The History of Race & Racism at UVA Health

To adequately cover the entire history of race and racism at UVA Health would take more than 1 hour. "But you have to start somewhere," says Dan Cavanaugh, Curator of Historical Collections at the Health Sciences Library. That 'somewhere' has taken shape as a 1-hour tour of the Medical Center’s West Complex. In the tour, Cavanaugh presents significant developments in the hospital's history of race between 1901 and 2000.

Cavanaugh's research covers patient segregation, discriminatory health care, labor discrimination, race science research, civil rights activism, IDEA initiatives, and urban renewal projects. But the point of the public tour, given in partnership with Diversity and Community Engagement Office, as part of Martin Luther King, Jr, week and Black History Month, was not to provide an exhaustive, definitive report. Instead, Cavanaugh explains, the effort aimed to "help participants understand how historical developments might continue to influence UVA Health and the organization’s relationship with the surrounding Charlottesville/Albemarle community."

The tour itself, which Cavanaugh has led both in-person and online, includes historical photos, quotes, and a lot of data. Many community members remember what it was like. Others might be surprised to discover that much of what we take for granted today only recently changed.

We asked Cavanaugh a few questions to get his personal reflections on the history of race and racism at UVA Health and the impact of sharing it.

Q: What was most surprising to you in your research?

I don't know if anything about this research has been truly surprising, but I can say that this work continues to humble me. As an archivist at UVA Health, I work to preserve resources that document this institution's rich and complex history. I need to develop an overall sense or framework of that history to do this job well. Each time I learn something new about the history of racism at UVA Health, it compels me to review and redevelop the interpretations of our institution's history that guide my work. 

These instances of discovery and re-evaluation are personal. The research I conduct does not uncover anything new or unknown. As I said before, many people who attend the talks I give lived this history, and they know much of it better than I ever will. Also, much of what I present is the work of other researchers who have already gone down these paths. When I learn about something that should not have seemed so hidden, it affirms what many leaders and scholars from historically underrepresented groups have been saying for decades. Collectively, our institutions have not done enough to preserve and make accessible the critical resources that document the history of racism.

There has been a lot of progress locally and nationally. For example, Tori Tucker and the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry are doing incredible work to highlight the history of the LPN education program at then-Burley High School. But, there is more work to do. I hope I am doing my part to improve how we document the history of racism at UVA Health, and I hope that I am providing support to others who are doing work in this area.