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Compare with 1924 naming contest for Monticello Hotel at Court Square.
Rename Lee Park Again. Sunday February 18, 2018.


48-minute. City Council restarts the process except the names Lee, Jackson, Emancipation are not "appropriate."

Playlist of 22 video bites City Council 2/20/2018.

CHANGE City Council meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Watch LIVE | Watch LATER | Agenda Feb. 20 Materials | City Council Page

Report from City Manager Maurice Jones:

City Council created the ad-hoc Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces (BRC) on May 2, 2016 to address the questions and concerns brought before Council regarding the statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Eleven commission members were appointed after an application process.

[ 47-meg 328-page Report from Charlottesville.org. Also archived at blairhawkins.net/RH/2016BRCReport.pdf. The BRC voted 6 to 3 to keep the statues, add historical context and to change the names Dec. 5, 2016.

Blair's Magazine wrote 2 stories about the report and discussed it on the Schilling Show.

They were charged with providing Council with options for telling the full story of Charlottesville’s history of race relations and for changing the City’s narrative through our public spaces.

A final report was presented to Council on December 19, 2016. The Council reviewed the Commission’s recommendations at its January 17, 2017 meeting.

On February 6, 2017, the City Council voted 3-2 to remove the Lee statue from Lee Park. (Subsequent to the events of the summer, the vote changed to 5-0.) In separate motions, the Council voted unanimously to rename both Lee and Jackson Parks and to move forward with developing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for professional design services to create a Master Plan for the Historic North Downtown and Court Square Districts.

[ 2-day trial is scheduled for January 31, 2019 to save the Lee & Jackson statues. The tarps covering them since August 12, 2017 will come before the City Court again on February 27, 2018. ]

On April 17, 2017, the Council voted to hold a naming contest for the two parks and asked the staff to forward the top ten appropriate suggestions to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Historic Resources Committee for each group’s consideration. The charge for both boards was to provide the Council with three naming options for each park.

Located below are the top ten appropriate names for each park as collected by the City via the Charlottesville.org web site during a three week period of time in the spring of 2017.

There were 1,382 suggested names for Lee Park and 1,355 names for Jackson Park. Over 1,100 submissions were received for both “Lee Park” and “Jackson Park”. However, those names are not responsive to the request to provide “new” names for the parks.

Robert E. Lee is unveiled May 21, 1924. Lee Park is the first public park 1917.
The top ten appropriate suggestions for Lee Park were:
  • Monacan Park
  • Sally Hemmings Park
  • Vinegar Hill Park
  • Unity Park
  • Freedom Park
  • Library Park
  • Market Street Park
There were several other appropriate submissions that received three votes each:
  • Progress Park
  • Central Park
  • Liberation Park
Stonewall Jackson monument on McKee block at Court Square since 1921.
For Jackson Park, the top appropriate suggestions were:
  • Court Square / Courthouse Park
  • Sally Hemmings Park
  • Freedom Park
Numerous appropriate names received two submissions:
  • Monasukapanough Park (Monasukapanough was a Monacan Village near the Rivanna.)
  • Sandra Lewis Park (Ms. Lewis was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Virginia.)
  • Barack Obama Park
  • Frederick Douglass Park
Council asked the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Historic Resources Committee to review the list of possible names and offer their suggestions for consideration. The Parks and Recreation Board met on May 17, 2017 to review the list. Members of the board submitted their individual choices on May 25. The Historic Resources Committee met on May 24, 2017 to discuss the list and offered their suggestions as a body the same day.

The Parks and Recreation Board submitted the following names for Lee and Jackson Parks:

  • Lee Park
  • Market Street Park
  • Library Park
  • Festival Park
    The Virginia legal code seems unable to protect "Memorials for War Veterans."
  • Community Commons
  • Central Park
  • Monacan Park
  • Vinegar Hill Park
  • Unity Park
  • Freedom Park
  • Center City
  • Barbara Johns Park
  • Barack Obama Park
  • Julian Bond Park
  • McKee Park (The McKee property was the site upon which Jackson Park was built.)
  • Unity Park
  • Justice Park
  • 13th Amendment Park
  • Memorial Park
  • Harriet Tubman Park
  • Progress Park
  • Independence Park
  • Transformation Park
  • Abolition Park
  • Liberty Park
  • Jackson Park
  • Court Square Park
  • Courthouse Park
  • Justice Park
  • Central Park
  • Unity Park
  • Little Sorrel or Sorrel Park
The Historic Resources Committee voted as a group on the Committee’s suggestions. They are as follows:
  • Lee Park (ranked in order of preference):
    1. Community Park
    2. Central Park and Market Street Park (tied)
    3. Festival Park
  • Jackson Park:
    1. Court Square Park
    2. Courthouse Park
    3. The Commons
    4. Memory Park
The motion passed 6-0, with one abstention.

On June 5, 2017, City Council voted to re-name Lee Park to Emancipation Park, and Jackson Park to Justice Park.

Discussion: In December 2017, City resident Mary Carey brought a petition to the City Council requesting the City reconsider its decision to change the name of Lee Park to Emancipation Park. The petition (attached in two separate documents) encourages Council to “immediately” rename the park. Numerous suggestions were included in the petition. Council directed staff to place the item on a future agenda. Council also asked to open the process to both Emancipation Park and Justice Park, as well as hold a public hearing.

The Council has several options:

  1. Consider renaming the parks with one of the names from the petition or from the previous lists of suggestions.
  2. Consider creating a new community engagement effort to rename the parks.
  3. Leave the name(s) Emancipation Park and/or Justice Park in place.
Staff is seeking direction from Council this evening.

Blair Hawkins


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