Fall 2017
A Historic Richmond School
During the 2015–2016 school year UR students and Armstrong Leadership Program students collaborated in researching, writing, and presenting Church Hill: A Changing Neighborhood, a docudrama about gentrification in the neighborhood, followed by a community discussion which drew 300 community residents.
Out of the performance came a strong desire on the part of Armstrong students, faculty, and alums to memorialize this storied school—which produced the nation’s first black governor, Douglas Wilder; Maggie Walker, the first female bank president of any race, as well as Richmond’s first black mayor, Roy West, among many other notables. At the request of Yvette Rajpur and Marvin Roane, directors of the Armstrong Leadership Program, in the fall of 2017 we collaborated with Armstrong alumni from the class of 1966 and with current Armstrong students to create and perform a documentary drama about the history of Armstrong High School and to belatedly honor its 150th anniversary, which had gone unremarked.
Project Details
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
01
Archival Research + Oral History
Though our students from the University of Richmond began with archival research, looking at old yearbooks, newspaper articles, and other materials, central to their research were their relationships with current Armstrong students and alums.
When we invited Armstrong alums to join us for a conversation about their high school, over twenty showed up, mostly from the class of 1966. Many of them had not been in the school for many years and felt alienated from the current student body. The stories they shared of academic rigor and Black pride impressed the current students—and the alums in turn were excited to meet the ALP students, and expressed regret that they had lost connection with the Armstrong of today.
02
Docudrama
The question of memorialization took on particular urgency as the building which once housed Armstrong High School—the nation’s second-oldest black high school—was demolished. More troubling was the threatened permanent closure of Armstrong, a school which since 1865 had occupied a central place in black Richmond. How was the old Armstrong building, the first black high school in Richmond, and the second in the nation allowed to fall into such disrepair?
Photography by Tania del Carmen Fernández.
03
Community Conversation + Letters to the Mayor
Community Conversation
The Spirit of Armstrong launched new conversations among community members and current students who had not previously come together. Many of the Armstrong alums in the audience nodded in agreement when an alum from the 1960s urged them to give the current students a chance, to build relationships with them, and not to judge them by their fashion choices or manners. This became an impetus for more alums to get involved with our encore production, and to begin spending more time with ALP students.
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Moderated by Toria Edmonds-Howell
Reverend Ben Campbell, author, Richmond’s Unhealed History.
Ram Baghat, Executive Director, Conciliation Project
Ashley Vines, University of Richmond class of 2018
India Williams, Armstrong class of 2020
Gary King, Armstrong teacher
Letters to the Mayor
We included index cards and pencils in the programs, and during the community conversation asked audience members to write letters to Mayor Levar Stoney, expressing their feelings about Armstrong. These letters became an important part of our community archive and sparked discussion about the importance of Armstrong High School to the City of Richmond. The following semester, the mayor’s office reached out to us to get Armstrong alums involved in staging the opening of a time capsule discovered during the demolition of the old Armstrong building.
