From the banks of the James River to the grasses of Monroe Park, Richmonders came together to honor our planet for Earth Day on Tuesday. While April 22 is usually thought of as a day to celebrate the Earth, it also has a long history of environmental activism. John Henry Williams, the hub coordinator of the
Sunrise Movement in Richmond, said it’s the root of Earth Day itself. “The
initial Earth Day was a protest , where 20 million Americans took to the streets and said ‘we are not going to stand for this anymore,’” Williams said. “It resulted in the creation of the EPA.”
Students create an Earth Day banner at VCU on Tuesday. Students delivered an Earth Day petition at the office of VCU President Michael Rao on Tuesday. Students taking action
From 2 to 3 p.m., VCU students and supporters convened at the Monroe Park fountain for a demonstration. Around 50 people marched from the park to the office of
VCU President Michael Rao . When they arrived at 910 West Franklin Street, two students hand-delivered a petition to one of Rao’s colleagues.
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“VCU has a huge amount of power within our city,” said Carolyn Hindle, president of
VCU Green Action . “We are the number one property owner, we are one of the top employers, and we owe it to our community to do better.” VCU Green Action teamed up with the Sunshine Movement as well as four other Virginia colleges on Earth Day. Students at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, the University of Richmond and George Mason University all hosted their own demonstrations to demand climate action from their institutions. “These institutions exist to serve students, and prepare us for our future,” said Zoe Cultrara, the co-president of
GreenUR at the University of Richmond, in a news release. “They can’t uphold this commitment if they sit idly by while our future is threatened by urgent climate issues.” Hindle and Williams both emphasized the importance of the funding needed for change, specifically addressing VCU’s recent financial decisions regarding campus. “We all rely on clean air. We all rely on a stable climate, and if
VCU can invest $240 million in an athletic village , they can invest in our futures,” Hindle said.
Volunteers showed up to Ancarrow’s Landing for a river cleanup event on Earth Day. James River cleanup
The topic of climate change and the future of sustainability has been a hot topic for years; and while some call on leaders to take action, other Richmonders got their hands dirty, taking action in their own backyards. “Our commitment to sustainability is more than just inside the four walls of our hospitals, it really is in the communities in which we live, work and play as well,” said Christopher Finley, the vice president of community engagement for
HCA Healthcare . From 1 to 3 p.m., the
Friends of the James River Park organized a cleanup event with HCA Healthcare and their six hospitals in Richmond. The nonprofit has been hosting these events all throughout the month of April, and organizers said Tuesday’s group was the largest with 70 volunteers showing out at
Ancarrow’s Landing on Branders Street. “It’s just an area that we know needs the extra help, and that’s why we took our biggest group and applied them to the biggest problem we have right now,” said Josh Stutz, the executive director of the Friends of the James River Park.
Jessica Simmons, assistant property manager at Riverfront Plaza, helped organize an Earth Day event for tenants at the downtown property on Tuesday. Riverfront Plaza
At the
Riverfront Plaza on East Byrd Street — home of the
Department of Wildlife Resources’ renowned falcon cam — vendors and other sustainability groups gathered to share Earth Day messages with tenants. The assistant property manager there, Jessica Simmons, said the event is made to encourage residents to engage in sustainable living at home. When entering the lobby, tenants were greeted by a livestream of the falcons who live above their roofs. Around the room were a handful of vendors, including
Tech for Troops ,
Capital Region Land Conservancy ,
Capital Trees and a vendor selling handcrafted jewelry. Residents were able to play with a mini golf set to win prizes like snacks, stickers, water bottles, lanyards, seed packets and more. “We want to highlight the good things that are happening with our planet, our Earth, and let us come together as a community to improve it and not use up our natural resources so recklessly,” Simmons said. At each event, the overall message was clear: If we’re going to save the planet, we’re going to have to do it together. “I think in order to create a culture of sustainability, we need people to have a better relationship with our public spaces,” Stutz said. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
Total solar eclipses through the decades
FILE - Eclipse watchers squint through protective filters as they view an eclipse of the sun from the top deck of New York's Empire State Building in New York on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 1932. Full solar eclipses occur every year or two or three, often in the middle of nowhere like the South Pacific or Antarctic. FILE - A total solar eclipse is observed above the mountainous Siberian Altai region, about 3,000 kilometers (1,850 miles) east of Moscow, on Friday, Aug. 1, 2008. FILE - A youth dressed as a shaman arrives to take part in a photo session before Tuesday's total solar eclipse, in La Higuera, Chile, Monday, July 1, 2019. FILE - A group of school children look at the solar eclipse in Accra, Ghana, Wednesday, March 29, 2006, which swept from Brazil to Mongolia. FILE - A child looks through protective glasses at the total eclipse of the sun as a projection of the sun is displayed on card, during a total solar eclipse seen near the Bulgarian's Black sea town of Varna east of the capital Sofia, Friday, Aug. 1, 2008. FILE - The moon starts to block the sun during a solar eclipse seen through a cloud, in Skopje, Macedonia, Friday, March 20, 2015, in the last total solar eclipse visible