Benjamin Tonsler Park spreads out ahead of you, a Charlottesville park that also served as the location of Balloon 3 in the 2009 DARPA Network Challenge. Here, the name on the park points to Benjamin Tonsler, one of Charlottesville’s most prominent African American citizens. Very little is known of his early life; he was born April 2, 1854, in Albemarle County.
His descendants came to believe that a member of a family for whom he worked taught him to read and write, which was illegal at the time. Tonsler was educated at Hampton University and returned to Charlottesville to teach at the Jefferson Graded School, which at that time was the only school available to African Americans. He taught for several years and then assumed the position of principal, which he held for almost thirty years.
His students remembered him as a stern disciplinarian who took huge risks to further their education. Under the segregated laws of the time it was illegal to educate African American students past eighth grade, so Mr. Tonsler had his older students stay after school to study more advanced texts. Notice the park that carries Tonsler's name.