The streets and cemeteries of Richmond, Virginia, are still lined with massive memorials to the Confederacy and flags with the “Southern cross.” Residents of the historic city said to this day it is hard for them to move past that history.

“Being the former capital of the Confederacy we are steeped in the history, but it’s all one-sided. It’s all a lost cause history and until it’s balanced it’s not going to be made right,” said Anita Lee, a resident of Richmond. “It needs to be a more balanced history.”

Local and national programs have developed in recent years to combat hate against African-Americans, racism in general and an American history of intolerance. In Richmond, two women started a pledge and program at their Unitarian Universalist church to educate people on racism.

Unitarian Universalist churches are known for filling their congregations with predominantly white members and leaders. Last year, the church saw national furor over racial policies and practices, sparking a resignation of its national president, after the appointment of what critics saw as too many white leaders.

Lee, 70, said she has been fighting against hate and racism since her father put her on a picket line when she was only 8 years old, protesting to integrate schools. When she joined the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond about 20 years ago, Lee said people would often confuse her with the black secretary for the church, even though she came to service every week and “looked nothing like her.”

That experience was one of many that launched the Richmond Pledge Against Racism, a program led by two women in the local church with two days of workshops and training discussing hate.

Since the idea came to fruition four years ago, about 250 people have completed the training in Richmond and the program has now launched in 17 locations across America.

“It was important to me if I was going to remain a member of the church that we become really active in eradicating racism, and signing the pledge was only the beginning,” Lee said. “We had to learn to live the pledge. And so we developed a series of workshops in order to enable people to learn how to first recognize racism when they see it and then what to do about it.”

Lee started the program with Annette Marquis, who grew up in a town that was “intentionally white.” Marquis grew up in Roger, Arkansas – which was classified as a sundown town, meaning that signs were posted across the town saying that blacks were not allowed after dark.

There were thousands of sundown towns across America before the Civil Rights era, according to Jim Loewen, author of the book “Sundown Towns.” Loewen uses a formula to identify towns as sundown, including if there was legislature preventing blacks from the town, documented signage and a white population of more than 99.9 percent.

“The sense of being threatened by just being in a place, by just having made a turn through a town, that people weren’t welcome – that has really stayed with me all my life,” Marquis said.

The two women started the program in 2014 after the first Black Lives Matter rally in Richmond. Marquis said a number of the church members went to the march and then started to think about what they could do to combat racism and hate in America, asking themselves the question “how do we really find ourselves in this story?”

Marquis said she doesn’t see the national conversation changing until more communities confront what’s going on in their neighborhoods.

“When you really look at the history of this country, there has been no justice for people of color,” she said. “From Jamestown to Plymouth Rock to everywhere in between and today, when I hear that, when I hear the rhetoric around making America great again and I try to think about when was that time that we’re trying to make great again. There was never a time when it was great for people of color.”

After the alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year in the city neighboring Richmond that left one dead and several injured, Lee said she has no choice but to continue to fight against hate.

“I have five grandchildren and I’ve been working at this for let’s just say well over 50 years. I see us sliding backwards and I want their lives to be better,” Lee said. “I don’t want them to have to be fighting when they get old enough for equal rights, it doesn’t make any sense. This is 2018 for heaven’s sakes. I never imagined that we’d still be fighting racism.”

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Some of the most striking pieces of the exhibit, called “Storm in the Time of Shelter,” are now on display in Richmond, Virginia, and include hand-sewn Klan robes, created from all types of materials and patterns, which range from vivid African Tribal print to pink camo.

“My show is really not about the Klan,” Rucker said. “My images are not about the Klan. They’re about the policies the Klan wanted in place.”

The exhibit calls out institutional racism by displaying original works of art which show how KKK policies are ingrained in American society today, said Rucker, a historian, musician, public speaker and artist from Baltimore.

The exhibit, which opened on April 21 at Richmond’s Institute for Contemporary Art, is not without its controversies. After successfully showing the exhibit in six cities without issue, Rucker’s show sparked debate last summer at York College in York, Pennsylvania.

His exhibit, then called “Rewind,” opened right before Labor Day, a few weeks after the Unite the Right rally turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia. Five days after it opened, the York College administration decided to close “Rewind” to the public, and allow access only to students and community members with special invitations.

Rucker disagreed with the decision. He hoped that his work would be open to the public so the community could start an informed conversation, which he believes to be the key to social progress.

“It was a missed opportunity,” Rucker said. “York has a lot of history that they probably need to deal with, but they haven’t dealt with.”

York is known for its Civil War history. The town is located about 30 miles away from where the battle of Gettysburg was fought, according to the U.S. National Parks Service.

Matthew Clay-Robinson, director of York College Galleries who helped to organize the exhibit, said “the college trustees and administration felt blindsided by the exhibition and were concerned that it might stir trouble, opening three weeks after Charlottesville.”

Yet, despite the concern about the contents of the exhibit, Clay-Robinson said it was still mostly well received within the student community. He spoke about how “Rewind” drew the largest attendance of African-American students and community members the school had ever seen for one of their exhibits.

Todd Allen, a professor of communication at Messiah College, located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, saw the exhibit several times and eventually met Rucker. For the last 17 years, Allen helped to lead a civil rights bus tour of the South, so the show was of particular interest to him.

“We talked about the robes and I remember sharing with him that since I teach this stuff as well, that I have a KKK robe in my collection,” Allen said. “I just talk about the impact. It’s one thing to talk about the hate groups in abstract but when you’re literally seeing and touching it, it has a certain kind of eeriness.”

In conversation, the two men, both of African-American descent, joked that Rucker’s art collection contains some of the most well-made KKK robes in the nation.

Both Rucker and Allen spoke about the importance of making more people aware of civil rights history.

To supplement his exhibits, Rucker also designed a 20-page newspaper, which is offered at the entrance of his shows. Inside is information on ways the KKK’s policies are still alive in the U.S. and historical context about civil rights.

“When we talk about facts we can have a productive conversation,” Rucker said. “When we have a productive conversation we can make progress.”

Besides the KKK robes, the exhibit also features other works that help to teach viewers about racism today. Rucker created a data visualization map that he shares during his public speaking engagements. It highlights Rucker’s finding that a new prison has been built in the U.S. every week since 1976. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people from African-American descent are five times more likely to be incarcerated than people of Caucasian descent.

Other themes Rucker explores in his art are the racial divides of neighborhoods, environmental racism and the disparity of school funding.

“These policies created 100 years ago are still in place today and they’re not being supported by people in pointy hats,” Rucker said. “They’re being supported by normal everyday people who would probably never call themselves racist or think about racism being an intentional thing.”

Rucker’s work isn’t the only art involving the KKK sparking national controversy. In Austin, Texas, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas is currently displaying a painted piece by Vincent Valdez, which explores the modern day representation of the KKK in American society. After receiving feedback from students, faculty and staff at the University of Texas, administration decided to open the exhibit on July 17. But the exhibit has a sign warning potential viewers about its content.

“Storm in the Time of Shelter” is on display in Richmond until Sept. 9.

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