A grant from Virginia Humanities, a state-government agency, will enable George Mason University to continue efforts preserving the history of a 150-year-old African-American enclave in Hanover County.
The project received a $13,500 grant, part of nearly $275,000 in funding awarded recently to 30 non-profit organizations across the commonwealth.
“Each one of these projects contributes to our understanding of a different facet of Virginia’s story,” said Matthew Gibson, executive director of Virginia Humanities.
According to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the Brown Grove Rural Historic District, located just south of the town of Ashland, is comprised of two parcels totaling 1,271 acres, separated by Interstate 95. It was established during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War.
“The community that emerged at the turn of the 20th century featured a landscape of small subsistence farms connected by a network of paths and tracks to each other, the wider world and community hubs such as the centrally located Baptist church and schoolhouse and a few general stores,” state officials said. “It is an excellent example of a rural landscape of [African-American] heritage that grew from an antebellum plantation economy to a self-sufficient agricultural community, and transitioned in the 20th century into a middle-class residential neighborhood.”
Today, however, parts of the community are threatened by increasing industrialization in the area.
The state grant program provides funding of $5,000 to $20,000 for each project, with awards made twice per year. For more, see the Website at VirginiaHumanities.org/grants.
