In the second episode of our three part arc on ExchangeAlumni working with augmented reality, or, AR, we spoke with Julia Beabout, the CEO and creative director of an award-winning AR creative studio.

We continue our dive into the transformative power of the technology with ExchangeAlumni Grady Hart, Julia’s partner on the augmented reality project, Monumental Conversations. Grady - an ExchangeAlumni of the Mandela Washington Reciprocal Exchange program and a community partnerships coordinator in Richmond, Virginia - talks about learning about systemic racism in his own community for the first time and how that spurred him to right some of the wrongs of the past by raising the voices of those who have traditionally not had a voice.

So, uh, yeah, my name is Grady Hart. I am the Community Partnerships Coordinator for Richmond Public Schools in the City of Richmond, Virginia. Um, I have been in this role for about three years now and my journey to come and be a part of this role with Richmond Public Schools has been really just such an intentional journey to get here. Um, I was born and raised in the Richmond area, so I certainly claim RVA as my home. Uh, in particular I grew up in Hanover County, which is one of several counties that borders the actual City of Richmond. Uh, and I remember growing up that despite growing up just outside of the city proper, just outside of the actual City of Richmond, I never really learned about Richmond's real history until many years later when I was actually teaching about Richmond neighborhood history at, uh, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Um, it's something that really has cut to my core. And so for me, that is really when I just kind of came to the conclusion that, "You know, I can either be a part of the solution here. I can, um, you know, try to sort of, you know, right some of these wrongs or be a part of righting some of these wrongs or I can, you know, stick my head in the sand." And I mean, for me just thinking about specifically that highway system, you know, I was born, like I said, in Hanover County and my parents used to use that highway system every day to get into the city where they would earn their living and then to get back out of the city. And because of the way that we fund our schools, primarily through local property taxes, that meant that the money that my parents were earning in the city was in, was ensuring that I was getting a strong, good education while doing relatively little or nothing for the students and the kids that lived in the city proper.

And for me, that is something that just over the last few years I've been grappling with and have come to understand that that is exactly what systemic racism looks like. And that in so many ways, I am the picture of white privilege from an unjust system. I have benefited directly from an unjust system. And so that's really what brings me to this work and what brings me to Richmond Public Schools and why this work on monumental conversation on bringing this placemaking experience, this Augmented Reality experience to bear was so incredibly important for me.

I think my first year working with VCU with Virginia Commonwealth University. And, uh, there's a gentleman here that almost everyone will know his name. It's, uh, Reverend Ben Campbell. Uh, he is really one of the local historians, Richmond historians that has uncovered so much of Richmond's history. He's written a book called Richmond's Unhealed History, which I would highly recommend. And I was leading a group of students from VCU to, uh, meet with Ben Campbell to hear, uh, sort of a 90-minute version of basically what his book entails, which is from the very first landing of European settlers in Virginia, all the way up until our present history, really seeing the arc.

And, uh, in many ways the arc of injustice that we've seen in our city, that really is a microcosm for what we've seen across the country for what systemic racism has looked like. Um, you know, starting right with the fact at, you know, uh, there was, um, you know, early on this sort of definition of the white race as being, you know, being something superior. Um, and in some ways that was used as a way to kind of drive an additional schism in the, uh, sort economic hierarchy of our country and its founding and just the way that he drew that picture and the way that he was able to literally from where we were point out the window at the highway system and how that really was such an emblematic and tangible example of systemic racism at work and of the state government, uh, and the local government really working together to just desecrate a community that was thriving, uh, specifically because it was a thriving black community.

I, I just remember that. I mean, there, I don't think there was a dry eye in that room and that was myself included and that really changed things for me.

I think when I started learning about this, you know, Richmond has, uh, for many years now been a more progressive city that, uh, than most. Um, and certainly I think if you go into the counties around Richmond, you'll hear a different narrative, um, at least from some of them, but in the city itself, uh, there hasn't been, you know, even in recent months, too much pushback. Uh, you know, our, our superintendent and has, you know, come out and been very clear that, you know, first of all, critical race theory to, to name, you know, that term, that's getting overused a lot nowadays, you know, that's a, a graduate level university course, right?

That-that's an incredibly complex subject. We're not teaching that in Richmond Public Schools, what we're doing is we're teaching real history and we're teaching the positives of it. We're teaching the negatives of it, we're teaching all pieces of it. But what we know is that we do not learn history by memorizing names and dates as I did growing up, right? That is not history. History is learning about how the past impacts the present and how what we do in the present can impact the future. And so, uh, we really, I have not had a lot of run-ins with folks who don't understand that here in the city proper. Um, but when I do, you know, it, it is a welcome conversation for me because if folks are really willing to listen, the facts speak for themselves. You know, the, just again, to stick with the example of the highway, you know, people, you, you could argue, uh, that, you know, the highway was built there because it, we needed a highway and that was this place that made the most sense, but that's untrue.

but what this project really was about at its core was sharing the voices and really raising the voices of folks who have traditionally not had a voice, especially in places like Richmond's Monument Avenue. Um, and that's something that we heard very early on from the community. They said, "You know what, we've heard the stories of these folks on Monument Avenue, right? We know about Robert E. Lee. We know about J. E. B. Stuart. We know who they are, we know what they stood for. Stop telling those stories. Like let's, this is an opportunity to tell all of the positive stories, the stories of resilience of the black community, the stories of how the black community has contributed to making Richmond the great city that it is today and making the United States the great country that we are today." And that's something that we really set out to from the very beginning.

Richmond was certainly, uh, a change that took place during those months that followed. And at that point, Julia and I had just identified, "Well, you know, we would love to just spark conversation about Monument Avenue about this avenue that is made up of statues of Confederate generals and Confederate, um, you know, Confederate, uh, essentially it's a, it's a monument to the lost cause narrative that-that's basically what Monument Avenue has been." Um, and so what we did at that point was we identified, "Okay, here's where we want to do this." We were able to get a grant from the Alumni TIES and from the U.S. State Department to help give us some seed funding to get started on it.

And I think the most important thing that we did at that stage was we looked around and we said, "Who needs to be at this table? Who needs to be represented here?" And so we spoke with several, uh, museums, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, uh, the Black History Museum, which is located right here in Richmond. And we also looked at, "You know, we need our students to be involved, right?" Our peer students played a central role in this project in shaping what it was going to look like, and then in actually building out some of the components of it. Um, and then even beyond that, you know, we worked with local artists, local activists, local historians.

And ultimately we looked around the room and we said, "You know, if you know, this room needs to look representative, it needs to look like folks, uh, like more folks here who have not traditionally had their voices heard than frankly, than, you know, white people." And so that really was the core goal at the start of this was to make sure that we had the right people at the table. And by doing that, we were able to get such real, authentic stories and such real feedback that, you know, again, at, at the start we had thought about, "You know, do we focus on J. E. B. Stuart and Robert. E. Lee and try to put context around them?"

And what we heard loud and clear from the community was, again, "No, we-we've heard enough about those folks. Let's talk about Maggie Walker, the first black woman to own a bank in the entire United States. Let's talk about Bill Bojangles Robinson and other amazing performers that came into the Robinson Theater that came into Jackson Ward over the years, and just did absolutely amazing things to make Richmond, Richmond." And hearing that from the community and not just hearing that broadly, but then hearing the details, hearing the specifics of those stories, you know, pulling in quotes from people like the founder of Richmond... Of the, um, the Richmond Planet, one of the first black owned newspapers in the country, and being able to bring in the voices of our students and of community leaders, literally to be the narration in the Augmented Reality App and be able to be the ones that you hear speaking through the app.

I mean, that was just such a core tenant for everything we did was literally and figuratively making sure that we were hearing from the voices who traditionally have not had a voice in places like Monument Avenue.

And I was... I, I still remember at this point, I, I think I was working full time. I was doing an internship and I was working on a, a master's degree all at the same time. It was like, "I don't have time for this, but it sounds amazing. So I'm gonna do it anyway (laughs). And I am so glad that I did. I remember, uh, you know, meeting with, they basically, they were looking for peer collaborators, just someone who could help show, uh, show an individual around the city and, you know, just have conversation and see where, see where that conversation went. Uh, and I remember the gentleman was from Mauritius, uh, which is a small island kind of, uh, close to Madagascar that I didn't really know anything about until then.

And of course, now I know much more about it. Uh, and so working with this gentleman and just getting to show him around my city, learn more about the, you know, the struggles and some of the issues, and also some of the amazing assets that his community and his country has, uh, that was really an amazing opportunity for me, that was followed up by, you know, just one of the best opportunities I've ever had when several months later, uh, we found out that there was a reciprocal exchange program. And so one of the things that we had talked about a lot during his time there was, you know, my role with the university and now with Richmond Public Schools is really all about community engagement. And particularly a lot of my work is centered on how to work with university communities, as well as other community partners to support K-12 education.

And that's really where this idea was born. It was Julia and several other colleagues talking about their capabilities with Augmented Reality. And I don't wanna understate this enough, Julia, and you know, her team at Novaby, the work they're doing with Augmented Reality and with placemaking. And I know at, at its core, it's really about creative placemaking and about sharing the stories of community, it's absolutely cutting edge. Everything that they're doing right now is just, it, it is right on the cutting edge of things that we couldn't even imagine years ago. And so being able to work so closely with Julia and with other folks like that, and just being able to bring my community together, you know, the public school system, the city government, major museums, uh, major community partners, historians, artists, students, families, just none of that would've been possible without Alumni TIES.

None of that would've happened. And I just think about how this is, you know, Julia and I are just two of the, you know, of the folks who have participated in these kind of events, right? And this is just one project that has come out of it. It really is absolutely amazing. And then, you know, just to take it a step further on this one project, we've had so much success with it. And the community response has been so positive that we are now in talks about bringing an Augmented Reality, experience, a placemaking experience, just like this to Jackson Ward, uh, and we've received grant funding, um, you know, a small amount of seed funding, again from the State Department from a separate program, but related, um, the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund has given us seed funding to bring this to Jackson Ward, which as I mentioned, Jackson Ward is, I mean, that's, that's the center of Richmond, right?

Like that, that is if you wanna learn Richmond history, you go to Jackson Ward. Um, and for us to be able to bring something like that work with the Black History Museum, which is located right in Jackson Ward and center them as really the, the owners of this work as the owners of the story, that's going to be told about Jackson Ward, along with a number of other community partners. We have several local historical churches is, uh, the Maggie Walker House is located right there. It's a, you know, historical location that's run as a museum now. uh, the, the history there is just bursting at the seams to be told and to be able to now have a chance to do that using Augmented Reality in Jackson Ward, I, I just, it's amazing the things that have come from this opportunity and all from... You know, I tell my students, I still teach a little bit at VCU.