Dear Mary DePillars:

Thank you on behalf of myself, the citizens of Richmond, and history generally for your beautiful letter for a critical cause. I pray that it may help to save this valuable landmark. I join you in beseeching Virginia Union University to save the Richmond Community Hospital building.

Your letter moved me in so many ways.

There was no little irony for me personally in your writing this sentence in your penultimate paragraph:

“I suspect that every Black citizen 60 years or older who lives/lived in the area has some connection to RCH…from births to tonsillectomies to broken arms and beyond.”

I was indeed born at RCH and later went back for a tonsillectomy.

In gratitude.

Daryl Dance

Richmond