Library of Virginia

He is an opera singer himself, and his credits include TV as well as musical theater and the opera stage.

He was recently recognized by the Library of Virginia with its honorary patron of letters degree, received the 2025 Strong Men and Women Award, and selected as a 2025 Bravo honoree by the Chesterfield Education Foundation.

Welcome, Damian.

We're so glad to have you with us today.

So they num, they numbered them from one to like five, 53,000, whatever, until, you know, uh, until it was no longer segregated.

So I think, I, I think it may be like around 800,000 files that they have, like of information of all kinds of records and, And they offered it to the Library of Virginia, which is supposed to take these things, and they didn't want them.

They said they were worthless, that they weren't important.

And so Dr. King-Davis got a Mellon Foundation grant and they have been digitizing that archive, I think for like the last 10 years or so.

Renewed interest in the project, which was initially rejected in 2024, comes as Hanover officials are discussing policies to rein in data center development.

A group led by the Library of Virginia has received nearly $750,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The grant is part of NEH's Rediscovering Our Revolutionary Tradition initiative, which supports efforts to preserve and digitize historic materials related to American independence and Virginia's early government.

LVA will use its funds to digitize the executive papers of Founding Father and former governor Benjamin Harrison V.