Stories in Stone: Memorialization, the Creation of History and the Role of Preservation

In 1866, Alexander Dunlop, a free black living in Williamsburg Virginia, did three unusual things. He had an audience with the President of the United States, testified in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction, and he purchased a tombstone for his wife, Lucy Ann Dunlop. Purchases of this sort were rarities among Virginia's free black community--and this particular gravestone is made more significant by Dunlop's choice of words, his political advocacy, and the racializ...