Pushing boundaries: 2023 spring conference delivered insights about the past and future

More than 40 VPC members and nonmembers met in Fredericksburg for VPC’s spring conference, which lived up to its theme of “pushing boundaries.”

After coffee and networking, VPC President Sande Snead and Fredericksburg Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw welcomed attendees. The program kicked off with a look into the near past.

A Monumental Responsibility

Dr. Gaila Sims, curator of African American History and Special Projects at the Fredericksburg Area Museum (FAM), presented “A Monumental Responsibility: Curating A Monumental Weight at the Fredericksburg Area Museum.” 

The talk and exhibition revolved around a slave auction block that stood on a street corner in Fredericksburg until 2020. A painful relic of history as well as a symbol of ongoing racial injustice, the auction block served as an object of debate for Fredericksburg residents.

Sims discussed the context of the auction block, sharing photos and stories of enslaved people sold on the corner and the emotional weight it still carries. As part of her work curating A Monumental Weight, Sims involved the local community, grounding the exhibition not only in history but in the contemporary stories of living people.

ChatGPT and communication

Next, the agenda jumped to the future. Dr. Anand Rao, who chairs the communications and digital studies department at the University of Mary Washington (UMW), spoke about the promises and perils of generative AI and ChatGPT.

In his talk, “ChatGPT and Communication: How Generative AI Will Transform our Field,” he explained the technology, its limitations and what the future holds. He noted that while the current iteration of the tool isn’t reliable, it’s rapidly improving, and we should “not miss the future for the present.” 

Some generative AI tools will have value for communicators – Otter.ai transcribes conversations and QuillBot offers summarization capabilities, for example. But generative AI presents risks because it can be used for nefarious purposes. For example, “deep fake” videos will make it hard to determine what is real.

An inspiring, true story

After an excellent fajitas lunch in honor of Cinco de Mayo, attendees heard an untold story from the past.

VPC’s 2023 Newsmaker Kristen Green told an inspiring true story in her talk, “Mary Lumpkin: How One Enslaved Woman Freed Her Children and Herself and Also Ensured that Generations of Black Men and Women Were Educated.” Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman forced to bear the children of a slave trader and slave jail owner, rose above her circumstances to better the lives of her family and future African Americans.

Using only her resourcefulness, Mary sent her children to live and be educated in the free North. When she inherited the slave jail, a place of pain and suffering for so many, upon the owner’s death, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre.” It would eventually become Virginia Union University, one of America’s first historically Black colleges and universities, which continues to educate young Black people today.

Green discussed how she used her journalism skills to find obscure records and track down descendants to piece together Mary’s story into her new book, “The Devil’s Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South’s Most Notorious Jail.”

Honoring Great Work

The day ended with our annual awards ceremony, during which Kimberly Loehr accepted VPC’s Communicator of the Year award. 

In addition, Del. Phillip Scott, who lives in Spotsylvania and serves on the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation Board of Trustees came to congratulate Tracy Perkins and her team for their first-place award in the category of Public Relations Materials/Report.

Feedback has been positive from attendees. We’re looking forward to our fall conference. Details are to be revealed soon!