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About three hundred people gathered this morning under a bright April sun on the east end of the Charlottesville downtown mall to be among the first to watch someone write on the new community chalkboard. The 42-foot-long slate wall is a monument to the First Amendment built by the Thomas Jefferson Center for Free Expression. Area celebrities were in attendance, and short remarks were made by George Garrett, John Grisham and Boyd Tinsley. We present the entire event in this downloadable recording,
along with reactions from people who were there.
00:00 – 00:34 – Introduction
00:34 – 03:41 – Robert O’Neill, Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center
03:41 – 06:24 – Bruce Sanford, Chairman of the Center’s Board of Trustees
06:24 – 08:16 – Charlottesville Mayor David Brown
08:16 – 13:00 – Former Virginia Poet Laureate George Garrett
13:01 – 18:12 – Bestselling author John Grisham
18:12 – 27:05 – Dahlia Lithwick, legal writer for Slate and host of WHTJ’s For the Record
27:05 – 30:10 – Violinist Boyd Tinsley of the Dave Matthews Band
30:10 – 33:31 – Brandon Dudley, Charlottesville High School Senior
33:31 – 35:20 – Closing remarks from Bruce Sanford
35:20 – 37:00 – Closing Remarks from Robert O’Neill and the unveiling
37:00 – 42:47 – Montage of reactions and first words written
You can see better pictures of the event on Doc Multimedia’s blog. 2300 Days has a really nice picture of the wall shortly after it was open to the public. Charlottesville Tomorrow has many pictures of the people listed above.
[...] The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression unveiled their privately-funded, long-awaited free speech monument on the Downtown Mall this morning. The monument consists of a large Buckingham-minded slate chalkboard and a speaker’s podium, located in front of City Hall. Blog coverage is extensive, with The Hook, Outskirts, 2300 Days, Charlottesville Tomorrow, and Mayor David Brown all weighing in thus far. And Sean Tubbs has the audio at the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, natch. [...]
[...] Janis Jaquith kicks off Community Chalkboard event series By Sean Tubbs The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression is the group behind the recent installation of the Community Chalkboard and Podium on the downtown mall. The Chalkboard is the setting for a new lecture series, and we bring you now the inaugural event with radio essayist Janis Jaquith. Thanks to Lydia Wilson for recording this event. [...]
I enjoyed listening to this two years later, thanks to our experimental streaming service.