Williams: A museum is better for the bottom

You are about to read three words you thought you'd never see in this space:

I was wrong.

Three months ago, I boosted Shockoe Bottom as the inevitable site of a new Richmond baseball stadium and all but urged Mayor Dwight C. Jones to grab a ceremonial chrome-plated shovel and break some ground, already. As it turns out, the stadium proposal was about to have dirt shoveled on it. It died last week when Highwoods Properties withdrew its $363 million redevelopment plan for Shockoe Bottom.

In hindsight, my frustration at inaction on the ballpark issue had clouded my reason. Shockoe Bottom has proven itself to be an impractical location for a ballpark. Too many people think baseball there is a poor fit.

So where do we go from here?

We've got a vacant lot in the Bottom and a gaping hole in our historical interpretation. Let's fill both.

What was a crowded proposal -- ballpark, mixed-use development, transportation center and heritage site -- has been pared down significantly. All concerned parties should move apace to build a heritage campus that includes a slavery museum.

Education is more important than baseball. But as an educational tool, an institution devoted to Richmond's slave heritage -- which, really, is one with the nation's -- would be as invaluable as any new school.

This is the right move -- culturally, spiritually and economically. It doesn't take a consultant's study to realize that the Bottom would derive more economic benefit from a tourist magnet open 365 days a year than from a self-contained, seasonal facility.

That ballpark site, behind the 17th Street Farmers' Market between Franklin and Broad streets, lies between the Lumpkin's Slave Jail archaeological site and a Burial Ground for Negroes. Shockoe Bottom's alleys were lined with slave-auction houses. Locations don't come any more ready-made for development.

As frustrated as I grew at the inaction over a ballpark, the gridlock over a proposed slavery museum has been even more galling. It's time to act.

This means the Richmond Slave Trail Commission, which has been curiously passive at this critical juncture, needs to seize the moment. And yes, L. Douglas Wilder, this might be a moment for you, too.

It is apparent to anyone that Wilder's dream, the U.S. National Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg, is as dead as the Shockoe Bottom ballpark. The Web site is down, and the phone has been disconnected. The Fredericksburg museum needs a new home. Any Richmond museum would need donors.

Everyone knows there has been long-standing rivalry and drama between Wilder and state Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, the political mentor to Jones and Del. Delores L. McQuinn. McQuinn heads the Slave Trail Commission, which Wilder would have nothing to do with as mayor. It's time for anyone who truly wants a monument to slave history to put rivalry and pettiness aside.

Baseball was a stretch in the Bottom, but a black-heritage site is a natural fit there. This tragic history, an essential part of who we are, has been paved over for too long.

We need to act before Richmond burnishes its reputation as a place where visions go unrealized.

Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .