Honoring Alicia Rasin //
The Rev. Ben Campbell leads a prayer at the June 7 dedication of the “Peace Fountain” in Jefferson Park in the East End in tribute to the late Alicia Rasin, Richmond’s longtime volunteer “ambassador of compassion.”
Before her death last October, Ms. Rasin devoted her efforts to comforting families of homicide victims. For more than 20 years, she organized vigils for the bereaved and funerals for those killed. She also founded and led Citizens Against Crime to galvanize community efforts to halt the killings and provide information to police to make arrests.
The fountain, installed across the street from Ms. Rasin’s longtime residence on Princess Anne Avenue, is a gift to the city from the J. Fulmer Bright Foundation and was secured for the site by the Friends of Jefferson Park. The city also has installed an honorary street sign bearing Ms. Rasin’s name on Princess Anne Avenue.
Cone flower in the West End
Family Day at VMFA // Artist Kehinde Wiley, left, signs an exhibition catalogue last Friday for Chelsea Burwell as Amber Cole waits for his autograph at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where a ret- rospective of Mr. Wiley’s work opened during the weekend. Enthusiasm for the exhibit, “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic,” drew thousands of Richmond area residents to the museum’s free Family Day festivities last Saturday, where people of all ages enjoyed a variety of music, art and activities throughout the museum and its grounds.
Family Day at VMFA // Noah Scalin, below left, used clothing donated by Diversity Thrift to fashion a portrait based on a photograph by James Conway Farley, an African-American photographer who ran a studio in Richmond in the late 1800s.
Family Day at VMFA//Dancers enjoyed the beats of the Afro Beta Drummers under a tent outside, while a member of the Harlem Chamber Players, right, entertained the crowd
Links to history // Dr. Jill Bussey Harris, second from right, president of the Richmond Chapter of The Links Inc., presents a $100,000 check to officials from the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia. Accepting the donation, to be made by the women’s service organization over five years, are, from left, museum director Tasha Chambers; Dr. Monroe Harris, chairman of the museum’s campaign fund and husband of Dr. Bussey Harris; and Marilyn H. West, chair of the museum’s board. The presentation took place June 9 at the museum, where the chapter held its year-end celebration hosting a dinner for 15 girls at Franklin Military Academy involved in the chapter’s Focused Motivated Achievers program. In its third year, the program seeks to follow the eighth-graders through high school.