 (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) | By Tyrese Coleman with Melody Schreiber The early December skies were foreboding as the protesters shivered in the chill outside a Wegmans grocery store. Still, they marched and held their signs high: "Wetlands over Wegmans," "Not in my backyard," "#Save Brown Grove!!!" Among them were my cousins Renada Harris, 40, and Bonnica Cotman, 50. I've known them all my life, and I had never imagined them as activists, yet here the two sisters were, among the leaders of the group. In the past few months, I'd watched them go all-in trying to save our childhood home, Brown Grove, a historically Black community in Hanover County, Va., about 17 miles north of downtown Richmond. Brown Grove is facing, as they see it, the biggest existential threat of its 150-year history: the construction of a 1.1 million-square-foot, $175 million Wegmans distribution center. Last summer, Renada and Bonnica watched as protesters marched through Richmond, demanding justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue was painted with graffiti, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters went up in flames. The city that was once the seat of the Confederate States of America proclaimed a new era. Now the sisters felt inspired to make their own calls for justice. Read more » More from The Post | Support the work Important stories, expert storytellers. | | | | |
