Danville, Virginia: Hallowed Ground
The town's Civil War cemeteries deepened Ernest Furguson's view of history as a young boy
- By Ernest B. Furgurson
- Photographs by Tyrone Turner
- Smithsonian magazine, January 2011, Subscribe
I grew up on Lee Street in Danville, Virginia, the last capital of the Confederacy, and I attended Lee Street Baptist Church and Robert E. Lee School, where I played the role of General Lee in our fifth-grade pageant much more convincingly than Martin Sheen did in the film Gettysburg.
Lee was the street of my boyhood, my paper route, my deepest roots. It was lined with glowing maples, and we seldom had to interrupt our ball games to let a streetcar pass. The house that my grandfather built in 1909 faced the juncture of two cemeteries. To the left ran the stone wall around the Danville National Cemetery, which everyone called the Yankee cemetery, because that’s where Union soldiers who died in the local tobacco warehouse prisons during the Civil War were buried. To the right was the white picket fence that enclosed Green Hill, where my parents, grandparents and some of my great-grandparents are buried, and soon enough I will be too.
For us, those cemeteries were park and playground; our parents had courted there; we knew every oak and cedar, dove and chipmunk. On a mound at the center of the Yankee cemetery was a 70-foot flagpole flying the 48-star Old Glory. Around it were black-painted cannon barrels set in concrete, and pyramids of cannonballs left over from the Civil War. Spread across the surrounding acres were more than 1,300 graves marked by government-issue headstones. Every Memorial Day, black citizens wearing patriotic sashes paraded there to hear music and speeches honoring the soldiers who had died to make them free. Yet within that cemetery, beside the back wall, a few dozen U.S. Colored Troops—free blacks and former slaves who had fought for the Union—were segregated in death as they had been in life. Later, when veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I were laid beside the Civil War dead, we kids, barefooted in season, stood at attention wherever we were as the neighborhood echoed the bugle notes of taps.
That stone wall around the National Cemetery marked the boundary between Yankee and Rebel territory more clearly than the Potomac River ever did. From the main gate of Green Hill, a road ran back to the Confederate Soldiers Monument, a granite obelisk on a mound surrounded by Virginia cedars. It was decorated with bronze bas-relief images of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and words chosen by the Ladies’ Memorial Association, which raised $2,000 to erect it in 1878: “Patriots!” it said. “Know that these fell in the effort to establish just government and perpetuate constitutional liberty. Who thus die will live in lofty example.” And on another side: “They died as men who nobly contend for the cause of truth and right. ‘They softly lie and sweetly sleep.’”
Scattered among the winding lanes were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Confederate veterans’ graves, including that of Pvt. Harry Wooding, honorarily promoted to Cap’n Harry after the War, who was mayor of Danville for 46 years. We boys stood reverently at the edge of the crowd at his funeral in 1938. Many of those veterans’ graves were marked with footstones bearing the initials CV (for Confederate Veteran); at one time such a stone marked the grave of my mother’s grandfather, Robert Daniel Ferguson, first sergeant of the Chatham Grays, Company I, 53rd Virginia Infantry. But through the years most of those markers were broken off and lost. I was told that my great-grandpa lay somewhere near the fence across from the church, but nobody knew exactly where.
Behind the National Cemetery was a third burial ground, set apart after the War for newly emancipated slaves. Nice folks called it the “colored cemetery.” I didn’t know then that its proper name was Freedman’s. In decades past, some black families had erected walls about plots there, with imposing gravestones. But these symbols of status had been effectively erased by municipal neglect. The stones stood in a nine-acre wasteland. The border between Freedman’s and Green Hill, though only two strands of barbed wire, was as distinct as the wall around the National Cemetery: on the west side, well-mowed lawn; on the east, tall weeds. We got cockleburs and sticktights on our socks when we passed through on our way to catch frogs and crawfish in Jackson Branch.
To get there, we crossed the main line of the Southern Railway, which ran from Washington to New Orleans, and the other way for Southerners hoping to find jobs during the Great Depression or respect during the long grim decades of segregation. Often when trains slowed approaching the station by the Dan River, hobos hopped off and spread through the neighborhood, asking for food. When a coal train eased down the grade, black men climbed on and threw off chunks to women alongside, who filled guano sacks to take home to heat their stoves on Liberty Hill.
