Board and Staff Visit James Madison’s Montpelier, The Mere Distinction of Color Exhibit

A group of twelve Piedmont Housing Alliance staff and board visited Montpelier on August 25 to tour both James Madison’s house and the award-winning The Mere Distinction of Color exhibition that conveys the lives of the enslaved from multiple perspectives. The day-long visit, organized by the housing nonprofit’s recently formed Racial Equity Working Group, provided context for staff and board to discuss issues of land, money and power and how the suppression of access to these things for people of color continues to play into the housing challenges we grapple with today.  Piedmont Housing has added “equity” to its strategic directions, reflecting a commitment to apply a racial lens to its work – housing counseling, property management, and housing development – as a means of bending the arc of housing equity for low-income families in the region.