The African burial ground beneath a Virginia Commonwealth University parking lot should be preserved to tell the story of Richmond's role as a slave center for next year's Civil War sesquicentennial, Gov. Bob McDonnell said Wednesday in announcing a budget amendment that would transfer the property to the city.
The amendment would reimburse VCU $3.3 million from state funds for the lot near the MCV campus and would be the first step toward memorializing the property by the Richmond Slave Trail Commission, McDonnell said. Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond, chairwoman of the commission, will sponsor legislation to allow the property transfer.
McQuinn, Mayor Dwight C. Jones, and VCU and historic resources officials joined McDonnell at a news conference crowded with activists who demanded the university immediately stop parking on the graves of slaves and free blacks.
The budget proposal by McDonnell, who last week penalized VCU for its 24 percent tuition increase, would help the university dig its way out of the embarrassing and contentious ownership of the graveyard.
But the announcement at the Patrick Henry Building at the state Capitol did not have the one detail that the activists said they wanted to hear.
"My question is, When are you going to stop the parking?" asked former Richmond City Council member Sa'ad El-Amin, founder of the nonprofit Society for Preservation of African-American History and Antiquities, who filed an unsuccessful suit seeking to force the Virginia Department of Historic Resources to conduct test excavations of the property.
"Get the cars off the parking lot immediately. Get the cars off, because it's wrong," VCU senior Aime Tudor told the governor.
They received no definitive answer, but Jones told them they shared the same goal to end the parking.
Jones said the city might have alternative parking that VCU can use. He also said he hoped some of the money that VCU will receive can be used to remove the asphalt from the lot.
John M. Bennett, VCU's senior vice president for finance and administration, said the cars would be removed as quickly as possible.
Asked if VCU might help the city pay to clear the site, Bennett said the university wants to recoup what it has spent on the property.
VCU paid $3 million for the 2.5-acre property at 15th and East Broad streets in 2008. It also spent $460,000 on improvements. The lot initially provided 400 parking spaces for VCU Health System employees. But about 50 spaces were given up when the university set aside a 50-by-200-foot portion to be memorialized.
How many graves the site contains is in dispute. A 2008 state report found that most of the burial ground likely was covered by Interstate 95 but that a portion could extend about 50 feet under the parking lot.
The property is where the rebellious slave Gabriel was executed, and it's next to Lumpkin's Slave Jail, which epitomized Richmond's role as a major slave center.
Wednesday's announcement was called a community victory by Ana Edwards of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and by Shawn O. Utsey, chairman of the African-American Studies Department at VCU. Both said much work still needs to be done.
Edwards said she was disappointed that no concrete plan was announced to remove the cars.
kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com
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