Virginia Racial Healing Institute

09/22/2026

There's a seat at the table for you at our Racial Healing Book Club!

Date: Thursday, Sept. 24th
Time: 6:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time)
To Request a Zoom Link: email [email protected]

09/11/2026

A new 9/11 art exhibit shares how architecture can foster healing.

“Forever Marked by the Day: A Quarter Century of Mourning and Renewal” opened earlier this year and takes visitors through the architectural design, creation, devastation and rebirth of lower Manhattan and the Twin Towers.

09/05/2026

Our sister Coming to the the Table chapter in North Fork (Long Island) New York fosters racial healing through quilting.

It doesn't take much for the threads of a community to begin to unravel, as the isolation of the pandemic proved so starkly five years ago. But it's easier than you might think to stitch them back together. This spring, the North Fork chapter of Coming to the Table, a national group of people puttin...

09/03/2026

This is what racial healing looks like!

"I was born in Richmond but lived for 11 years in other places in my youth (and most of my adult life elsewhere). So I was not steeped in the Lost Cause mythology that cloaked my great-grandfather, surgeon to Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s Army of Northern Virginia, in glory. Only 29 years old when the Civil War ended, he was a leading medical figure in Virginia and became president of the American Medical Association.... Later, I began to research the history of my family, who had enslaved Black people in Virginia, Georgia and elsewhere. I felt drawn to learn about this family history to understand how my ancestors had harmed others and how I might somehow contribute to healing those wounds. I learned about Dr. McGuire’s father-in-law, Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, from Staunton, who, as secretary of the Interior, was instrumental in the settlement of Native Americans on reservations in the West. He wrote, "the only alternatives left are to civilize or exterminate" them. I also learned about my ancestors in Savannah, Georgia, who had rice plantations, dealt in cotton and even in the slave trade. I was thrilled to meet and get to know two distant Black cousins: we are linked through a Savannah ancestor, Judge James Moore Wayne, a Supreme Court Justice."

When the century-old Richmond statue of my Confederate ancestor, Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire, was finally removed, I felt an unexpected sense of relief, seeing it as a necessary step toward

08/08/2026

The exhibition, entitled The Weight We Carry, will feature artwork that depicts the themes of racism, trauma and healing.

Christian artist and minister Cornelius Blake is preparing to stage an exhibition of his artwork at the Waiting Room, Peckham Rye Station.

07/31/2026

Memorials and acts of remembrance are critical to helping people heal and reconcile with American slavery, writes columnist Laura D. Hill.

Memorials and acts of remembrance are critical to helping people heal and reconcile with American slavery, writes Laura D. Hill.

07/22/2026

Healing through the Art of Poetry!

Discover how poets Kelvin Marshall, Mia X, and Salaam Green use verse as a powerful tool for grief, healing, and racial equity.

07/17/2026

“It’s going to take some while to recover from what has been done but it’s not impossible and, if we keep concerning ourselves with the words that Jefferson wrote, ‘all men are created equal’ – not just rich, land-owning white men – then we can get to a better place where this country can go through some healing and reconciliation."

Shannon Lanier, 6th great grandson of Thomas Jefferson

Shannon LaNier, Jefferson’s sixth great-grandson, reflects on his lineage and the role of African Americans in the nation’s founding

07/16/2026

07/10/2026

Virginia Racial Healing Institute board members with Karen Gooden and Prinny Anderson, descendants of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, during the 5th annual Journey to Racial Healing Ceremony.

By committing to truth-telling, relationship building and restoration today, we bridge the historic chasm between America’s founding words and its actual practices, writes Laura D. Hill.