UR Leadership Professor Julian Hayter Named to Richmond Mayor's New History and Culture Commission

Julian Hayter, associate professor of leadership studies at the University of Richmond, has been appointed to Mayor Levar Stoney’s History and Culture Commission. Hayter along with eight other commission members will advise the mayor on issues of historical and cultural significance in Richmond.

Early work of the commission will center around memorializing the deep history of Shockoe Bottom as the area where enslaved Africans were brought hundreds of years ago. In this new role Hayter, who also served on Stoney’s Monument Avenue Commission, will continue to provide direction on implementing the commission’s recommendations for determining what to do with Confederate monuments located along historic Monument avenue in Richmond.

“All cities struggle with memory and heritage, but the City of Richmond has reached an inflection point,” said Hayter. “On the one hand, the city has undergone an unprecedented renaissance and on the other hand, the former capital of the Confederacy has struggled to deal with its tortured racial history. That history not only has contemporary implications, but Richmond’s future success is contingent upon recognizing and reconciling the past. Mayor Stoney’s commission will play a vital part in this healing process.”

Hayter is a historian whose research focuses on leadership in the context of modern U.S. history, American political development, African American history, and the American civil rights movement. His writing and research draws attention to mid-20th century voting rights in Richmond, Va., and in the border South; the implementation of the Voting Rights Act; and the unintended consequences of African American political empowerment and governance post-1965. He is the author of The Dream is Lost: Voting Rights and the Politics of Race in Richmond, Virginia. Hayter has taught at the University of Richmond since 2012.

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