On May 23, Mayor Levar Stoney publicly endorsed the Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park and asked that the Memorial Park concept be made a part of the Shockoe Bottom Small Area Plan, the City of Richmond’s official land-use plan. In fact, all four of Richmond’s mayoral candidates have endorsed the Memorial Park.

Mayor Stoney’s endorsement reads, in part: “I fully support the establishment of such an inclusive Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park and have requested that the Shockoe Alliance—a collective group of city and community stakeholders that I convened in 2018 to focus on memorialization, preservation and equitable development in Shockoe Bottom—incorporate this concept into the Small Area Plan for Shockoe Bottom.”

Credit for this milestone goes, of course, to community members—in Richmond and across the nation—who have spoken up for truth, healing, and history.