African-American Heritage Alliance partners with Culpeper Tourism to tell untold stories of past people and places on and around East Davis Street, ceremony Saturday at the Depot.
Visitors still come to Civil War battlefields to ask why our great-great-grandfathers killed one another there, and whether we can resolve the stubborn differences they left behind. But the battlefields are more than memorials. They are also green, open spaces – natural reserves surrounded by rapidly expanding suburbs.
On Saturday, the three unknown soldiers of the U.S. Colored Troops will be honored in Culpeper County, Va., not far from where they were executed. It’s part of a years-long effort by Lambert, the head of the nonprofit Freedom Foundation, to highlight the area’s Black history, working together with Civil War Trails and the Piedmont Environmental Council.
A Virginianâs long-held dream has begun to take shape at a Culpeper County crossroads.
Where Youngâs Lane meets Maddenâs Tavern Road near Lignum, allies recently broke ground for a monument to Black soldiers who marched into Confederate territory during the American Civil War, right past this spot.
The advance of the United States Colored Troops regiments, which crossed the Rappahannock River at modern-day Remington, marked Black troopsâ entry into Gen. Robert E. Leeâs area of operations.
A new nonprofit, The Freedom Foundation, and a much older one, the Piedmont Environmental Council, have teamed to commemorate that event and all it represents, as well as two nearby historic sites, Maddenâs Tavern and Ebenezer Baptist Church. The foundation has identified at least 120 USCTs who were born in Culpeper.