Good morning, RVA! It's 65 °F, and, whoa, today looks a lot cooler than all of those recent sweltering summer days. Expect highs in the mid 80s and a possible chance of rain as the day progresses. Looking at the longer-term forecast, and hotter temperatures return next week so spend some time outside today!
Water cooler
First, an apology and a correction. Yesterday, while writing about how I forgot the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, I callously implied that I'd forgotten about the 15th Amendment, too. Here's what I said: "Guess what, though? There are no pictures of men working to win the right to vote because we've always had it—since even before cameras existed. 100 years is not that long ago!" Of course, only white men have had the right to vote since forever, and I should have said so explicitly. Only since 1870 have Black men had the right to vote (Black women would have to wait another 50 years, and even then governments at all levels have worked hard to disenfranchise them). Here's the full text of the 15th Amendment, another short and powerful one: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Related to, and much more interesting than, my thoughtless camera comment, the New York Times has a great collection of photographs of women of color in the suffrage movement.
The Richmond Police Department reports that Olvin J. Portillo-Archaga, a man in his 20s, was shot to death this past Monday on the 4600 block of Southwood Parkway. According to the RPD website, 26 people have been murdered this year, and, at this point last year, 37 people had been murdered.
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 737↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 14↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 122↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 36, Henrico: 56, and Richmond: 30). Since this pandemic began, 306 people have died in the Richmond region. Looking at the stacked graph of daily new reported positive cases, new deaths, and new hospitalizations across the state, it feels like we're coming down off a peak. That certainly doesn't mean Mission Accomplished—since statewide numbers can hide local peaks and valleys that cancel each other out—but it does match the national trends. Now we just have to wait a couple incubation periods to see what the impact of in-person college instruction will be on these numbers—numbers, which, by the way, are actual people getting sick, going to the hospital, and dying. That's something that I have to work to remind myself as I make and update charming graphs.
I should have mentioned this yesterday as time is short to make an official public comment, but today at 1:00 PM City Council will hold a special meeting to discuss banning guns on public property near protests, well, technically "in any public street, road, alley, or sidewalk or public right-of-way or any other place of whatever nature that is open to the public and is being used by or is adjacent to a permitted event or an event that would otherwise require a permit" (ORD. 2020-184). Like I said earlier, sounds great to me. The only reason someone brings a huge machine gun to a protest is to intimidate the people they disagree with. If you'd like to weigh in on this paper, I think your best bet this morning is to contact your Councilmember directly (and do it soon!).
Earlier this week I wrote about how the City had asked the School Board to use some of their vacant-due-to-coronavirus buildings for emergency childcare. This makes a lot of sense to me, and the School Board has a meeting later this month to discuss the idea further. In the meantime, RPS and the City of Richmond have put together this survey to gauge community childcare needs. If you're an RPS family please, please, please take this survey and share it far and wide.
Sean Gorman at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Chesterfield County has approved a plan to build 220 apartments somewhere in the back of the Boulders. A tiny part of me dies every time a huge number of homes are built juuuuuuust a bit too far off a major corridor to allow for folks to use public transit. I'm running out of tiny parts of myself!
The Richmond Folk Festival announced that they'll celebrate the event's 16th anniversary by going fully virtual. While not surprising, this is a bummer. You can still tune on on October 9th–11th to catch (virtual) performances by artists from all over the world and stop by Brown's Island to check out some interactive art.
The Washington Post has a recap of some of the action from this week's General Assembly special session. I have absolutely no sympathy for state legislators complaining about or being surprised by the technical challenges of conducting public meetings online. Sure it's different and there are challenges, but it's not impossible. In fact, our local public bodies have all seemed to figure it out—and some of their virtual meetings are much, much better than the in-person equivalents ever were.
Hey, have you always wished that you were a scientist, but it always seemed like a ton of work? Well, you're in luck because the Science Museum of Virginia is recruiting a group of community scientists to help with some air quality research. If you're over 18 and able to walk a 20-minute route around the Science Museum, fill out the aforelinked form and you could be on your way to participating in important research on the health impacts of walking in local urban environments. You'll also be able to (disingenuously) tell folks from then on that you are, in fact, a scientist.
The Henrico and Richmond City Health Districts will host a free community COVID-19 testing event today at Fairfield Middle School (5121 Nine Mile Road) from 9:00–11:00 AM. They'll also host one on Saturday at Richmond Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church (3700 Midlothian Turnpike) from 9:00–11:00 AM. I will probably forget to remind you about Saturday's event, so write it down! If you ever have any coronaquestions, you should call the COVID-19 Hotline: 804.205.3501.
This morning's longread
The Forgotten School in Brown v. Board of Education
Barbara Johns!
In 1951, black students in Farmville, Virginia—led by 16-year-old Barbara Johns—staged a strike to protest conditions at Robert Russa Moton High School. The subsequent lawsuit later became one of five cases folded into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark desegregation decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that made “separate but equal” unlawful. Moton was the only one of the five cases that began with a student-led challenge. But the Moton students’ struggles didn’t end with the May 17, 1954, Supreme Court ruling, now marking its 60th anniversary. Rather than comply with the court, Virginia lawmakers launched a campaign known as “Massive Resistance,” and in the fall of 1958, they closed schools in three major districts for a semester to avoid having to integrate them. Prince Edward County—home to Farmville—shuttered all of its public schools in 1959, and they remained closed for five years
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.