in Europe for over a decade. FILE - A man watches a solar eclipse through an x-ray film in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 9, 2016. FILE - The moon passes in front of the setting sun during a total solar eclipse in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, July 2, 2019. FILE - Shepherd Heinz Greiner watches the beginning of a total solar eclipse near Augsburg, southern Germany, on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 1999. A German myth has the cold and lazy male moon, ignoring the fiery passionate female sun during the day most of the time, except for a few bits of passion during an eclipse and then they'd squabble again and the sun would resume shining again, Mark Littmann of the University of Tennessee says. FILE - The sun sets over Hyderabad, India during the last phases of the last total solar eclipse of the millennium Wednesday, Aug. 11, 1999. FILE - Vietnamese student Dang Anh Tuan shows a projected image of a solar eclipse at an observatory in Hanoi National University of Education in Hanoi, Vietnam, Wednesday, July 22, 2009, during the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, though in most of Vietnam, people will only be able to see a partial eclipse. FILE - This multiple exposure photograph shows the progression of a partial solar eclipse over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on Aug. 21, 2017. FILE - Magdalena Nahuelpan, a Mapuche Indigenous girl, looks at a total solar eclipse using special glasses in Carahue, La Araucania, Chile, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. The total eclipse was visible from Chile and the northern Patagonia region of Argentina, and as a partial solar eclipse in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. FILE - People view a total solar eclipse from La Higuera, Chile, Tuesday, July 2, 2019. FILE - People watch in darkness during the totality of a solar eclipse on as seen from a hill beside a hotel on the edge of the city overlooking Torshavn, the capital city of the Faeroe Islands, Friday, March 20, 2015. FILE - A young shepherd carries a goat as he watches a partial solar eclipse in the village of Bqosta, near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 29, 2006. In Lebanon the Education Ministry ordered all public schools closed for the day with advice to families to keep children indoors during the solar eclipse which started around noon. FILE - People watch the total solar eclipse from Svalbard, Norway on Friday March 20, 2015. FILE - Using a welder's mask as protection, a man views a total eclipse in Piedra del Aguila, Argentina, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. The total solar eclipse was visible from the northern Patagonia region of Argentina and from Araucania in Chile, and as a partial eclipse from the lower two-thirds of South America. FILE - An man uses special glasses to view a partial solar eclipse as people gather near the Sphinx at the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, Friday, March 20, 2015. The partial eclipse was visible across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, while sky-gazers in the Arctic were treated to a perfect view of a total solar eclipse as the moon completely blocked out the sun in a clear sky. FILE - Lucy Maphiri, left, and Margaret Makuya watch the total solar eclipse over Shingwedzi camp in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2002. FILE - Ukrainian man watches a partial solar eclipse through a strip of film in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 29, 2006. The moon began blocking out the sun in the morning in Brazil before the path of greatest blockage migrated to Africa, then on to Turkey and up into Mongolia, where it will fade out with the sunset. FILE - Images of the crescent shaped sun are projected on a sidewalk as light passes through the leaves of a tree during a partial solar eclipse in Oklahoma City, Monday, Aug. 21, 2017. FILE - A total solar eclipse is barely visible through the clouds in Carahue, La Araucania, Chile Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. The total eclipse was visible from Chile and the northern Patagonia region of Argentina, and as a partial solar eclipse in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. FILE - Steve Spalding of Chattanooga squints through the viewfinder of a movie camera for the sun at a Valdosta industrial park as the solar eclipse began in Valdosta, Ga., on Saturday, March 7, 1970. The search was in vain, however, as the sun remained hidden behind a heavy cloud cover before hiding behind the moon. In background, many of the amateur astronomers who traveled to see the total eclipse from as far as western Canada stand disappointedly beside idle telescopes. FILE - Members of the British Astronomers Association prepare their telescopes at their campsite near Truro, England, on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1999, preparing for a total solar eclipse the next day. FILE - A total solar eclipse is seen from an aircraft over Patna, India, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. FILE - A crowd reacts to the view of a partial solar eclipse as it peaks at over 70% percent coverage on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, in New York. FILE - Thousands of tourists gather to view a solar eclipse in front of Apollo Temple in the Turkish Mediterranean coastal resort of Side, Turkey, Wednesday March 29, 2006.. Astronomers from NASA and Britain's Royal Institute of Astronomy watched the eclipse from an ancient Roman theater. The total solar eclipse began at sunrise on the eastern tip of Brazil, crossesed the Atlantic and made landfall in Ghana, headed north across the Sahara, the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey and the Black Sea, and on into Central Asia, where it will finally die out at sunset in Mongolia. FILE - Stone statues known as Moais stand together during a total solar eclipse in Easter Island, Chile, some 4,000 kilometers (2,480 miles) west of the Chilean coast, Sunday, July 11, 2010.