Like Freedman’s Cemetery, Liberty Hill was populated first by newly emancipated slaves after the War. It was a poor ghetto of frame houses and shacks beyond Jackson Branch. You crossed the stream on a single wooden girder; if you grabbed the cable handrail alongside, you might get rusty metal splinters. This bridge led to a sweet spring, a two-inch pipe jutting out of the red clay hillside, that had provided water to Liberty Hill for generations. Beside the branch, in a hut of discarded signs and tar paper, lived Old Mary, who came to Slick Warren’s grocery store to scavenge unsold vegetables and carry them home in her sack. She said she wanted them to feed her pig, but we understood she was feeding herself, too. She wore what seemed the same long skirt, apron and bandanna year-round, and leaned over to sift through the garbage at an acute angle that reminded me of slaves picking tobacco in pictures I had seen. We told ourselves that as a child, she had been a slave herself.
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Comments (27)
There is a new web site about Lee Street in Danville, Virginia. Apparently the site was started after they saw this site's article by Mr. Furgurson. RG
Posted by Ronnie G. on September 22,2012 | 07:36 PM
Hey Pat, I loved your article on the National Cemetery on Lee Street, it brought back a lot of memories. I grew up living there, along with my two brothers, Harry, Jr., and Frank Williamson, both of whom knew you--and you them. I was too young for you to remember me, Glen, but I knew--and liked Roger, and Carl, Jr., Buster Brown, Bobby Plott, et al., Jimmy Gravely is still kicking, the last I heard. Lee Street was divided down the middle, the Furgusons/Browns on one side and the Williamsons and the Davises on the other. {;-)) It was nice to hear from Linda Sue Traylor Page, she is absolutely right about Lee Street. I was looking at a Google Earth map the other day trying to put family names to the remaining houses, it made me sick. Pat, thanks for putting the old neighborhood on the map... glen
Posted by Glen A. Williamson on September 3,2012 | 02:39 AM
I enjoyed your article very much and took it with me yesterday when I went to Danville to see and explore Freedman's Cemetery. (The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities asked me to write a 250-word item on the cemetery but I am finding little information on it.)I have been working intermittently over the years conducting oral histories and collecting documents related to the African American history of Danville (particularly the 1963 civil rights demonstrations), and the Freedman's Cemetery assignment is an extension of that work. Would you be willing to talk to me about Freedman's Cemetery--or e-mail me with sources I might pursue? Here is a link to a website I developed with oral history excerpts and documents related to the African American history of Danville: www.vcdh.virginia.edu/cslk/danville/
My e-mail address is ee9b@virginia.edu.Thank you so much! Emma Edmunds
Posted by Emma Edmunds on October 23,2011 | 10:01 AM
I grew up with my parents and sister at 743 Holbrook Avenue and recall going to Lee Street Baptist Church as a young child. I was not allowed to go to the Danville National Cemetery as it was not deemed safe. Instead, I spent all of my young, formative years buried in the children's room at the Danville library, located in the former Sutherlin Mansion. That time established my love of libraries and I devote a lot of time to the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library.In the summers I, too, went to Luna Lake and was friends with Lynn Sanders, daughter of the LL owners. I attended Robert E. Lee School and recall being in awe of the "mansions" scattered along upper Holbrook Ave. and on its side streets. My family still lives in Danville and I visit at least once a year.
Posted by Wilma Kendrick Mathews on May 31,2011 | 07:27 PM
I'm looking for any information on Marie Comer (-Price?). I believe she was a Danville school teacher. I am unsure of the years, but from the comments I've read, some of you may have information on her. I would guess anywhere from the 1940s or even before.
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you.
Posted by LaVette Herbert on April 2,2011 | 03:03 PM
I was born in Danville in 1947 and lived there until 1960, when my family moved to California. My friend, Danny Worley lived in the house directly behind Lee Street Baptist Church.
I attended Robert E. Lee Jr. High and played often at Green Street Park....went with my sister to Luna Lake in the summer....spent many Saturdays at the Lea theater downtown watching cowboy heroes and beloved war movies....I remember going to see drive-in movies with my parents....I remember going to the fair every year...what fun....
Danville has stayed in my heart all my life....like a great love that I lost and still mourn....
Posted by David Dockery on March 24,2011 | 02:32 PM
I was born 8/3/1944 just outside Reidsville, NC, in a log cabin surrounded by a tabacco field assisted by a black midwife no less. My Mother told me I cost 8 dollars for 2 visits from a Dr. As an infant we moved to Danville. There thru when I graduated George Washington HS in 1962, we moved several times. I remember sharecropping tabacco near White Oak Mtn. Another was a modest city owned rental house bordering the Danville Municipal Airport ($6 a week). Also several places around the Schoolfield area where my Dad and most family members worked. I see where you attended Robert E. Lee school. I also attended that school years 1957 and 1958. I bet you remember the History teacher there, she really loved the Civil War part. It was then a Junior HS. As a Danvillian, I too have scoured and walked many of the streets of Danville, North Danville, South Danville, Schoolfield, etc. I know and remember many aspects of what kind a town Danville was. My rememberance was that of a poor white boy trying to get out of the poverty associated with working at the Mill. I too worked in the Mill in the finishing dept. in Schoolfield for a few months after HS. It didn't take long for me to see what was awaiting me if I stayed there. I couldn't find another job so I was rescued by joining the USAF in Jan. 1963. That was the last I lived there. I will attempt to read more of your work. If you should like some material on what it was like for me in Danville during 1944 to 1962, I would be glad to talk to you. I find it very interesting now, much more so than when I was growong up there.
Posted by Bobby G. on February 17,2011 | 06:26 AM
To my remote relative Kathy Turner and several other old Danvillians who have posted comments:
I'd like to contact you but don't know how. If you'll post your email address or write me in Washington, I'll try to get back to you.
--Pat Furgurson
Posted by Pat Furgurson on February 8,2011 | 02:40 PM
My dad Joseph Wilbur Skinnell worked for Southern Railway for many years as did most of his family. Although we lived in Charlotte, N.C., I spent a great deal of time visiting relatives in Danville. I was born in 1941, so my memory is a little vague, but I do remember my uncle on my mother's side, Claude S Adams was married to Maude Furgurson who passed before i was born. My mother Gladys Adams Skinnell is buried at Green Hill cemetery and my dad at Mountain View. At my dad's funeral, i remember two very nice gentlemen coming to the cemetery and talking with us. I beleive one of them was called Pat and i think he said he played baseball with my dad. If you are in any way familiar with any of my family, i would certainly appreciate hearing from you. I know so little about my mother's family and would appreciate any information i could get. Thank you so much. I intend to purchase your book and know i will enjoy it. Regards, Kathy Wilson
Posted by Kathryn Skinnell Wilson on February 6,2011 | 10:41 AM
I also grew up in Danville. I attended Lee Street Baptist church from my birth in 1936 until 1954 when I married and moved away. I remember many walks in the cemetry with daddy. We loved making up stories about the people that had died. The library was my "home away from home". I read every book in the children's section and could hardly wait to be able to go upstairs to read those books. Today one of my favorite hobbies is reading. I also travel a great deal as I want to actually see all the places I have read about. My goal is to visit 100 countries and I have almost done it.I played at Green Street Park, attended John L. Berkley and GW. It was a great time. We could go out all day and our parent's did not have to worry about us. My mother and aunt were friends with Patsy Furguson and enjoyed the articles that Pat wrote. I will go to my local library today and look up books by Ernest Furguson.
Posted by Dorothy Jeffries Cooper on February 5,2011 | 12:39 PM
East Stokes Street, Paxton Street, Jefferson Street, Riverside Drive, Chatham Avenue and Lee Street brings many memories. My family (Huff) joined Lee Street Baptist Church and was baptized in 1958. Our family was very active in most all activities, music,teaching and missions. Rev. B. B. Isley was the pastor, married one of my sisters in 1960. Later, Rev. Benjamin Berry (my sister married his son, 1970), and married me in 1977. I do remember 1960's well. I did attend the 1965 Centennial Parade in Danville. My sisters and I graduated from George Washington High School and Robert E. Lee. Our parents are both buried in Danville Memorial Gardens. We walked the beautiful historical streets, went to the Library, shopping downtown, movie theater, Belk's, Thalhimers, Pharmacy (my aunt worked their for years), Rippe's, watched many parade's, picnic's at Ballou Park, driving up and down Riverside Drive through Kelly's Hamburger, Coca Cola Dances, Dairy Queen (Yum), Mary's Diner, Skatig Rink with Earnie Paul playing the organ as we skated, Drive-in theaters and resturants, the Fair, Dan River, could go on and on. My father worked for Dan River Mills downtown until it was torn down (Sheet Metal Division). He later became Security Guard at Schoolfield Division. It was hard seeing our history being disolved. But, we definitely had many great memories. My Aunt's family attended Mosley Methodist Church and her husband's family lived on Lee Street, the Motley's. Can't go without saying how much fun it was sleigh riding down East Stokes Street.
