This talk will be led by VCU professor Dr. Ana Edwards who will be using Sonya Clarks Monumental Cloth amongst other works to address how we collectively memorialize ideas and locations, especially in regard to public spaces.

Ana Edwards is a public historian with research interests in the history and significance of “Gabriel's Rebellion,” 18th century Black life in Virginia, how both informed the construction of the American nation, how these histories are articulated in public landscapes and why they resonate today. As founding chair of the Defenders’ Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project (2004), and in collaboration with other community organizations, she contributed to the reclamation of Richmond's first municipal African Burial Ground and leads the in-progress community campaign to establish a Memorial Park in Shockoe Bottom, the 19th century epicenter of the US domestic slave trade and birth district of the city of Richmond--a project now part of the city’s strategic development plan. Her advocacy work includes education, social justice and historic preservation advocacy for African American spaces, especially pre and post emancipation burial places--among them VCU East Marshall Street Well Project, Shockoe Bottom and Shockoe Hill African, East End and Evergreen cemeteries.