Arc of Enslaved Communities Project Community Engagement Strategy, Phase 1 2025

This report is a Community Engagement Strategy for Central Virginia's commemorative landscape. It summarizes the efforts undertaken by the University of Virginia’s Center for Cultural Landscapes (CCL) and the Institute for Engagement and Negotiation (IEN). The CCL led the report writing effort in support of the Montpelier Descendants Committee's (MDC) Arc of Enslaved Communities initiative. The Initiative is aimed at fostering connections across a nine-county region surrounding James Madison’s Montpelier. The report supports MDC's aims, which are to honor and preserve places of significance to African American heritage, amplify the voices of descendants, and ensure data sovereignty. This initiative aims to honor and preserve Black heritage by connecting historic places, amplifying the voices of descendants, and addressing issues of data sovereignty. Ranging from cemeteries and churches to freedmen’s communities, the places comprising the Arc's commemorative landscape hold stories of resilience, kinship, and cultural contributions of Black descendants that have shaped both the region and the nation. The report documents promising preservation practices among descendant communities throughout the region, identifies opportunities and challenges to their efforts, and provides actionable recommendations for sustaining community engagement. From its documentation and analysis of listening sessions and participatory research with descendant communities, the CCL, MDC, and IEN team identified emerging themes, including:
How descendants define commemoration,
The sites and histories they prioritize, and
How descendants envision their role in shaping commemorative landscapes that honor their ancestors.

Arc of Enslaved Communities Project Community Engagement Strategy, Phase 1 2025. Center for Cultural Landscapes, University of Virginia. July 16, 2025.

Report created by authors Andrea Roberts (Director of the Center for Cultural Landscapes), Justice Madden (Project Manager, CCL), and Jennifer Saunders (Research Specialist) in partnership with Frank Dukes of IEN. This report was funded in part by The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Sara Shallenberger Brown Cultural Landscapes & Sites Initiative.