Posted by Frances Huff Barr on January 30,2011 | 10:41 PM
I recently read Mr. Furgurson's book on the battle of Cold Harbor. It's terrific.
Posted by colin woodward on January 27,2011 | 09:23 AM
I grew up in the fiftys and sixtys when the Sutherlin Mansion was our library. I loved that place. I remember going to the cemeteries there as a child with my Dad. It was such a beautiful place with all those old tombstones so full of history.
I hope Danville comes to realize the value of the history that will be lost in those old neighborhoods.
Posted by Deborah Myers Lunsford on January 18,2011 | 02:05 PM
I grew up in Danville and graduated from GW in 1958 long before integration. My parents and grandparents are buried on Lee St in Green Hill, along with about 100 Yankee POWs and soldiers from all our wars. It was certainly a segregated community with lots of history....The Sutherlin Mansion, which became the last Capitol (or one of them, as it moved further S to Greensboro and Charlotte before the final surrender) was our public library with a children's section downstairs. I spent many hours reading children's books down there which wouldn't be allowed today because of their racist tones. (My favorite character was Nicodemus, a little black boy).
It was strange to read the postings of many folks who I used to know and haven't thought of for many years.
Great article by Pat.
Jonathan Yardley, who was in my class at UNC, and used to be the book editor for the Washington Post was the son of the headmaster of Chatham Hall (...a girls school about 15 miles from Danville. Those Chatham Grays came from there too. If I'm not mistaken, Chatham was the county seat of Pittsylvania County.
Posted by Hal Kushner MD on January 9,2011 | 12:48 PM
Pat, your mother (Patsy?) was a friend of my mother, Irma Berger. We lived on a chicken farm in Ringgold and my mother worked at Thalhimers and as secretary to the local Girl Scouts. Your Mom would proudly show us clippings of your excellent columns for the Baltimore Sun. We appreciated your enlightened outlook – a refreshing contrast to the arch-conservative politics of the Register & Bee.
I was a real anomaly, a Southern Jewish farm girl. My mother, a transplant from New York City, would gently try to open minds on the issue of "segregation". She offered a patient ear for our mostly poor neighbors’ many troubles. They liked her enough to listen respectfully. That was a small victory then.
My uncle owned a junk yard near Lee St on the RR tracks. He lived on Colquohoun Ave just up from Green St Park where I used to play, licking the shaved ice from the tiny store on the corner of Jefferson St.
I was born in 1945 but your description of the place and times still resonates. I remember 2 or 3 Confederate veterans tottering in the Christmas Parade down Main St. My VA History book also romanticized the plantation culture. I remember my teacher explaining the treatment of the slaves: "they may have whupped them a bit, but they didn't hurt 'em much."
That mansion Jeff Davis declared his capitol was the public library when I was growing up -- segregated, of course. Right after the Greensboro sit-ins, 4 young black men tried to enter and check out a book. The building was padlocked for my whole senior year after Danville citizens voted in a referendum to close their only public library rather than integrate it. They later opened it but took out all the chairs.
Yes. Danville in the mid-20th century was a leafy town of hard working, decent people who were neighborly and tried to live right. But I just can't bring myself to romanticize those times. It means something that now Liberty Hill has basic services and they mow both sides of the cemetery.
Posted by Terry Grunwald (nee Teresa Berger) on January 5,2011 | 01:30 AM
Having been born at Danville Community Hospital in 1935 growing up on various Schoolfield streets was my legacy, one that I am so proud to have lived. At age three we lived in the house on then Washington Ave. now Schoolfield Drive where Holland Rd. & Milton Ave. begins. Those days I remember well then we moved to Gastonia, NC, my Dad was in textiles. We came back living on Harriston Ave, Wood Ave. finally Oak Ridge Ave before my Dad had a house built in Norwood. I never was cold, never was hungry growing up. It was really hard to get use to in a place called Korea in 1952.
