Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries

On April 8, 2021, Ryan K. Smith explored the history and recovery of the burial grounds of Richmond, Virginia, through the lens of race. Virginia's capital holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation, with graveyards dating from the city's founding through the Civil War, emancipation, and the long road that followed. Yet too often they are treated in isolation. This lecture by historian Ryan Smith will compare these important sites in terms of their initial dynamics as well as in terms of their ongoing states of preservation and commemoration. Ryan K. Smith is a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author several books, including Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century and Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.