TAL Correspondent Sara Schmieder brings us an all new interview about the power of cemetery restoration, race in the American South, and bringing legacy to light.
Dr. Ryan Smith is a professor of religious history, material culture, and historic preservation at Virginia Commonwealth University. His latest book Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond’s Historic Cemeteries (2020) explores the history and reclamation of sacred cemeteries through the lens of race. By working with friends groups from various Richmond cemeteries he charts their evolution over time and how abandoned cemeteries have been reborn. Dr. Smith also authored Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder (2014) and Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century (2006).

In this episode we discuss:
· What it means to be a friend of a cemetery
· How cemeteries are being revived and protected
· Segregation and cemeteries
· The importance of sacred spaces for Black, Jewish, and other marginalized communities

Links:
https://www.richmondcemeteries.org/
https://friendsofeastend.com/
https://shockoehillcemetery.org/

Episode Art: Sara Schmieder
Producers: Sara Schmieder, Adam Gamwell
Music: Epidemic Sounds
Bam Bam – Yomoti
Shades of Purple – Gregory David

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