My best memories are of living on Wood Ave. We had Ballou Park as a playground. Just think all the streets had sidewalks on both sides of the street, don't find that much these days. We roller skated with them clamped to our shoes, rode our bikes, walked all the way to school every school day on the sidewalks. I don't know what happened to education but I do know for a fact I was blessed. Starting at Baltimore Elem. and finally eleven years Schoolfield High School. Later in life working in Textile management like my Dad, I was shocked at the people like the supervisors working under my supervision hardly had the ability to read and write well, even understandably. But it always took me back to my teachers and then I appreciated every one of them. I was a bit of a rebel, wanted to see the world and did. But there has never been any place like Schoolfield, Virginia. I can never forgive CVS for tearing down our beloved Schoolfield Rec Center but life goes on....every school day I with neighbors went there after school until our parents got off from work then we again walked home on the sidewalks or down by the beautiful reservoir with the water spraying all along the side in the summer time. Old memories like soldiers, they never die just fade away. I remember when Gen. Mac said those words to congress after I returned from combat in Korea
Posted by Berry Rose on January 3,2011 | 03:23 PM
When I was born, my parents were living with my grand-parents (Frank and Addie Millner) in the 800 block of Lee St. I spent a good part of my youth in that neighborhood. My grandfather was custodian at Lee St. Baptist Church and I used to help him sweep the sidewalk, dust the pews, and wash the little glasses after communion. My family attended church at Mosley Memorial Methodist a few blocks away along with some of the Furgursons. I later worked for Carl Jr. in his photography business. My time in this neighborhood was in the late 40's and 50"s when we kids had a lot of freedom of movement and opportunities to get into mischief but we were kept in check by neighbors and shopkeepers, all of whom knew our parents. All in all it was a good time and place to grow up and I lament the fact that my grandchildren won't have some of the same opportunities
Posted by Alan Pinekenstein on December 31,2010 | 01:35 PM
Greenhill Cemetery is the resting place of several of my ancestors, and Lee Street Baptist Church was the location of my uncle's marriage. On my last visit to Danville, I took a cousin who lives across the river to Greenhill. It was as if to a foreign land for him. For me, having grown up on Green Street, several blocks from Lee Street, it was as if I had come home again.
To anyone in Danville who has a voice in its preservation efforts, please, please support restoration and conservation of this important historic community.
Posted by Emily Comer Robertson on December 28,2010 | 05:27 PM
My grandparents were Fletcher and Ettie Dillard and they lived on Lee street their whole married life. My granddaddy and I went every Sunday afternoon to count train cars as they went by. When mama and daddy and I lived in the "little" house I would scare people in the summer when they walked home from choir practice by saying "Hi" out of my open bedroom window. Mama and daddy were married at Lee street Baptist and I can remember helping granddaddy collect the offering plates and taking them back to the safe after church; then "helping" him get his choir robe off. It was a great place to be a kid. Last time we went there were bars on the windows of the house and the cemetery was locked up. I wish I could show my kids how life was there.
Posted by Donna Kaczynski on December 28,2010 | 12:25 PM
I LIVED AT 744 LEE STREET FOR 17 YEARS AND ATTENDED LEE STREET BAPTIST CHURCH UNTIL 1978 WHEN I MOVED TO NEW JERSEY. MY HOUSE WAS JUST IN FRONT OF THE MAIN GATE TO GREEN HILL CEMETARY AND IT TOO WAS MY PLAYGROUND. IT WAS PERFECT FOR BIKING, SLEDING AND PLAYING MAKE BELIEVE KING & QUEEN ON SOME OF THE MONUMENTS. THE CONFEDERATE MONUMENT AT THE END OF THE ASPHAULT DRIVE WAS IDEAL FOR ROLLING DOWN THE HILL OR AT THE GAZABO WAITING FOR A TRAIN TO COME BY. IT WAS A GREAT LIFE GROWING UP THERE BUT NOW MY HOME HAS BEEN TORN DOWN FOR WHAT REASON I DO NOT KNOW. IT HAD HUGE SLABS OF GRANITE WHICH CAN NOT BE DESTROYED. I WONDER WHO ENDED UP WITH THEM. IT WAS A SAFE FRIENDLY STREET WHERE EVERYONE KNEW EVERYONE. I DIDN'T KNOW ERNEST FURGURSON BUT I DID KNOW THE CARL FURGURSON'S WHO LIVED IN THE HOUSE HE DESCRIBED AT THE JOINING OF THE TWO CEMETARIES. CARL JR WAS MY FIRST PLAYMATE AND BEST FRIEND. IT SADDENS ME SO MUCH THE CHANGES IN THAT AREA THAT NOW IT CAN BE DANGEROUS TO RIDE DOWN THE STREET. THAT HOUSE WAS OWNED BY MY GRANDFATHER, JAMES THOMAS ADAMS AND THREE FAMILIES LIVED THERE. MY MOTHER AND FATHER WERE MARRIED THERE IN THE HOUSE AND US 3 CHILDREN WERE ALL BORN THERE. WE ALL ATTENDED LEE ST BAPTIST CHURCH REGULARLY AND ALL CAME TO CHRIST AND WERE BAPTISED THERE. I GUESS MOST THINGS CHANGE WITH TIME AND NOT ALWAYS FOR THE BETTER.
Posted by LINDA (TRAYLOR) PAGEL on December 27,2010 | 03:07 PM
Pat and I have a common ancestor in Revolutionary soldier Robert Ferguson of Pittsylvania County. Robert lived to be 89 and we had his extensive declaration of service during the War. When he died in 1850, he owned land on Double Creek near Sutherlin.
Posted by Danny Ricketts on December 26,2010 | 09:10 AM
I grew up in Danville in Eric's Restaurant, owned by my parents. I remember the sit-ins when Mom served blacks before it was "acceptable". I remember the two entrances to the movies and the two water fountains labeled colored and white. I remember the sign on the bus which I disobeyed and sat in the back. Thank goodness times have changed.
Margaret Rome Broker/Owner HomeRome Realty, Baltimore,MD.
Posted by Margaret Rome on December 23,2010 | 04:40 PM
I do remember the 1965 Centennial in Danville. The men and women dressed in Civil War garb and there was a parade on Main Street. Most everyone there was white. I remember the shocking poverty of the black neighborhoods, the bifurcated system of social services, one for blacks, one for whites. And I remember in 1970 the full integration of our high school. I was a senior that autumn and watched the whites gather on one side of the school, some waving Confederate flags, while the outnumbered black students gathered across the way. There were riots in the hallways, and at the first football game of the season. They closed the school for a few days. I believe I heard that Danville finally agreed to full integration only under duress from the federal government. How far we have come...
Posted by Michael A. Koplen on December 22,2010 | 08:18 PM
Martin Sheen played General Lee exactly as Jeff Shaara portrayed him in 'The Killer Angels' on which the movie was based. I suggest you read that before you compare your 5th grade performance with Sheen's very realistic portrayal of Lee.
Posted by Pauline on December 22,2010 | 07:28 PM
Capt. Harry Wooding encouraged my grandfather, Jacob Berman, to settle in Danville in 1894, with the result that I became Pat Furgurson's classmate for most of our elementary and all our high school years in the 1930's and 40's. The Jewish presence, never more than 50 families, also resulted in not one, but two cemeteries -- the Reform Jewish section in Green Hill and the Orthodox cemetery on Westover Drive, on the other side of the Dan River. Danville did everything by two's.
-- Ralph Lowenstein, Dean Emeritus, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Posted by Ralph Lowenstein on December 22,2010 | 12:04 PM
Although a few years younger than Pat, I can feel his memories of childhood growing up in Danville. It's too bad our government leaders, council members, and those deemed civic leaders are not natives who appreciate the dedication of this City's forefathers and mothers. Lee Street is being ravaged by city-ordered demolitions to somehow rid blight and crime...such a lack of vision in a truly sacred location. Come to see it soon before it's gone!
Posted by Susan Stilwell on December 22,2010 | 08:42 AM
Liberty Hill, Almagro, outhouses, tobacco warehouses -- Danville is the beloved hometown of this once labeled 'colored' girl who has grown up to see some of the world and has come to appreciate the roots, pain, love of a small southern community.
Posted by Vanessa Womack Easter on December 21,2010 | 10:36 AM