know. music festivals on weekends. restaurants that can satisfy any particular palette. And so some of these people have spilled out towards Southern Albemarle in other areas.
But Southern Albemarle model is still a little bit on the affordable end. so they can get a little bit of land. And these are people that have moved from other places, and, except for a fewexceptions. they don't really involve themselves in the community. They're looking for a place to live. Some of them even have gates up around their properties. Not all, but some. And again, there are some notable exceptions of some people that have moved here from out of the area that do make an active effort to be involved in what we are trying to do. But there's a big difference, because they moved here looking for tranquility. you know, tranquility, and they don't. Then they like this rustic rule thing. and we do, too, to a degree. But there are a lot of people who are like, you know, we grew up with having to go to Charlottesville for everything.
And now we want stuff that's here. and then they will say it's in Scottsville. Scottsville is a town. but Esmont and Scottsville have had. I've had tensions through the years for a lot of different reasons. people from our area do go to Scottsville because they've got grocery stores down there and different things. But there's not a there's not a warm embrace on a total level. So I'm yeah. And so we call it gentrification. because there are a lot of properties that are mostly being moved into their their wife people that buy them. They either fix up the house so they build a new house. and every now and again someone that's African American that has roots here might move back. but that hasn't happened. and big numbers.
So you know, Esmont still has probably the second highest concentration Of African Americans in Albemarle County. But because Albemarle County is so rapidly growing, it's less than 10% now of the total. And there are a lot of African Americans that live in the suburban urban ring, but a lot of them are concentrated. Not all, but a fair amount of concentrated in apartments. Yeah. And I will tell you guys this, if you were to look up the man. It's the report that was done on Albemarle County schools last year on the state of the schools. Bertrand, report. Does that ring a bell? And but she think by African Americans some I mean students of color. Some tip of my tongue. Jeez sorry. Dead. Gentrification. Oh. And this project is going to be one of the things that we want to use it for, to show the African American community the once state of ownership of stuff. Yeah. I don't want you to leave this call because I have got to tell you the name of this report because it is worth you seeing.
Unnamed Interviewer: That's fine. Thank you. Thank you for even telling us about that. So before we leave, is there anything that we didn't ask that you would like to share.
Ed Brooks: Covered a lot of work. And that whole conversation about Freetown was a little bit confusing to me because I had always associated free towns, free communities with Kitty Foster and Crita Hemings. So you know. But I clearly now understand what her mission and goal is is that you know, formerly freed people who didn't leave the area actually built community segregated community around short school businesses. And so I do know. I do really now consider Esmont, along with so many other communities throughout the South. You know, to be a free town in that formerly enslaved people, or a generation removed from slavery. We're building thing striving for things welcome. And so I want to still use that concept to try to apply to today. Free people act like they're free. You know, and that sounds very simple. But I make it into one simple statement when I'm talking to young people and people that teach young people. Yeah, are you working for people It's really good to be able to put that in collective place. And then I'm gonna talk about it.
So if you guys stay in Charlottesville this summer at all June the thirtieth. We did it our first time last year, but it's an extended Juneteenth event. And then we're going to do in Southern Albemarle. Extend the Juneteenth because we don't want to interfere with these others, but we'll close out the month and Simpson Park andwe probably are going to have it on Sunday afternoon, June the thirtieth And we're going to dedicate some signage to Mr. Simpson and his role as a landowner. So if you guys are still in Charlottesville on the lastweekend of June and then these other dates. It's a really good experience around Juneteenth because yesterday was the day that Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox and people think that that's when the Civil War ended,particularly people in Virginia but I cleared up for them to say, well, actually, that's why we have Juneteenth because it didn't endwhen Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
Carlehr Swanson: Very true, very true. I'm excited. I look forward tochecking those out. I think that's all of our questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Brooks.
Edward Brooks: Thank you all for doing this. and I think you are. We're having a reception on.
Carlehr Swanson: The 23rd
Edward Brooks: One third. That's right. I got it right there. I'll be there.
Carlehr Swanson: Looking forward to it.
Edward Brooks: Alright. Thank you all. See you.
Carlehr Swanson: You have a good day.
Edward Brooks: Yeah, bye, bye