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The National Trust and its local allies are advocating to protect and honor the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, a nearly erased municipal cemetery in downtown Richmond, Virginia. This collaborative advocacy is closely aligned with the goals of the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund as well as the preservation movement’s National Impact Agenda.

Between 1816 and 1879, Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground was Richmond’s 31-acre segregated cemetery for free and enslaved African Americans. Scholars estimate that more than 22,000 people of African descent were buried there, making Shockoe Hill one of the largest African burying grounds in the United States. Shockoe Hill is associated with the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground and Evergreen Cemetery, two focuses of National Trust advocacy through the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Over many years, tragically, Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground was neglected by the City of Richmond, sold off, desecrated, and nearly destroyed by railroad and roadway construction, leaving today no visible sign to recognize the Burying Ground’s existence. In 2021, Shockoe Hill was listed by Preservation Virginia as one of Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Places because of planned construction of high-speed railroad tracks and the future expansion of Interstate 64 and local roadways.

In Richmond, the preservation alliance collaborating to save Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground is led by Lenora McQueen—who is descended from an ancestor, Kitty Cary, buried at Shockoe Hill—and a set of scholars, Steve Thompson, Ryan Smith, and Daniel Mouer. These dedicated individuals are joined by the Sacred Ground Project of the Virginia Defenders of Freedom, Justice & Equality, Preservation Virginia, Historic Richmond, RVA Archeaology, Cultural Landscape Foundation, and the National Trust. Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources and the City’s Historic Preservation Office actively support this effort.

To protect and honor this hallowed cultural landscape, the African Burying Ground has been nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and Virginia Landmarks Register. If the nomination is successful, official recognition of the cultural importance of Shockoe Hill would be a step in the right direction.

Learn more about the ongoing campaign to preserve the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground on The Cultural Landscape Foundation website.

On April 15, 2019, the new group Mayor Stoney created to lead the design and implementation for Shockoe Bottom will hold its first community meeting. The public is invited to attend.

The Shockoe Alliance consists of City of Richmond staff, preservation experts, and community members. The group is tasked with ensuring a collaborative approach to reimagining Shockoe Bottom as an “innovative space [for] memorialization, learning, and transformation—all while protecting the area’s cultural and historic heritage.”

This is welcome news, as this vision complements our long-held support for the Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park plan—a collaborative, community-centered approach to balancing sensitive memorialization of the area’s difficult history with equitable economic development that especially benefits Richmond’s African American residents.

To further that end, monies from the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (AACHAF) were awarded to Preservation Virginia to convene a resource panel of experts and practitioners—with our partner, the Sacred Ground Project—to identify best practices in creating opportunities for equitable economic development and to consider their application to Shockoe Bottom.

The panelists, with expertise including community development, neighborhood revitalization, city planning, workforce development, sustainability, and design, met last week in Richmond to begin formulating ideas about how to best provide opportunities for education, training, and prosperity in a district that has long struggled economically.

Preservation Virginia is also using the Action Fund grant to commission Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis to research the economic impacts of African American cultural heritage destinations nationally, and to quantify the economic benefits of transforming Shockoe Bottom into a memorial park. They will release the full report this summer and include focus groups with local residents, community leaders, and business owners.

On April 15, help us tell the Shockoe Alliance that the Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park plan, with its spaces for reflection, education, and equitable economic development, is a vital framework for reimagining this landscape.

Full meeting details:

When: April 15, 2019, 6:00 p.m.

Where: Main Street Station, 1500 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA

No registration needed. We hope to see you at the meeting!

Last week, a team of national experts organized by the Rose Center for Public Leadership gathered in Richmond to tour Shockoe Valley and brainstorm solutions to bring about Richmond Mayor Stoney’s vision for both equitable economic development and memorialization of the area’s past as the nation’s second-largest slave trading center. Mayor Stoney was one of four U.S. mayors to be selected for this year-long partnership. The National Trust’s Graham Gund architect, Ashley Wilson was invited to participate on the panel, joining a host of professionals from the planning, civil engineering, and commercial real estate development fields.

The Rose Center group shared their initial recommendations and laid out next steps at a press event on Thursday, February 8. The National Trust for Historic Preservation released a statement reaffirming its position on the key elements of any development in Shockoe Bottom. Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Michael Paul Williams wrote a thoughtful piece, echoing the panel’s insistence on investigating, understanding, and telling the truth of the full, and yes painful, history that transpired on this sacred ground in order to bring about true healing and reconciliation.

The full presentation may be viewed on YouTube.

