BUZZ Watch Party stars Franklin County (Va.) NAACP’s “Raising the Shade”

All are invited to a free Watch Party on Feb. 1, 2025, at 6:00 pm EST at First Baptist Church of Rocky Mount to enjoy our newest BUZZ starring the Franklin County NAACP’s venture “Raising the Shade.”

About the episode:

Monuments are all around us … testaments to people and places of the past. One such monument stands on the courthouse lawn in Franklin County, Virginia, honoring the county’s ancestors who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

But the nonprofit Franklin County NAACP has begun asking: Why do we honor these forefathers who fought for a cause to keep other forefathers of ours enslaved? What role did the foremothers have in preserving this history? And, if we insist on memorializing one side of the story, can we at least start to pay tribute to the other?

With funding they’ve received from the Mellon Foundation as part of a Virginia Tech led initiative titled “Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia,” these citizens have banded together to form an organization called “Raising the Shade.” Their mission: create new monuments that celebrate the county’s 70 African-American ancestors who fought for the Union during the Civil War in a branch of the Army known as the United States Colored Troops.

This BUZZ is part 1 of a multi-episode project we’re producing in partnership with the Franklin County NAACP.