Remembering Vinegar Hill and Its Troubling Legacy – Part 1

Posted on May 5, 2015 by PLT Staff

Recording of a joint lecture given by Renae Shackelford and James Robert Saunders at the fifth meeting of the City and Congregation Workgroup in Charlottesville, Virginia. Vinegar Hill was an African American neighborhood that was razed during urban renewal in the late 1960s. Shackelford lectures on the harm done to the dignity of African Americans during this era of urban renewal by displacing them and robbing them of their unity, culture, and social and economic support.

Excerpt: “This is how a lot of African Americans feel, we feel powerless, we feel that our voices do not count, we feel that we do not have a vote. So why vote, why try, when we’re outnumbered? We’re not going to be heard, and whatever mainstream society wants to do, we’ll do it, at the expense of my people. We are indeed an expendable race; we have been told that time after time, maybe not in words, but in actions time after time.”

  • Video Information
  • Date Recorded:March 7, 2003
  • Location Recorded:Charlottesville, VA
  • Speaker: Renae Nadine Shackelford
This video is published by the Project on Lived Theology (PLT). For any questions related to its use, please contact PLT (https://www.livedtheology.org//contact/). Copy available for use subject to Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution required, Non-Commercial use, No Derivatives, 3.0, Unported).

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