Listening sessions lead up to Shockoe slave memorial plans

The first drawings for a memorial honoring enslaved people who were trafficked through Shockoe Bottom could be revealed by September.

Lumpkin’s Jail, also known as Devil’s Half Acre, was an infamous prison for enslaved African-Americans before the Civil War.

The project has been a subject of debate since its proposal in 2016 by SmithGroup, an architectural firm with an office in Washington, D.C.

Through a series of public listening sessions held throughout August, SmithGroup presented its plans for the future of the new memorial and answered questions. After the meeting, people in attendance were encouraged to fill out surveys which listed several proposals for what will eventually be built at Lumpkin’s Jail.

Suggestions on the survey included turning the site into a museum, a memorial or a genealogical research center.

“The whole idea was really to meet with the community,” said Hal Davis, senior vice president at Smithgroup. “It was to understand what should be done in the eyes of those we spoke with.”

The project is still in the concept design phase, but the group in charge plans to release drawings of the final plans after a large public feedback session in early September.

The three-acre site near Main Street Station operated as a slave auction complex under the ownership of Robert Lumpkin until April 1865 when Richmond fell to the Union army.

Robert Lumpkin died shortly after the sack of the city. Mary Lumpkin, his former slave and the mother of his children, inherited the property.

In 1867, Mary Lumpkin leased the property to Nathaniel Colver, a Baptist minister seeking to start a Black seminary in Virginia. Finally, the site was transformed into the original location of Virginia Union University, the historically Black university now located on Lombardy Street.

Although it is not yet clear what will be built on the land, Davis said SmithGroup is working closely with historians and educators in the Richmond area to deliver “the truth” about the slave trade in Shockoe Bottom and the world.

To find out more about the new memorial and the historic site in Shockoe Bottom, visit lumpkinsjail.org or devilshalfacre.org.

Andrew Ringle, Contributing Writer