The Center for Cultural Landscapes has completed an engagement strategy report for creating a new vision for Central Virginia's commemorative landscape for the Montpelier Descendants Committee (MDC). The report supports the MDC's Arc of Enslaved Communities project, an initiative funded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Arc aims to develop a vision for connecting descendants and honoring unrecognized contributions of enslaved individuals in a nine-county area -- Albemarle, Louisa, Fluvanna, Greene, Culpeper, Orange, Madison, Spotsylvania, and Rappahannock--through commemorative trails. 

As part of this effort, the team has developed an interactive webmap of historic African American sites of memory and attended listening sessions, oral history workshops, and community events to gather feedback and build relationships with key descendant leaders. These engagements, held from 2024-25, have provided valuable insights into local histories, kinship networks, and the preservation of African American cemeteries, schools, and community centers.  

— Justice Madden, Project Manager