Jalane Schmidt is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where she teaches courses on race, religion, and social change movements, and directs the UVA Democracy Initiative's Memory Project. A scholar-activist in Charlottesville, Virginia, she sits on the city’s Historic Resources Committee, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center Advisory Committee, and other state history boards. She plans and leads public history events which focus on local and national African American history. She and other racial justice activists organized to increase the #MoveTheStatue constituency turnout for Charlottesville’s 2016 Blue Ribbon Commission meetings on the disposition of Confederate monuments. Schmidt co-founded the local chapter of Black Lives Matter during the 2017 Summer of Hate and was involved in planning counter-demonstrations, and in the aftermath, supporting victims through legal processes and trauma. She co-founded Take 'Em Down Cville and the 2019-2020 Monumental Justice Virginia campaign which lobbied the General Assembly and successfully overturned a century-old state law which had prohibited localities from removing Confederate statues. Schmidt continues to lead community engagement for racial justice, most recently by organizing "Swords Into Plowshares," a project which aims to melt the recently-removed Lee statue and use the bronze for new public art.
Zoom Link: https://virginia.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkfuiorDojH9EgX6cirvlbsYRYLwU4P5qP