Our campaign to fully preserve and interpret Shockoe Bottom continues!

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney is extending the process begun by former Mayor Dwight Jones to erect a traditional museum atop the Devil’s Half-Acre/Lumpkin’s Jail site in Shockoe Bottom.

The museum planners are collecting public comment on the museum’s Statement of Purpose until September 20, 2017. Join us today in sending the message that the deep and complex history of Shockoe Bottom is better served by a nine-acre Memorial Park.

The time is right for the City to move forward with a more expansive and inclusive vision for what was once the second largest slave trading center in the U.S. Mayor Stoney’s Monument Avenue Commission seeks community input in how best to offer context to the Confederate history on display on Monument Avenue.

The Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park plan does exactly that. Expanding the Lumpkin’s museum project to create a Memorial Park would provide areas for contemplation, healing, and reflection while fully honoring the people and events of this essential but often ignored part of Richmond’s heritage.

Richmond can lead the nation by creating a memorial park that will provide needed balance and perspective in promoting reconciliation and telling a more complete story of slavery and the Civil War in Richmond. Adopting the Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park is the blueprint to do so.

More information about the Devil’s Half-Acre/Lumpkin’s Jail museum project is available at http://www.lumpkinsjail.org.