This book chronicles the growth of this historic community over nearly four centuries from its founding to its most recent urban and suburban developments.

In the spring of 1861, Richmond, Virginia, suddenly became the capital city, military headquarters, and industrial engine of a new nation fighting for its existence. A remarkable drama unfolded in the months that followed. The city's population exploded, its economy was deranged, and its government and citizenry clashed desperately over resources to meet daily needs while a mighty enemy army laid siege. Journalists, officials, and everyday residents recorded these events in great detail, and the Confederacy's foes and friends watched closely from across the continent and around the world. In Rebel Richmond, Stephen V. Ash vividly evokes life in Richmond as war consumed the Confederate capital. He guides readers from the city's alleys, homes, and shops to its churches, factories, and halls of power, uncovering the intimate daily drama of a city transformed and ultimately destroyed by war. Drawing on the stories and experiences of civilians and soldiers, slaves and masters, refugees and prisoners, merchants and laborers, preachers and prostitutes, the sick and the wounded, Ash delivers a captivating new narrative of the Civil War's impact on a city and its people.

This exploration of Richmond's burial landscape over the past 300 years reveals in illuminating detail how racism and the color line have consistently shaped death, burial, and remembrance in this storied Southern capital. Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation. Its burial grounds show the sweep of Southern history on an epic scale, from the earliest English encounters with the Powhatan at the falls of the James River through slavery, the Civil War, and the long reckoning that followed. And while the region's deathways and burial practices have developed in surprising directions over these centuries, one element has remained stubbornly the same: the color line. But something different is happening now. The latest phase of this history points to a quiet revolution taking place in Virginia and beyond. Where white leaders long bolstered their heritage and authority with a disregard for the graves of the disenfranchised, today activist groups have stepped forward to reorganize and reclaim the commemorative landscape for the remains of people of color and religious minorities. In Death and Rebirth in a Southern City, Ryan K. Smith explores more than a dozen of Richmond's most historically and culturally significant cemeteries. He traces the disparities between those grounds which have been well-maintained, preserving the legacies of privileged whites, and those that have been worn away, dug up, and built over, erasing the memories of African Americans and indigenous tribes. Drawing on extensive oral histories and archival research, Smith unearths the heritage of these marginalized communities and explains what the city must do to conserve these gravesites and bring racial equity to these arenas for public memory. He also shows how the ongoing recovery efforts point to a redefinition of Confederate memory and the possibility of a rebirthed community in the symbolic center of the South. The book encompasses, among others, St. John's colonial churchyard; African burial grounds in Shockoe Bottom and on Shockoe Hill; Hebrew Cemetery; Hollywood Cemetery, with its 18,000 Confederate dead; Richmond National Cemetery; and Evergreen Cemetery, home to tens of thousands of black burials from the Jim Crow era. Smith's rich analysis of the surviving grounds documents many of these sites for the first time and is enhanced by an accompanying website, www.richmondcemeteries.org. A brilliant example of public history, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City reveals how cemeteries can frame changes in politics and society across time.

A guidebook for visitors, locals and newcomers to Richmond, Va.

Tim Richmond was, fellow NASCAR driver Kyle Petty said, "a stranger in time." In one regard, the flashy, flamboyant driver from Ashland, Ohio, was years ahead of the trends in a sport that would soon enjoy explosive growth in popularity. Women who were NASCAR fans loved him¬¬¬—and so did their husbands and boyfriends. Richmond believed he could use his stardom in racing as a springboard to a second career as an actor, and he had the Hollywood good looks to make that a realistic dream. At the same time, Richmond was also a throwback. He pushed his race cars hard, too hard at times, driving every lap like he was hauling moonshine through the mountains of the Carolinas with a revenuer on his rear bumper. Those who saw him drive still compare him to veterans like Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly, who ran as hard off the track as they did off of it. In the early 1980s, however, Richmond stood out. He was not from the South; he had not grown up slinging a stock car through the dirt on red-clay ovals. He had, in fact, never raced at all until he was twenty-one. And just ten years later, after making a splash in the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie, he was emerging as one of the brightest stars and greatest talents in NASCAR's Winston Cup Series. Richmond's star was bright, but its light went out too soon. As he neared stock car racing's zenith, Richmond's life took a tragic turn. A man who thrived on the affection he felt from those who enjoyed watching him compete spent his final months almost completely shut off from that world. Tim Richmond: The Fast Life and Remarkable Times of NASCAR's Top Gun tells the memorable story of a born racer and how he raced headlong through life with the throttle wide open and his wheels burning rubber at almost every turn.

The seven hills at the James River fall line that Captain John Smith first witnessed in 1607 became the site of a pivotal American city. Richmond was a birthplace of the American Revolution. It became the permanent capital of Virginia and served as the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. In the early twentieth century, industry expanded in the city as companies like DuPont and Philip Morris built factories. Cultural institutions expanded, with Richmond's first radio station and movie theater opening in the 1920s, before the Great Depression hit the city hard. The city rose from financial struggle to a highly industrialized center for manufacturing and vital transportation hub. Join authors Jack Trammell and Guy Terrell as they narrate the rich history of the River City.