AAHA! Virginia · State of Cultural Heritage in Virginia Symposium
Surrender
& Jubilation
A day of reckoning with what heritage means now — and what it must become. One symposium. One record.
About the Symposium
Heritage IS Equity.
The Ecosystem.
The State of Cultural Heritage in Virginia Symposium convenes heritage practitioners, community builders, DMOs, HBCUs, and institutional partners to do the work that policy documents rarely accomplish — honest, cross-sector conversation about what African American heritage in Virginia is worth and what it will take to sustain it.
Surrender & Jubilation is this year's theme. It asks us to release what hasn't worked — the siloed approaches, the underfunded initiatives, the missed connections — and to step into what's possible when heritage is treated as the economic and cultural infrastructure it actually is.
The day runs on the CHEWS framework: Culture, Health, Education, Wealth, and Stewardship. Every panel, conversation, and commitment maps back to these five pillars — and to the communities that depend on them.
"Heritage is not a cultural footnote. It is a scarce resource — as real as land, labor, and capital — and it must be treated as one or it disappears."
— AAHA! Virginia
Keynote Sessions
Two addresses.
One through-line.
Full Program
The day's
schedule.
Panel Sessions
Two conversations.
One through-line.
One morning panel. One afternoon panel. Each brings together practitioners, institutions, and community leaders to address the full CHEWS five pillar framework: Culture, Health, Education, Wealth, Stewardship.
Partnership Café
Lunch with
intention.
The midday lunch is not a break from the work — it is the work. The Partnership Café runs three facilitated rounds, each anchored to a CHEWS pillar. Tables report back. Commitments are made. Connections that would take months of follow-up happen in an afternoon.
Venues
In-person.
And virtual.
In-person attendance is at Lost Office Collaborative in Henrico. The full program is also available via Zoom livestream statewide — not a secondary experience, but full access from wherever you are.
All keynotes, panels, Partnership Café, and closing session originate here. In-person attendance includes complimentary lunch.
Featured Initiative
100 for the 400
Community Weavers.
The Symposium is the founding home of the 100 for the 400 Community Weavers Initiative — a program honoring 100 people across Virginia who carry African American cultural heritage forward, remembered for those who came before, recognized for those among us today.
On April 24, one hundred names enter a permanent vault and are read aloud. Their stories become part of the record. Nominations are community-driven and close before the Symposium date.
Attendance
Join us
April 24.
In-person in Henrico. Virtual via Zoom. Wherever you are. The conversation starts here.
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