Richmond, which has stopped running and hiding from a fundamental facet of its history, is poised to give birth to a slavery museum that never should have been shopped elsewhere.
The Richmond Slave Trail Commission unveiled plans Monday for a slave heritage site in Shockoe Bottom that would include a slavery museum. It's hard not to examine what has been proposed by the commission, led by Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond, and not sense that we're at the portal of something transformative.
This is all preliminary and costly at $100 million to $150 million. But the master plan developed with the help of Stockton Clay Architects makes too much sense not to happen as we approach the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
We're not talking about an isolated slavery museum juxtaposed upon a Fredericksburg mixed-used development. Richmond's proposal springs organically from the fertile soils of our unique history as America's largest domestic slave market.
Mayor Dwight C. Jones hasn't committed to any specifics surrounding this project but sounds enthusiastic.
"Not only is this African-American history and Richmond's history, this is America's history," he said yesterday.
Indeed, this is an international tale of terror, irony and redemption -- all of which can be found in the history of Lumpkin's Slave Jail, whose excavated glass-encased site would be the centerpiece of the Slave Trail.
Robert Lumpkin, the proprietor of the notorious "Devil's Half-Acre," left the property to his black wife upon his death. She leased it to a school that would eventually become Virginia Union University. To comprehend what happened at the Lumpkin's jail site is to gain a greater understanding of race in America.
This project would link 2½ miles of slave history from the south bank of the James River to Shockoe Bottom to the original site of First African Church on Broad Street.
The Shockoe site also would include a U.S. Slavery Museum, an African-American Genealogy Center and a tree-lined area to mark the long-desecrated Negro Burial Ground. All this would be connected by a man-made stream "suggesting passage and return."
"We believe it is long overdue for Richmond and Virginia to focus aggressively on the key role the commonwealth played in the institution of slavery," said Stacy Burrs, board chairman of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. "And, we believe Richmond is the appropriate place for a slave museum to be established in Virginia."
Even the tourism director in Fredericksburg, where L. Douglas Wilder's slavery museum project has withered and apparently died on the shores of the Rappahannock, sounded impressed.
"I think that the context of Richmond is very nice for such an effort," Karen Hedelt said. "I like the notion of the trail and the kind of massing of sites that are down there."
Jones said Richmond's history "should be viewed as a national treasure."
We've moved past pain and shame to unearth the treasure. Now is the time to finally share it with the world.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
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