Good morning, RVA! It's 50 °F, and today looks exactly like yesterday with highs right around 70 °F, plus a few more clouds. Things warm up tomorrow and Friday. After that, though, I’m gonna have a much harder time convincing my family to keep the heat cut off once the weekend’s cooler temperatures roll through.
Water cooler
I don’t know what to make of this piece by Jahd Khalil at VPM about how Unite Here, a union representing hospitality workers and on the record opposing Casino 1.0, is now knocking on doors in support of Casino 2.0. Khalil reports a bunch of interesting details that I encourage you to tap through and read, but I’ll just quote two. First, “Unite Here and the developers of Richmond Grand Resort & Casino — Urban One and Churchill Downs — signed a labor peace agreement ‘earlier this year’...[the] vice president and Mid-Atlantic regional manager of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said in a statement that this sets strong labor standards to protect Richmond’s workers and ensures that the development of Richmond Grand Resort & Casino will drive economic prosperity for the entire Richmond community.” Second, “Unite Here has a strong presence in the political ground game for Richmond’s casino question, bolstered by an $800,000 donation from the developers’ $8 million political war chest — and $250,000 from other groups, including other unions.”
Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams writes about Susanna Gibson and, more specifically, about an opinion piece from The Family Foundation of Virginia that the Richmond Times-Dispatch decided to run this past weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Williams write with this much frustration and anger, and I’m here for it. I, Email Newsletter Haver Ross Catrow, haven’t written about Gibson yet, mostly because the whole thing also makes me frustrated and angry—plus I haven’t loved any of the coverage I’ve seen thus far. So, lacking something perfect to link to, I’ll say this: If I lived in the 57th District, which includes portions of Henrico, I would vote for Gibson in November, and I’d feel great about it. I wouldn’t even think twice about checking the box next to her name!
Axios Richmond’s Ned Oliver has been our lead reporter on the construction of the General Assembly’s new office building over the past couple of years, and, if you’re interested, he’s got some photos of the newly completed space (which officially opens this afternoon). Legislators, and the public I guess?, now have access to pizza made in a state-owned pizza oven, which makes me wonder if that’s a first.
Our biggest event, the most surest sign fall has finally arrived, the Richmond Folks Festival takes place this weekend! Three days of free music down by the river kicks off with the sizzle of a traditional French-Canadian fiddle at 6:30 PM on Friday and wraps up with the final gospel note on Sunday at 6:00 PM. In between you’ll find funk, honky-tonk, blues, salsa, dance, music from Ukraine, and even “precision jump rope” (which sounds awesome). Honestly, the schedule will absolutely overwhelm you in the best possible of ways, so I suggest you tap through to the artist page, pick out a couple bands that sound fun, and plan your day accordi(o)ngly. If you need a little more guidance, check out this interview with the Festival’s organizers from Don Harrison or this beginner’s guide from Peter McElhinney, both with Style Weekly.
This morning's longread
Erasing the “Black Spot”: How a Virginia College Expanded by Uprooting a Black Neighborhood
This is the story of how Christopher Newport University in Newport News used eminent domain—and later, just their growing political sway and momentum—to snatch up and destroy a historically Black neighborhood. You can find similar stories all over the commonwealth and across the country, including in Richmond.
But geography — and racism — were against them. The 110-acre Shoe Lane area lay beside one of the city’s most affluent white sections, where Newport News’ power brokers played golf at a segregated country club. Aware that more Black families would be moving to the area, the Newport News City Council wielded its most powerful weapon: eminent domain, the government’s right to forcibly purchase private property for public use. In 1961, it seized the core of the Shoe Lane area, including the Johnsons’ farmland, for a new public two-year college — a branch of the Colleges of William and Mary system. The council overrode protests from homeowners and civil rights advocates that there were more suitable, and less expensive, sites elsewhere for the college, which today is Christopher Newport University. The city worsened the blow by paying 20% less for the properties than the value set by an independent appraiser, council records show.
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Picture of the Day
Keeping an eye on things.
