Bridging the Community

Alicia Lugo (2002)

Alicia Lugo, former Director of the Teensight program, was honored on the Drewary J. Brown Memorial Bridge for the work that she has done with young people in the community. Teensight began in August of 1988 as an outgrowth of FOCUS, a local organization formed to empower women. It specifically focuses on men and women under the age of 18 in an effort to provide services such as helping people to finish school, finding jobs, and becoming self-sufficient citizens. Teensight also runs programs in the school to reduce pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as those that prevent high-risk behavior such as substance abuse. She has also had great influence through personal contacts in the community.

Sources

Daily Progress Staff. “Distinguished Dozen,” The Daily Progress, 23 October 2009, http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/lifestyles/local/article/distinguished_dozen/47930/ (accessed 26 April 2010).

FOCUS: Women’s Resource Center. “FOCUS Teensight.” FOCUS: Women’s Resource Center. <http://focus.avenue.org/teensight.html> (accessed 26 April 2010).

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 26 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Paul Gaston (2005)

Paul M. Gaston currently holds the position of Professor Emeritus in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia and has won various awards for both his academic and community work. He has written about growing up in the single-tax colony of Fairhope, Alabama started by his grandfather Ernest Berry Gaston and continued by his father Cornie Gaston, as well as his experiences with the Civil Rights Movement in the American South beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the present day. He is perhaps best remembered by historians of the Charlottesville as being one of the first people assaulted on the fourth day of “stand-out” protests at Buddy’s Restaurant on Emmet Street in 1963, along with Reverend Henry Floyd Johnson (then President of the local NAACP) and William Samuel Johnson. Professor Gaston was also instrumental to the creation of the Afro-Americans Studies program at the University of Virginia and holds the distinction of teaching the school’s first class devoted to Black history.

There are many ways to build bridges, and Paul Gaston has done so across lines of not only race but also community. His participation in the 1963 protests and later fight for Black Studies is significant because complicates the traditional divide perceived between people associated with the University of Virginia and the community of Charlottesville. Gaining insight from his unique upbringing, Professor Gaston made a lasting impression at, and between, two distinct but intimately connected communities.

Sources

David A. Maurer, “Fair Hope for the Future,” The Daily Progress, 29 November 2009.

Gaston, Paul M. Coming of Age in Utopia: The Odyssey of an Idea. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2010.

Gaston, Paul M. My South—and Yours. Pamphlet: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1997.

Gaston, Paul M. “Sitting In” in the ‘Sixties: An Historian’s Memoir. Pamphlet: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1997.

Jack Chamberlain, “’Stand-ins’ Are Suspended: Out Hurt, Four Arrested In Outbreak at Buddy’s,” The Daily Progress, 31 May 1963.

Rectors & Visitors of the University of Virginia. “Paul M. Gaston – Corcoran Deprtment of History.” University of Virginia. http://www.virginia.edu/history/user/85 (accessed 25 April 2010).

Drewary John Birchard Brown (1998)

Mr. Drewary J. Brown was a leader and activist in the Charlottesville community, promoting programs for the poor and underprivileged while building bridges throughout the city and surrounding counties. For a period in the 1960s, Brown served as the President of the local NAACP chapter and was one of the founding members of the Monticello Area Community Action Agency. Throughout his lifetime, Drewary J. Brown was dedicated to helping those in need and promoting social justice in the area. Writing in The Daily Progress on April 12, 1998 after Brown’s passing, Bob Gibson commented, that “for many a resident of the city, the intersection of black and white Charlottesville started with Brown.”

As a memorial to Drewary J. Brown’s legacy, the city named the bridge on West Main Street over the train tracks for this local hero “in honor of those people who succeeded in building bridges in our community.” Every year recipients are honored for their work, and a plaque with their name is placed on the bridge’s railing. Although the award was conceived as going to African Americans who had built bridges across racial barriers, it soon became apparent that there were many people in this city, Black and White, who had contributed to mending race relation in Charlottesville.

Our investigation into the West Main Street area and our participation in a class co-taught by the University of Virginia and the Quality Community Council is our own small way of attempting to build our own bridges between the University and Charlottesville communities. Our attendance could never come close to comparing with the achievements of the citizens who have been honored on the Drewary J. Brown Bridge, but we hope that the relationships we have begun between the these two communities that have been historically been separated will at least have a small impact on relationships between Charlottesville and the University of Virginia.

Sources

Bob Gibson, “Brown Was Linchpin of Community,” The Daily Progress, 12 April 1998.

Hook Staff, “Photophile – Bridge Builders: City Honor’s Drewary Brown’s Legacy,” The Hook, 16 June 2005, <https://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2005/06/14/photophileBridgeBuildersCi.html> (accessed 26 April 2010).

Lugo, Alicia. Interview by Naomi Jacobs and Cynthia Terrell Richardson, 26 April 2010, Personal Collection, Charlottesville, Va.

Maria Sanminiatelli, “Tribute to Man Who ‘Helped Us All.’” The Daily Progress, 12 April 1998.

Monticello Area Community Action Agency. “Drewary Brown Reception.” Monticello Area Community Action Agency. <http://www.macaa.org/events/DB_reception.html> (accessed 26 April 2010).