In Hanover County, the Brown Grove Rural Historic District is more than a neighborhood: It is a living testament to the resilience of the historic Black community upon which it was founded. The wealth of community stories were on full display at the Hanover Museum of History and Culture.
The “Tapestry of Resilience” exhibition is a journey through the lived experience of Brown Grove residents. It examines the origins of a community founded by formerly enslaved individuals, chronicling its oral history and shared artifacts.
The exhibit examines the generations of families that settled there through photos and preserved interviews with the community’s founders — some of whom were able to share their stories right before their passing.
Renada Harris, a member of the Brown Grove Preservation Group, spoke with VPM News about the exhibit's importance and what she learned while documenting the community's past.
“We want you to see the lived experience of some of our community members,” Harris said. “And through their stories, through the artifacts and through the pictures, you will see what it was like to live as a descendant African American community.”
Brown Grove’s roots stretch back to Reconstruction, the era following the Civil War’s end. The community became a self-sustaining, rural haven anchored by Black-owned farms, stores and cultural hubs like the Brown Grove Rural Historic District — which still stands today.
Infrastructure projects, including the construction of major roads, highways and industrial facilities have repeatedly encroached on the community’s cultural integrity since its creation.
In recent years, proposals to build landfills and distribution centers within or near Brown Grove have sparked fierce opposition from generations’ worth of residents. These efforts led to the formation of advocacy groups like the Brown Grove Preservation Group, which works to protect the area’s cultural and environmental heritage.
Despite being overlooked by local government for decades, Brown Grove gained formal recognition as a state and national landmark on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
“Once the state recognized how important we were and we got national recognition, then our local government, Hanover County, had to recognize it,” Harris said.
Today, Brown Grove stands as a symbol of endurance and also as a living community — a home to lifelong Hanover residents, descendants and newcomers alike. Its history, once at risk of being erased, is now being preserved through collaborative efforts at the local and national levels.
“Tapestry of Resilience” is a collaboration between the county government, the Brown Grove Preservation Group, George Mason University's John Mitchell Jr. Program, and Operation Understanding. These groups banded together to further document the historic roots of Brown Grove.
The exhibit also displays artifacts like school yearbooks, church fans and hymnals — and of course, photos depicting the old Brown Grove School building before it was destroyed by fire in the 1940s, old photos of the neighborhood baseball team and military service members.
Harris said throughout the process of interviewing her neighbors and uncovering relics from the past, she discovered new things about the place where she was raised.
“We learned about the careers and the education of some of our elders that I didn't know about,” Harris said. “Their stories brought a lot of joy. Stories of people that may not have walked with Martin Luther King, but they were taking small steps within their own community.”
Though the exhibit is set to come down, Harris said the Brown Grove Preservation Group hopes to find a permanent home and will continue to chronicle the community cultural monuments including a memorial for the old Brown Grove Elementary School, which was approved by the county’s board of supervisors last March.
Harris told VPM News she hopes exhibit visitors leave “Tapestry” with more knowledge and understanding that sometimes recognition has an important part to play toward a community's reparations.
“I think it's important to show how a community was still thriving and they were resilient, despite the adversity that was constantly coming at them,” Harris said. “We still have things being thrown at us, but yet we still have to continue to thrive in our personal lives and within our community.”
