Ressie Luck-Brimmer has been doing genealogy work in the Danville area for decades. She gets requests from residents who want to learn about their lineage, from city officials who are writing grants, from school groups, documentarians and scholars, all wanting to know more about the area’s Black history.
She’s researched the city’s civil rights movement, Black churches, segregated schools and countless family histories. She’s worked to erect several historic markers that document Black history in Danville, and the basement of her home is full of historic artifacts that have been donated to her.
“I can connect just about every African American family in Pittsylvania County, Danville and Caswell County,” Luck-Brimmer said. “It’s a very large database.”
It’s information that needs to be shared with the public, outside of direct requests, she said.
That’s why Luck-Brimmer is working to create a physical home for this information, somewhere to keep both her genealogical research and historical artifacts and make them accessible to the public.
“I’m already doing the work. … It just hit me that I want a research space that could be a one-stop-shop for Danville, Pittsylvania County, pretty much the entire region,” she said.
Luck-Brimmer created the Danville Research Center for African American History about five years ago, but currently, it’s “a research center without walls.”
Now, she’s working to rehabilitate a Holbrook Street home in a historically Black neighborhood in Danville to house the research center.
Danville doesn’t have a dedicated African American history museum, although there is an exhibit about the city’s civil rights movement in the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, which was put together by Luck-Brimmer and fellow historian Emma Edmunds before her death.
“We do not have an African American museum per se, so the research center is going to double,” Luck-Brimmer said. “There will be a small gallery with interchanging exhibits, something new all the time.”
The space will be an important resource for the region and its residents, she said, especially because so much Black history has been passed over by institutional historians over time.
“I can’t tell you the amount of calls I get every week from people who want or need this information,” Luck-Brimmer said.
Black history is often under-documented or scattered across private collections, said Sonja Ingram, executive director of Danville’s Fine Arts and History Museum. Oral histories passed down through generations are important, but this tradition is easily lost, she said.
“Without a designated institution, materials can be lost when families relocate or elders pass away,” Ingram said. “A permanent center could help with the genealogical work already done, and help to collect more oral histories, preserve photographs, documents and artifacts, and raise awareness on protecting community landmarks.”
Especially in an area like the Danville-Pittsylvania region that is increasingly working on economic growth and preservation efforts, keeping Black history alive is important, Luck-Brimmer said.
“Black history is economic development, it totally is. I’m always sought out to provide historical data so people can get grants for infrastructure and all types of things,” Luck-Brimmer said. “This is an alarm that’s been sounding. It’s so crucial that our history is preserved.”
‘A research center without walls’
“The Movement” exhibit in the Danville Museum for Fine Arts and History covers the city’s 1963 civil rights movement, which was underreported for decades after it happened.
The exhibit covers the timeline of the movement and highlights its leaders and participants — most of whom were teenagers. Many of the former protestors, who are now in their 70s and 80s, are people that Luck-Brimmer grew up around in the Black community.
She and fellow historian Edmunds were working on a second installment for the exhibit when Edmunds died in 2020 at age 74.
“Once we started working together, we realized there were so many people that were on the protest list who she didn’t cover, people that I actually knew,” Luck-Brimmer said. “Working on part two is what got me thinking [about a research center].”
When the pandemic hit that same year, Luck-Brimmer finally had some time to make her research center dreams a reality.
She created the Danville Research Center for African American History with the mission to “collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret the history and cultural legacy of the Black community in the City of Danville and the surrounding region,” according to the organization’s Facebook page.
Right now, much of the research center exists through Luck-Brimmer. She has an extensive genealogical database for families in the region, research on historic Black figures and places, and physical historical material.
“People have given me things over the years,” she said. “Some of it is on loan in different places, but a lot of it is in my house.”
When people or organizations request material, Luck-Brimmer brings it out to show them or displays it for certain events.
“I don’t want to hoard information,” Luck-Brimmer said. “I’m really passionate about the work and the stories that come with it and making it more easily accessible to the public.”
That’s where the physical space for the research center comes into play.
Creating a home for the region’s Black history
About a year after creating the Danville Research Center for African American History, the organization bought a house at 348 Holbrook St. Unbeknownst to Luck-Brimmer at the time, this was the former home of Danville native C.B. Claiborne, the first Black basketball player at Duke University.
“I got the house, and of course I had to do some research on it, and I learned through the Department of Historic Resources that it was referred to as the Claiborne house,” she said. “The house was associated with the grandparents of Claudius B. Claiborne. At the time, I didn’t know if he actually lived there, but I thought ‘OK, I have a narrative that goes with this house.’”
A few years later, Luck-Brimmer was asked to be a historic consultant on a mini-documentary about Claiborne, produced by Duke staff members.
That’s when Luck-Brimmer learned that Claiborne grew up in the Holbrook Street house, and part of the film was shot there.
That was one of several things that happened to Luck-Brimmer that she said felt like a sign that she was on the right track in creating the research center.
“Having that connection, that let me know that this is a good spot,” she said.
The house, though it has fallen into disrepair, still looks like a home.
