Murals like this one can't erase the stain of 2017's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which resulted in one woman's death and incontrovertible proof that our racist president can get away with anything.
The city, named for the wife of King George III, has been around longer than America and Virginia's history cannot be separated from our nation's original sin. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both owned slaves, and James Monroe proposed sending freed slaves back to Africa.
Even grandiflora magnolia can't camouflage the past or present.
The nearby Sprint Pavilion won't be seeing audiences anytime soon. Virginia, led by a Democratic governor and physician who somehow managed to hold onto his job after a blackface scandal, is still under pandemic lockdown.
The Paramount theater cracks a pretty good pandemic joke.
Historic buildings, mostly turned into stores, line the downtown mall.
Have you ever seen a smaller carousel?
A public blackboard gives visitors an impotent way to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement.
Will national protests finally bring down this memorial to Robert E. Lee, just a few blocks away? The city council voted to remove the statue three years ago, but romanticizers of the Confederacy took court action to keep honoring slavery and their Lost Cause.
The Haven, founded by an UVA alum and a Hollywood director best known for movies starring Jim Carrey, provides a day shelter for the homeless.
The McGuffy Art Center sends a positive message.
Let's hope good eatin' and drinkin' returns to this college town soon. Students, too.
Waterbird sells canned cocktails made with American-grown, potato vodka.
I asked this man if I could take his picture to add to my collection of bicycle photos. He nodded, but didn't seem happy about it.
I probably should have just stuck with these.
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