THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 5, 1995 TAG: 9507050070
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
A new book chronicling Virginia landmarks of black history attempts to fill in the gaps left by other guides to the state's heritage, the book's editor says.
``Virginia Landmarks of Black History,'' published in June by University Press of Virginia in Charlottesville, includes 64 entries on slave quarters, 19th century churches built by freed slaves and homes where black travelers stayed during segregation.
The book's editor, Calder Loth, said the poorly built slave quarters have become an archaeological endangered species in Virginia.
``After the Civil War, all these buildings were not in use, and they just gradually crumbled,'' said Loth, the senior architectural historian at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in Richmond. ``The Deep South image that we have of these rows and rows and rows of little cottages - they are almost nonexistent in Virginia.''
Loth said slave quarters were so crudely built during the Colonial period that none is known to be standing.
``After the Revolution, they started regarding the health of the slaves with more importance,'' he said. ``So a number of servants' houses remain on plantation complexes. The homes for cooks and household servants were usually better built than quarters for field hands.''
The book includes slave quarters at Howard's Neck in Goochland County, which has a row of three log-and-frame buildings used by slaves; Ben Venue in Rappahannock County, which has a row of three brick slave houses, and Berry Hill in Halifax County, which has a stone slave house.
Loth said he was fascinated to discover a ``whole series of tremendously impressive, architecturally grand churches'' in downtown Norfolk.
``Barely 20 years out of slavery, these people gathered their funds to build these big churches,'' Loth said. ``They were paid for out of savings of maids and day laborers. The church was such an important part of the social life, such a binding agent of black life in late 19th century Virginia.''
Some sites in the book are among the best-known attractions in Virginia. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop home near Charlottesville, is included in part because of archaeological discoveries made in its slave quarters.
``They found some objects that were actually from Africa and showed the continuance of African cultural traditions, with jewelry and other artifacts,'' Loth said. ``It also told us that slaves were eating pretty well. In the digs, they found a lot of what Jefferson was using as everyday china in his own house.''
Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who left office in 1994 and now is the host of ``The Doug Wilder Show'' on radio and cable television, wrote the book's foreword.
``As the grandson of former slaves and the first elected African-American governor in the history of our country, I am especially delighted by this volume,'' he wrote. ``Despite every adversity, Virginia African-Americans have made and continue to make enormous contributions to the state and nation.''
KEYWORDS: BLACK HISTORY by CNB