Larisa Robinson
Capital News Service
An “emancipation celebration” will be held April 10 in Shockoe Bottom to commemorate the unveiling of historical markers for the Richmond Slave Trail and the planned removal of asphalt covering a prominent African burial ground.
The Richmond City Council’s Slave Trail Commission is sponsoring the unveiling of 17 markers along the Trail of Enslaved Africans, which documents the city’s shameful history as a center for the slave trade until the 1860s.
The main program takes place at the site of Lumpkin’s Slave Jail, 1500 E. Franklin St. The event lasts from 3 to 5 p.m. The jail was an infamous holding facility where Africans were imprisoned before being sold.
Attendees at the ceremony are expected to include Gov. Bob McDonnell, Mayor Dwight C. Jones, members of the Richmond City Council and other elected officials.
The marker unveiling is considered to be a “pre-event” to the removal of a parking lot covering the Richmond area’s oldest municipal cemetery for enslaved and free Africans.
The cemetery is the focus of a documentary, “Meet Me in the Bottom: The Struggle to Reclaim Richmond’s African Burial Ground,” produced and directed by Shawn Utsey, chairman of the Department of African American Studies at VCU.
VCU owns the parking lot covering the burial ground. Officials are planning to remove the asphalt and turn the site over to the city government.
For more information about the April 10 event and to RSVP, contact state Delegate Delores McQuinn of Richmond. McQuinn, who chairs the Slave Trail Commission, can be reached at 804-698-1070.