Vinegar Hill

The area known as Vinegar Hill was a triangular area that extended from Preston Ave to Main Street, bordered by 4th Street and anchored by the Jefferson School and Zion Union Baptist Church. After enslaved people were emancipated, African American families began moving into the Vinegar Hill neighborhood. A group of wealthy Black men purchased land and formed what was called the “Black Bank,” officially known in April of 1889 as the Piedmont Industrial and Land Improvement Company.

During the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, Vinegar Hill became a lively, economically diverse, predominantly African American community with over 600 residents. It was home of the civic clubs like the Masons and the Elks, Zion Union Baptist Church, alongside dentists, teachers, and doctors, and between 30 to 40 prosperous Black-owned or Black-run businesses. They all played important roles in supporting and uniting residents. Many former residents have fond memories of living in Vinegar Hill, remembering the neighborhood’s rich sense of community.

However, by the late 1950’s, the all-white city council was making plans to “raze” Vinegar Hill, characterizing it as a slum, regardless of a survey that set the value of businesses on the hill at $1.6 million dollars. Charlottesville was expanding, and Vinegar Hill occupied prime real estate between downtown and the University of Virginia, and it stood in the way of what was deemed to be “progress.” City council proposed a referendum authorizing the redevelopment of Vinegar Hill as part of the “federal Urban Renewal project.”

These efforts cannot be seen in isolation from Virginia’s “massive resistance” movement. During this time, government officials and white citizens were against school integration, as well as integration in the businesses sector and social life, including cemeteries.

In 1960, the referendum to raze Vinegar Hill passed by the slimmest of margins. This election was held five years before the Voting Rights Act was passed, meaning that in Charlottesville, residents had to pay a poll tax for 3 years in a row in order to be eligible to vote. This tax prevented many Vinegar Hill residents and Black residents across the city from voting. Despite efforts to block the neighborhood’s destruction, twenty acres of land were completely bulldozed by 1965 and 463 residents were forced to leave their homes.

Families and businesses that owned property in Vinegar Hill were paid what the city determined market rate was for their homes, and the 139 renters were “allowed compensation” to aid them in moving to the first Federally-funded public housing complex in the area, located in the 10th and Page neighborhood. Implicit promises that Black residents would be able to rebuild back in Vinegar Hill never materialized. With the streets, houses, churches, and business ripped away, the community was dispersed. Social, political and religious groups were fractured. And the bulldozing of houses and businesses meant that wealth and income, which could have been used to build more wealth, had been destroyed.

The land was left vacant for many years, after which a hotel, road, and other developments were finally built. Where a lively community once existed, building shared memory and a foundation for the next generation, there was only scraped earth – an “open wound” as one former resident characterized it – that lasted for 20 years. The financial, emotional and psychological impact on residents was enormous and is still felt today.