(gentle piano music) (jazz music) - [Narrator] Downtown Charlottesville, Virginia offers an array of restaurants, shops, and businesses.

But what many modern day shoppers and clients don't know, is that for 100 years, this was a large booming African American community known to its occupants as Vinegar Hill.

(jazz music continues) Vinegar Hill was first settled by the Irish in the early 1800s and became home to several black families following the Civil War.

George Roger Inge's grandfather opened and ran a prominent grocery store that sat on the corner of Main and 4th.

- [George] In 1890, he purchased the building for $3,000.

- [Narrator] And during The Great Depression, when money for so many was tight, Inge's Grocery Store was there.

- A lot of times they didn't have enough money.

He would say, "Well, just go ahead, just pay me whenever you get it."

- [Narrator] As a business owner, George Inge was identified as one of Charlottesville's black middle class.

There were several such families whose businesses and roles in the community helped Vinegar Hill to prosper.

Local legend identifies the families as the Four Hundreds of Charlottesville.

- They were a group of people who came out of slavery, their families, and were able to accumulate $400 which was enough to buy them property.

- [Narrator] They bought homes, businesses, and schools.

Sandra Byrd and Brenda Desobry are the descendants of two of those families.

Brenda's great-grandmother, Nanny Cox Jackson was an educator and an innovator.

- She started the first hot lunch program in the schools and her plan was eventually adopted by the whole city.

And she was a home ec teacher and she made and donated food during the 1917 Spanish flu.

She was just a stickler for manners.

- [Narrator] Her family's service to the community didn't stop there.

They also owned several homes that they rented out.

- These are two properties that my grandfather owned, well, my family owned.

- [Narrator] Sandra Byrd's family owned the local funeral home, JF Bell Funeral Services, which still exist today.

- My grandfather came here in 1917 because his cousin let him know that there were no black funeral homes here.

So many people paid with chicken originally, to bury their loved ones that my father, my grandfather and me decided that we just can't tolerate chicken anymore.

But he was willing to go that extra step to accommodate the people that were putting food on his table and educating his children.

- [Narrator] In its heyday, Vinegar hill was home to hundreds of black families, served by 29 businesses that according to city records had a combined gross income of $1.6 million.

Many of the people who helped grow Vinegar Hill into such a prosperous community are buried here, in Charlottesville's Daughters of Zion Cemetery.

Edwina St. Rose's Organization preserves the site and ensures the history is shared.

- The Piedmont Industrial Land Improvement Company was a group of enterprising men who joined together and formed a stock-owning corporation.

And they engaged primarily in the sale of land and homes to African Americans in Charlottesville.

The individuals would buy stock and then they would be able to accumulate enough money to purchase homes or to rent them.

- [Narrator] Several of the company's founding members are buried here including Edwina's great-grandfather, WL Brown.

- He was a barber at the University of Virginia.

He established a barber shop on the corner, at the university in 1865.

He was a member of the Organization as well as a homeowner - [Narrator] For Kathy Johnson, Vinegar hill was more than a thriving black community located in the heart of Charlottesville, it was home.

- It was a white stucco house trimmed in black with a front porch and bay window and a screened-in porch on the back.

And I left here after Urban Renewal bought the house when I was 13 years old.

- [Narrator] Today, the lot on 4th Street where her home once stood, is a parking lot.

But the memories of life here, are vivid.

- This whole block, it was a family.

It was people we could talk to.

Sometimes we'd even sit on the front porch in the evening and we could talk back and forth across the street.

People who watched out for each other, it was a block of all homeowners.

That was one thing that was really great because everybody was concerned about their property and the appearance.

- [Narrator] In 1960, Charlottesville adopted a referendum to redevelop Vinegar Hill.

And by 1964, the area was leveled, leaving hundreds displaced and no jobs to return to, but this community's historic contribution to Charlottesville and the State of Virginia will not be forgotten.

Among the recent day tributes to this once thriving, black community, is a documentary.

- Growing up here, you would think that we would've heard about Vinegar Hill in its entirety.

That we would've learned about it in school even, but we didn't.

We would only hear about the destruction of Vinegar Hill.

We didn't want to just tell the story of the destruction.

We wanted to tell the story of the life that happened in Vinegar Hill as well.

- [Narrator] Lorenzo Dickerson and Jordy Yager are the filmmakers.

They work out of a location that many consider the building block of Vinegar Hill, The Jefferson School.

- This was where generations upon generations were educated, teachers were trained here.

This was the fondest memories of everything that anybody ever remembered about living in Vinegar Hill and, or just growing up in Charlottesville.

- Everything was surrounding this building, physically and even the students that went here, worked in the stores on Vinegar Hill.

The businesses, the homes, everything was right here, centrally located within walking distance.

- This is formed out of a 20 acre meadow and it becomes the largest economic center in Charlottesville.

- [Narrator] Thanks to the interest from descendants and these filmmakers, the history of Vinegar Hill will be known to future generations.

(upbeat music)