Sal Orlando, Assistant News Editor
VCU initiated DNA analysis last month on the human remains found in the East Marshall Street Well as part of the university’s efforts to memorialize individuals posthumously stolen by what is now the VCU School of Medicine.
The remains of at least 44 adults and nine children, primarily of African descent, were found in an underground well during the 1994 construction of the Hermes A. Kontos Medical Sciences Building on the MCV Campus, according to the East Marshall Street Well project’s website.
The bodies are believed to have been used at the time by the Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College between 1848 and 1860. To obtain bodies, it was common for faculty to grave rob Richmond’s African American burial grounds.
The recent DNA analysis aims to highlight the lives of those excavated from the well, according to VCU News. The ancestral information and physical descriptions of the majority found in the well were revealed through the analysis.
The researchers were able to reassociate the remains of 33 individuals and identify their physical characteristics, growth and development.
Ambassador Kandeh Free Bangura, founder of Untold RVA, said she loves the DNA project, but believes commemoration cannot be complete until the DNA derived from the database onnects those found with their ancestors, specifically with a broader database.
“It could be a huge opportunity to allow people to understand the migration patterns and what happened to their ancestors, place them within the context of who they belong to, you’d be able to find names, and everything,” Bangura said.
Untold RVA is an organization with the mission to “inspire non-traditional audiences with bold typography, audio enhanced street art and urban exploration,” according to Bangura.
Bangura mentioned that she had been working with VCU’s medical school, where she does week-long lecture series for first year medical students, teaching about the importance of cultural humility and respecting both living patients and the remains of deceased patients.
“If you talk to people from the [East Marshall Street Well] Family Representative council, you might hear a few of them say that it’s time to go ahead and inter the bones, that they’ve been pretty much on this side of the grave for a long time,” said Stephanie Rizzi, the director of Project Gabriel. “I think that there’s definitely a segment of the community that wants to go ahead and honor those people by burying their remains and having some kind of memorial for them.”
Project Gabriel was created by VCU in 2023 as an effort to address the university’s historic ties to slavery in accordance with the 2021 Virginia Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program, per a previous report by The CT.
Rizzi believes that the more information obtained of the victims through the DNA analysis, the better.
“Richmond at one time was the center of the slave trade and so there is a lot of history in Richmond that’s related to that pretty much,” Rizzi said. “Most of the infrastructure in this city was built by enslaved people.”
The East Marshall Well Project is a VCU initiative to ensure the remains of the individuals found in the well receive appropriate study, memorialization and reburial, according to the project website.
Stephen Davenport, an adminisrator and member of the planning committee staff for the project, said it is important for VCU to do its part to commemorate black history, including elevating local voices, conducting responsible research and engaging with the community.
“The East Marshall Street Well Project is an important part of MCV’s history, and while the university’s actions were deplorable, they were not out of line with established practices of the time,” Davenport stated in an email.
Davenport believes it is good to see the wishes of the East Marshall Street Well Family Representative Council come to fruition.
The VCU East Marshall Street Well Family Representative Council submitted recommendations in 2018 to the VCU East Marshall Street Well Planning Committee to guide initiatives. The submission included 17 recommendations, three of which have since been completed.
The completed recommendations include the unveiling of the Kontos Building memorization panels in 2021, the ancestral remains’ return to Richmond and the establishment of the Implementation Committees in 2019.
The VCU Humanities Research Center conducted an oral history project with the Family Representative Council in 2024 to document the progress of the East Marshall Street Well Project, according to VCU News.
The VCU College of Humanities and Sciences introduced a curriculum program in 2024 for high school students, focused on the ethical treatment of human remains, according to VCU News.
Davenport mentioned there will be more announcements for the project coming this summer.