VCU Health removes ad on African burying ground, billboard company refuses to follow suit

Andrew Kerley, Audience Editor

VCU Health removed an advertisement from a billboard standing on the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground on Feb. 7, one of the same sites desecrated and grave-robbed by the Medical College of Virginia for decades, according to the Richmond Cemeteries project.

The Richmond Cemeteries project, curated by VCU history professor Ryan Smith, Ph.D., is a website that details the history of Richmond’s historic burial grounds.

The recently re-recognized Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground is over two centuries old and believed to have housed the graves of over 22,000 free and enslaved African Americans, according to the project’s website.

Smith said he and other researchers believe it to be the largest African burying ground in the United States.

While VCU apologized for the incident in an email statement, Lamar Advertising, the company that owns the decades-old billboard, continues to reject proposals from the city and advocates to remove or repurpose the billboard, according to a report by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Mayor Levar Stoney gave a speech at the site on Friday, Feb. 23 to announce Lamar requested the city to trade six other billboards for the Shockoe Hill billboard, a proposal Stoney rejected and called “ridiculous” and “disgusting.”

In 2017, Lenora McQueen, a community historian and genealogist, came across a letter during her research that detailed her enslaved fourth great-grandmother’s death, she said. In her search for the grave, the Virginia Historical Society directed her to the corner of N 5th and Hospital Street, just across from the well-kept white and Hebrew cemeteries.

When she arrived, she was confused to find nothing but an abandoned gas station, McQueen said. Months passed before Smith confirmed to her that it truly was the site she was looking for.

McQueen began researching the site, and through her research she found at least three of her relatives were buried on the grounds.

The burying ground was mistreated for centuries, according to their research. When the Confederates left Richmond on the eve of emancipation in 1865, they exploded a nearby powder magazine, damaging many of the graves. Graverobbers serving medical schools like MCV stole Black bodies from the grounds for decades. Human remains were used as street filling during construction in the 1880s.

The original 31 acres that made up the grounds were sold off to numerous owners over the years, according to their research. The plot of land on N 5th and Hospital was sold in 1950 and turned into the gas station that remains today.

When the land was set to be auctioned off in a tax sale in 2018, McQueen spoke out about the historic nature of the site to 6th District Councilperson Ellen Robertson, who represents the area where the burying ground is located. Councilperson Robertson then alerted Mayor Stoney, she said. McQueen’s lobbying led to the city buying back the property in April 2021.

McQueen, Smith and two archeologists, Dan Mouer Ph.D and Steve Thompson Ph.D, got the burying ground to be recognized by the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places in 2022. In a ceremony that year, the city turned the abandoned gas station into a memorial, recognizing the location as the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground.

However, over a year and a half later, McQueen asked her fellow researcher Ellen Chapman, Ph.D., to send her a photo of the burying ground earlier this month, she noticed something peculiar in the background: The billboard that had been standing on the same plot of land as the gas station sported a new ad from VCU Health, she said.

“My heart dropped, it was like a tremendous slap in the face,” McQueen said. “Of all the places they could have advertised, this was the one place they should not have. After all of the robbing of the graves, the stealing of the bodies.”

McQueen wrote to President Rao and received a response almost immediately, she said. VCU apologized to her for the incident and promised to remove the ad.

VCU Health spokesperson Danielle Pierce said in an email statement that the advertisement was not intentional. VCU Health advertising is conducted through a third-party vendor, which selected the location for the advertisement.

“We sincerely apologize for any pain this has caused our community,” Pierce stated. “We will continue to examine how we — as a health system, university and community — take meaningful actions that support healing and inclusion.”

The VCU Health advertisement was removed on Feb. 7 and blacked out on Feb. 13, according to Chapman’s posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. An advertisement from a law firm on the other side of the billboard was blacked out on Wednesday, Feb. 21. The billboard still stands with both sides covered.

McQueen previously asked Lamar to donate the side facing the burying ground so it could become a memorial in 2022, about a month before the unveiling ceremony, she said. Lamar offered her a different billboard down the street. After McQueen clarified it was not the one she was interested in, Lamar responded saying the billboard on the burying ground was not something they were willing to provide, according to a report by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Councilperson Robertson said on Feb. 9 that she had also been in talks with Lamar to remove or repurpose the billboard, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch report. Robertson said Lamar said the billboard is significant to their inventory, but they were interested in trading it for a different, city-owned billboard.

Lamar did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Commonwealth Times.

Lamar’s most recent request for the city to trade six other billboards for the Shockoe Hill billboard was decried by Mayor Stoney in his speech on Friday, Feb. 23. He called on Lamar to give up the billboard and “do the right thing, not just by the souls who rest here, but also by the residents in the city of Richmond.”

“Their proposal requests that we find them six other sites,” Stoney said. “That gives them 12 billboard opportunities in the city of Richmond, essentially using this sacred ground as a bargaining chip for their bottom line.”

Lamar makes nearly $190,000 a year by offering up the two advertising spaces on the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, according to its website.

McQueen said she hopes the talks between Lamar and the city will continue. Her ideal is that the billboard should not be outright removed, but repurposed or sawed off at base so as to not further disturb Black graves.

There’s still plenty of work to be done concerning threats to the burying ground, McQueen said. The Virginia Department of Transportation still plans on running more high-speed rail and widening the highway over the burying ground, according to its website.

McQueen said she was disappointed to not see the African burying ground honored like its neighbor-burying grounds, but instead mistreated to the point of being unrecognizable.

“I’m just shaking my head. It’s hard to find words to express feelings concerning this,” McQueen said. “It’s been so mistreated. Parts of it have been absolutely desecrated. I think many have felt that because it’s been ‘disappeared,’ because of the desecrations, that it’s not there anymore, that it doesn’t exist. But that’s not true. It’s very much still a burial ground. It didn’t go anywhere.”

Correction: A previous version of this article said construction in the 1890s resulted in human remains being used as fill. However, that occurred from 1882-1883. It also said the city bought back the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground in 2020. The purchase actually occurred in 2021. It also said Lenora McQueen’s original research was aided by Ryan Smith when it had been independent. It also didn’t specify who helped get the burying ground recognized by the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. It also attributed information to McQueen when it was from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. All the corrections have been made.