Charlottesville community leader Edward Douglas Harris, who championed local journalism and family advocacy, died on Dec. 28, 2025, at age 69. 

He was born in Charlottesville on July 31, 1956 to Edna Whiting Harris and Nathan Daniel Harris Sr. An official obituary at Hill & Wood Funeral Service notes that Eddie — or Ducey, as some knew him — leaves behind a legacy of both service and inclusivity as a lifelong Charlottesville resident. 

In 2011, Harris founded the Vinegar Hill Newsletter to expand and diversify local news coverage of Charlottesville’s Black community. The publication expanded its mission to become a magazine in 2015 — and became one of the founding institutions behind the Charlottesville Inclusive Media Project in 2018. 

“Vinegar Hill Magazine was started because, in the local press, Black people were not getting represented fairly and thoroughly the way that we are as a people,” Harris said in a June 2023 introductory video. 

The Virginia House of Delegates commended the outlet in 2024 as a “beacon for art, culture, and politics in the Central Virginia region and a valued platform for the Black community in Charlottesville” that “contributed a meaningful thread to the social fabric of the Commonwealth.” 

Friends, family and fans of Harris packed the Jan. 5 Charlottesville City Council meeting to commemorate his life of community-led service. Council members acknowledged Harris’ “extraordinary life and enduring legacy” with a proclamation naming him a visionary leader, storyteller and son of the 10th and Page community. 

Sarad Davenport, chief operating officer of Vinegar Hill Magazine, said the publication will maintain its mission according to the aims of Harris’ founding goal. 

“We’re going to continue the media, the legacy of the magazine, and to continue telling the stories of people that other people won’t tell because a lot of the other media, they only see the negative in our communities,” he said. “There’s a lot more than negative happening. There’s a lot of positive going on.” 

Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, called Harris a griot, a storyteller who keeps the histories of a place. She also recalled an oral history he provided narrating his experience as a Black student during the desegregation of city schools. 

Harris told Douglas that as a child, he’d walk with his friends along US Route 250 to school while passing drivers yelled racial slurs and harassed them. 

“This is a man whose life represents an important part of what we all have to reckon with still here,” Douglas said. “He was an example of how to move out of that. And I think that there are many people who can tell stories, but we’re lucky enough to have at least his interviews that others can see.” 

Angilee Shah, CEO and editor-in-chief of Charlottesville Tomorrow, memorialized her work with Harris as part of the Charlottesville Inclusive Media Project. 

“The Black press is a crucial part of a strong local news ecosystem, and because of Eddie, we have a strong Black press here,” she said. 

“It takes tremendous courage to stand up and say, ‘I deserve to be counted. I deserve to be heard,’ and to publish day in and day out. Whatever the challenge we face trying to build up representation and equity in local media today, Mr. Harris faced tenfold, and he endured and he succeeded.” 

Harris also coached incarcerated fathers at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail as part of the Ready Kids REAL Dads program, which offers support and resources for men looking to build relationships with their children and their mothers. In 2019, he spoke with Charlottesville Inside-Out about its value in fostering “Responsible, Empowered, Available and Loving” relationships among Central Virginia families. 

Martize “Tez” Tolbert spoke in honor of Harris at Monday’s council meeting, calling him a “giant amongst men” who “didn’t just live in the West Side neighborhood,” but “poured his soul into the pavement of every block in the city.” 

“If it wasn’t for Eddie bringing that program to me, I would have never had the tools I needed to mend the relationships that matter the most,” Tolbert said. “Because of what he told me in REAL Dads, I was able to rebuild the bridge back to my children and their mother. He didn’t just help me become a better citizen. He helped me become a better father, a better man and a better mentor.” 

Davenport said that Harris taught him to listen to understand and speak from a place of listening. 

“I’m going to miss him a lot, and I’m going to think about him a lot, and I’m going to try to continue the work.” 

Edward Douglas Harris is preceded in death by his parents as well as multiple siblings and ancestors. His legacy is survived by his son, Ricco; sisters Frances Waller and Patricia Harris; and special daughter Kejah Ford; as well as various nieces, nephews and grandchildren. 

A memorial service was held on Saturday at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville.