DeTeasa Brown Gathers - Peggy
Written By Logan Botts and Kayla White
DeTeasa Brown Gathers has strong roots in Charlottesville, Virginia. The mother of three has raised her children here in the same community where she grew up. DeTeasa spent her early years in an area familiar to many who spend time at UVA, in the neighborhood surrounding Venable Elementary School. DeTeasa has worked at the University hospital’s surgical department as a medical coder for 18 years and has been involved in the greater Charlottesville community through her church. However, it was through her involvement with UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers Community Engagement Committee, that Gathers learned about what she calls the triangle effect. The triangle effect is what Gathers calls the network binding her community. The three points of the triangle are UVA, the greater Charlottesville area, and the cultural and historical institutions that bridge the two narratives.
DeTeassa’s community involvement began at First Baptist Church where she worked as the finance administrator. The tragic events of August 11th and 12th to become more involved in the community and the history thereof. Although she always had good history grades in school, DeTessa couldn’t understand how she fit into the historical equation. Her husband had been working for the Enslaved Laborers Community Engagement Committee. When she began, DeTessa was unaware of her connection to enslaved laborers. However, working on the committee would spark a newfound interest in DeTessa. She took to Ancestory.com to begin the journey of mapping her family tree.
One day, DeTeasa received a message from a user she has never met before: “we have a common ancestry.” The connection between the DeTeasa and the user, a white woman, was revealed to be Peggy Spear. DeTeasa searched deeper, finding that Peggy looked like a spitting image of not only herself but also other women in her family. Peggy became the link DeTeasa needed to link herself to the historical project with ELC. Upon closer inspection, DeTeasa learns that Peggy’s photo is a part of The Holsinger Project. Rufus Holsinger’s Portrait Project contains images of both Peggy Spears and Mrs. Joe Spears, taken around 1914 and 1918.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has a wall with names of the enslaved people researchers have been able to confirm who lived and worked at the University of Virginia and blank spaces for those names still left to be found. Only Peggy’s first name is etched onto the wall, but once DeTeasa sees Peggy’s name, she knows that it is the same woman who shares a branch in her family tree. The removal of last names from the wall sparks an interesting conversation about the power of names.
“I hope to one day see that they put her complete name up Peggy Raglan Brown Spears… so that we know it's her completely.”
Peggy Spears’s discovery helped open generational doors for DeTeasa as she began to dig into the past of her mother, Charlotte Virginia Bowles Brown. Charlotte, born in 1935 was one of the hidden hero nurses of UVA. DeTeasa carries childhood memories of watching her mother eagerly go to work. This eagerness masked a darker legacy of inequity embedded into the University's history. Charlotte, nursing school class of ‘63, was unable to pursue an education through the University. Instead, she, and her fellow black nurses, were educated at Burley Middle School. The inequality Charlotte faced didn’t end with her education. Upon completing her studies Charlotte became a nurse in the UVA emergency room and the NICU. However, she and the other black nurses were forced to work in the basement, segregated from the other staff.
“We would like to apologize for you not being able to learn at UVA”
Despite all of this adversity, DeTeasa remembers the immense pride her mother had for the work she did. Charlotte Brown passed away in 2018. A year later, DeTeasa was invited to a ceremony to commemorate the hidden nurses of UVA. The University gave awards to patch the scars left by segregation, but Charlotte never had the opportunity to witness this apology. DeTeasa began to think, how was it that she had never known her mother’s hardship? Why didn’t Charlotte carry resentment, anger, or frustration home with her after working hours?
“They were just happy to have employment.”
Gathers is appreciative of the memorial to enslaved laborers and the recognition it offers of what happened on the land to enslaved people. However, she also recognizes the magnitude and variety of experiences that these individuals had. With such a broad and diverse scope of experiences, memorials can be limited in scope and don’t capture or share all of the life and history of the individuals whom they represent. The context in which memorials are erected is equally if not more important than who they depict or represent. The context of the MEL is one where internal and external conversations and a reckoning with a complicated history have directed UVA admin and officials to take a more active role in acknowledging a dark past and honoring those whose stories have been overlooked. What is most important to Gathers is that there is a way to document and maintain the legacy. The process of doing so needs to be a collective one. Sharing the information gathered with one another is the way DeTeasa believes that as a community we can grow stronger and more aware. By taking it a step further and encouraging people to dig into their personal histories, Gathers believes that we have a chance to tap into and preserve the repositories of the information held within families while those who hold the knowledge are still around and able to share it.
In her own family, DeTeasa is taking steps to preserve and pass down the legacy of her ancestors. Through both artifacts and stories, DeTeasa shares knowledge with her children and grandchildren so that the memory of those who came before them can live on. But for DeTeasa it is about more than memory and comes back to the idea of education.
“I don’t want anyone else in my family to be denied an education or be told that because of the color of your skin you can’t learn here.”
By sharing the stories of her ancestors she believes that she is giving her children the have what they need to move forward. By handing them legacy and substance, she hopes to remind the younger generations of her family why they are important. Through education and an understanding of legacy, DeTeasa is fighting centuries of dehumanization of black people. To continue in this vein, she hopes to see memorialization migrate into the classroom in a more meaningful way. This involves the college level, but also a comprehensive restructuring of the narrative surrounding slavery in the K-12 public education system. Building this kind of knowledge is especially important today when racial violence continues to afflict the Black community. Citing the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man killed while jogging through a Georgia neighborhood by two white men, DeTeasa wants her children to know how much they mean and how much their lives are worth.
“You are more important than what we were perceived to be”
