Note to Users of the African American Heritage Database

Our understanding of Virginia history—particularly African American history—grows with time, as new scholarship emerges and local communities play an increasingly active role in telling their own histories.  

Across Virginia, the blending of local knowledge with academic research is strengthening our knowledge of the places where the African American experience is represented and where important events in the history of Virginia took place.

VFH is undertaking a systematic review of the African American Heritage Database. 

Our goals are to make this resource even more comprehensive, to ensure the highest level of historical accuracy, and to reflect differing views and interpretative perspectives where they occur in relation to particular sites.

We invite you to participate directly in this process, by helping us to identify areas where the information provided is either incomplete or open to differing interpretations.

We want to take special note of those points on which scholars disagree, where the historical record is inconclusive, and where the history of an individual site raises—or reflects—broader issues of interpretation; and to identify areas in need of further research.

We welcome your suggestions, both about the content and the format of the Database.  Contact Carolyn Cades, Program Associate, at 434-924-7202 or carolyn.cades@virginia.edu.