The National Trust will remain engaged and active on the work to properly commemorate and activate this site of conscience and will keep the public informed of opportunities to join the conversation and help shape Shockoe Bottom’s future.

In recent weeks, a proposal to link Washington, D.C. and Richmond through a high speed rail system has been gaining steam. This proposal includes construction of a new railroad facility at Main Street Station in Shockoe Bottom. Construction of a high-speed railroad facility and the real estate development that is likely to follow have the potential to impact the hallowed place we seek to commemorate through creation of a Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park. In the long-term, the impacts could be positive and could be negative. It is indisputable, however, that the federal review process for the railroad facility will substantially influence the City’s promised master planning for Shockoe.

Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Michael Paul Williams captured the concerns of National Trust’s Senior Field Director and Attorney, Rob Nieweg and our local partner Ana Edwards in a column that ran today entitled, Environmental impact of rail project on Shockoe slave heritage is concerning.”

As Rob points out in the column, as the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) evaluates the potential environmental impacts of the facility at Main Street Station, it is essential that the FRA pay close attention to the archaeological, historical, and cultural values that are embedded in Shockoe Bottom.

In a draft environmental impact study, there is scant attention paid to the deeply significant slave history of Shockoe Bottom and authors dismiss any direct impacts on historical sites like Lumpkin’s Jail and the African burial ground. According to Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, the Lumpkin’s Jail site is about 125 feet from the closest area of potential disturbance; the burial ground, about 200 feet.

The public is invited to participate in the federal review process by providing a comment at http://dc2rvarail.com/contact-us no later than November 7th. Please join the National Trust and our allies in telling the FRA that Shockoe Bottom is a significant historic place. That the proposed railroad facility has the potential to harm Shockoe. And, that FRA should fully explore ways to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” any future harm to Shockoe.

Additional messages to consider when formulating your comments to FRA include:

• The African Burial Ground, Devil’s Half Acre (Lumpkin’s Slave Jail Site), and other buried remains throughout Shockoe Bottom are extraordinarily significant archaeological, historical, and cultural resources because of their association with the nation’s enslavement history. This National Treasure merits protection against harm.
• Only one archaeological site in Shockoe Bottom has been investigated and documented – the Devil’s Half Acre. Archival research has indicated a high likelihood that additional archaeological remains survive in Shockoe. Therefore, the Federal Railroad Administration should commission a thorough study of the archaeological, historical, and cultural resources in Shockoe Bottom – before making any decision about the proposed high-speed rail facility. As part of this study, it is essential that Shockoe is fully evaluated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
• To protect Shockoe, the Federal Railroad Administration needs to expand the so-called “Area of Potential Effects” to encompass Shockoe’s archaeological, historical, and cultural resources, pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act. In addition, the FRA must consider the full range of potential impacts – “direct, indirect and cumulative” -- to these surviving resources. Importantly, the FRA must also consider various ways to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” potential harm from the railroad facility, and any reasonably foreseeable real estate development.
• The archaeological remains in Shockoe Bottom are not the kind of typical archaeological site that is valuable primarily for “data recovery,” but these resources have extraordinary importance and should be preserved, interpreted, and commemorated in place.
• Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act prohibits the “use” of any historic property or park land in connection with a transportation project, unless there is “no feasible and prudent alternative” to doing so. The African Burial Ground, Devil’s Half Acre, and the proposed Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park are all historic sites and/or parks that could be “substantially impaired” by the proximity of the high-speed railroad project, thus triggering the prohibition of Section 4(f). In addition to the mandatory preference for alternatives, Section 4(f) also requires that the Federal Railroad Administration’s Main Street Station project incorporate “all possible planning to minimize harm.”

Thank you in advance for providing your comments about Shockoe Bottom to the Federal Railroad Administration by November 7^th.

Comments may be submitted:

• online: http://dc2rvarail.com/contact-us/
• email: info@DC2RVArail.com

“It would be hard to think of a place more important to black history in the entire United States,” -- Richmond Branch NAACP President Lynetta Thompson

On September 12, we joined the Richmond chapter of the NAACP, the Defenders’ Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, and dozens of other supporters in urging the Richmond City Council to support the design proposal for a Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park. This concept goes beyond the current mayor’s vision for a small museum atop the Devil's Half Acre/Lumpkin’s Jail site to include the African burial ground and two additional city blocks where other slave jails and trader offices once stood.

Local media covered the event, including a segment by the local ABC affiliate (with video), a story by the local CBS affiliate (with video), and a piece by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Add your voice to the call for an expanded concept for Shockoe Bottom! We’re accepting public comments here.