Elvatrice Belsches (Photo by Jay Paul)
Reading Elvatrice Belsches' book, "Richmond, Virginia," part of Arcadia Publishing's Black America series, feels like an encounter.
I learned of it in 2016, when I was researching Jackson Ward, our city's historic enclave of black economic power, education and social achievement. In the book, I came face to face with people such as Charles T. Russell, one of the first black architects to be licensed in Richmond and the state of Virginia. Russell designed several of Richmond’s landmark buildings, including St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, and oversaw the remodeling of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in Jackson Ward. A 103-year-old home Russell designed at 508 St. James St. is being renovated and brought to life again. When I stood in the foyer of that grand old house, I reflected on Russell’s serious, bespectacled face and all that I’d learned of him from Belsches’ book. Her telling of the legacy left behind by the city’s pioneering African-American men and women is wholly inspiring, a reaction the author intended to prompt when the work was published in 2002.
"My mission is to introduce, educate and inspire," says Belsches during an interview at the Library of Virginia. Although she works as a researcher, author, lecturer and museum curator, her foundation and greatest passion is education. A Richmond native, she's been a college-level instructor for years, and currently serves as an external scholar at Reynolds Community College as part of a major National Endowment for the Humanities grant awarded to the school. Belsches presents to faculty scholars and students, and creates tours associated with the black experience in the Richmond area. Like most of us, her parents were her first teachers, and inspired her love of education and learning.
"My parents were master educators," she says of Earnest and Mary Parker, who taught in Henrico, Hanover and Prince Edward county public schools. "My dad was actually Barbara Johns' homeroom and algebra teacher at R.R. Moten High School when the strike occurred." During math class, her father discovered Johns and other students making the placards they used in their walkout, a protest in response to the overcrowded, subpar conditions of the school. The walkout launched a series of events that laid the groundwork for the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling deeming segregation unconstitutional, and prompted Prince Edward County schools to close rather than integrate for five years. The students’ signs, with messages like "We want a new school!" are printed indelibly in the nation's collective memory of the civil rights movement, and are treasured pieces of Belsches' family history.
All of Belsches’ work exists in the realm of public history, and expanding historical narratives beyond the classroom. Her gift is stitching the past to the present; Belsches' projects show us why it's important to remember. In that vein, she seized the opportunity of a lifetime in 2014 when she became a researcher for Steven Spielberg's film "Lincoln."
In person, Spielberg is thoughtful and humble, she says. "He always prefaced requests with 'Please,' " she recalls about the legendary director, whose Academy Award-winning film about the nation's 16th president depicts the country splintering under the weight of the Civil War. Belsches was asked to refer experts to the production team, and contribute research on everything from 19th-century weaponry and battle wounds to Civil War-era cartography. "You can't dream any small dreams after an experience like that," she says.
Belsches’ contributions to documentaries and other films are numerous. She wrote “The Life and Times of Elizabeth Keckly,” a film about a formerly enslaved woman who was Mary Todd Lincoln’s seamstress and founder of an aid society for former slaves and injured soldiers, directed by Tim Reid. Last year, she assisted Richmond-based filmmakers Field Studio as they brought to the screen the life and work of celebrated 19th-century Richmond chef and entrepreneur John Dabney. And she’s lending her scholarship to a forthcoming documentary focused on Dr. Sarah Jones, who was not only the first Black woman to pass the Virginia Medical Board exam and become a physician in 1893, but also the first Virginia-born woman to do so, a fact Belsches' research uncovered. Revealing never-before-verified facts are "paramount" to her mission, says Belsches, who is the first researcher to confirm Maggie Walker's birth year as 1864, not 1867, as was commonly cited until about a decade ago.
At the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Belsches’ handiwork will be on display through June 1 in “Yesterday’s Stories, Today’s Inspiration.” Belsches researched and curated the exhibition of more than 150 photographs with a focus on elevating the lesser-known aspects of black life and culture in Virginia. “Many times, when people talk about black history, they’re immediately talking about slavery, and there’s a sense of victimization,” Belsches explains. “I try always to counter that narrative because, really, enslaved people were amazingly courageous. I also try to advance what we know about free people of color, who were making positive, sustained contributions to society in a myriad of ways. We don’t hear enough about them.”
Blessed with a long memory and imbued with a deep respect of the past, Belsches is undoubtedly a tremendous resource for students, educators, museums and anyone interested in learning from the past. While her work extends far beyond Richmond (her book is carried in 40 libraries nationwide and in London, and she penned eight entries for the “African American National Biography,” published by Oxford University Press), she feels her hometown has made “great strides” in how it talks about its complex history.
“Now we need to keep enhancing the narrative, so it’s more inclusive of those voices that have been underrepresented — women and people of color, especially.” The wider the lens through which we view the past, the better we see our present and shape our future.
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