On the first floor, there are living rooms with original fireplaces that will be used as gallery spaces with small, rotating exhibits, Luck-Brimmer said. Any large exhibits she puts together will still be housed at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, she said.
Luck-Brimmer wants to replace the full kitchen with a smaller prep kitchen for events, remove dated wood paneling, rebuild the front porch and add a back porch for community events.
She envisions people sitting in rocking chairs, sharing stories with one another on the front porch. And she hopes to add a voice recorder on the porch, so that “even if no one is here, you can walk up and record your oral history,” Luck-Brimmer said.
One room will be converted to a meeting room, and another space in the foyer will have a space for the public to browse rare books on Black history, she said.
Overall, Luck-Brimmer said she wants the space to feel “homey and inviting” — but there’s a lot of work to do first.
She said she doesn’t know the exact cost for the renovations yet, but she’s hoping to use historic tax credits through the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. After renovations are complete, utility costs, upkeep and maintenance will likely be the main costs for running the research center, she said, adding that her husband already mows the grass and will continue to do so.
The need for this work
Danville has a deep, complex Black history, but for generations, much of it has been ignored, under-documented or lost, Ingram said.
For many decades, historic preservation efforts focused primarily on “saving grand, architecturally significant buildings associated with wealthy or prominent white individuals,” like the homes of presidents, she said.
Meanwhile, sites connected to Black communities and working-class families were overlooked because they were deemed less architecturally impressive and socially significant, she said.
Less than 20% of the over 2,700 state highway markers in Virginia focus on Black history, though the Virginia Department of Historical Resources is working to remedy this.
Recently, local Black history has been coming back into the public consciousness: a historic school that had been largely forgotten was restored, the city’s intense civil rights movement was the subject of a documentary, preservation work revitalized a historic Black cemetery and a project on school integration collected local testimonies.
“The truth is that places tied to Black history — churches, schools, neighborhoods, businesses and cultural spaces — tell stories that are just as important, and often even more revealing than a president’s birthplace,” Ingram said.
Having a physical location for Black history and research would be a huge step in the preservation of this history, she said.
“A dedicated resource would provide the focused mission, archival care, and research capacity needed to protect what remains and to uncover what we have yet to learn,” Ingram said. “It would ensure that African American history is not treated as a sidebar to the city’s story, but as central to understanding who we are.”
There’s an existing relationship between the Danville museum and the Danville Research Center, Ingram said.
The two organizations have worked together to conduct research on the lives of enslaved people at the Sutherlin Mansion, the temporary residence of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president at the end of the Civil War, which now houses the Danville museum.
This work made sure that the stories of enslaved people there “are better documented and interpreted as part of the museum’s broader narrative,” Ingram said.
She expects this partnership to grow once the Danville Research Center has a physical location, she said.
She envisions shared programming, coordinated exhibitions, lecture series, film screenings, community conversations and cross-promotion of events. There’s also strong potential for collaborative research, grant writing and oral history projects, she said.
“Most importantly, I would expect the relationship to reflect a shared mission of ensuring that African American history is not treated as an addition to the story of Danville, but as central to understanding it,” she said. “With both institutions operating in physical spaces, we could create a stronger cultural network in Danville, one that benefits residents, researchers, students, and visitors alike.”
Luck-Brimmer said that an increased local emphasis on Black history will also inspire increased respect for the Black community and its stories.
“When you learn more about something, there comes greater respect,” Luck-Brimmer said. “A lot of people don’t know about the struggles and triumphs of African Americans. … I think it’s needed now more than ever, when things seem to be so divided. It can be a bridge.”
What’s next?
Luck-Brimmer hired Justin Reid, a public historian and cultural organizer, to develop a strategic plan for the Danville Research Center.
That process involves community feedback on content and exhibits, as well as creating a long-term vision for the research center.
“There’s a lot of brilliance and ideas that we can gather from the community that will help strengthen the DRC,” Reid said. “If we can incorporate those ideas during this stage, that will only help shore up the long-term sustainability.”
The plan will likely be complete this fall, Luck-Brimmer said.
In the meantime, she’ll conduct interviews with locals to create an advisory committee. She’s also working to spread the word about the research center to drum up support.
“It doesn’t even have to be monetary support from the community,” Luck-Brimmer said. “There’s some historic preservation organizations, contractors out there who are skilled in historic preservation. If they’d like to donate some of their time as an in-kind resource, that would be great.”
Luck-Brimmer said she’d like to see the research center open to the public by 2028.
She wants to hire at least one full-time staff member to run the day-to-day operations of the research center and be a resource for the public. In the future, she said she’d love to partner with Averett University and Danville Community College to provide students with internships, volunteer opportunities or projects for school credit.
Reid imagines the research center as not only a resource for the local public, but also for folks outside the region. Other cities, like Lynchburg and Charlottesville, have Black cultural centers that are destinations for travelers, he said.
“Danville has the potential to be a pilgrimage site,” Reid said. “Danville is a gateway to the Deep South, and there are so many families who were connected to Danville that are now part of this larger diaspora. … There’s a huge potential to meet local needs, but I think the impact is also national.”
