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Dozens of supporters attended Richmond's city council meeting on Monday, bearing signs that said "Save Shockoe Bottom" and "Protect Our Sacred Ground." They came to support the community-generated plan for a nine-acre memorial in Shockoe Bottom that would include an African burial ground, the Lumpkin's Jail site, as well as two additional city blocks that were once home to other slave jails and traders' offices.

“The whole story of what happened here in Richmond, Virginia should be told,” said Dawn Smith, whose ancestors are buried in Shockoe Bottom. “Our remains should be respected,” Smith told 8News.

Presented over a year ago, the proposed park covers nearly 100 Shockoe Bottom sites that made Richmond the epicenter of the U.S. domestic slave trade. “We shouldn’t try to hide it anymore,” Smith said of the region’s sometimes ugly history.

The park would include more sites important to the history of slave trade in Richmond than the "narrower, as-of-yet-undefined memorial focused on the Lumpkin’s slave jail archaeology site" favored by Mayor Dwight C. Jones and his administration. Supporters of the larger park, led at Monday's meeting by Richmond Branch NAACP President Lynetta Thompson, continue to push for a more inclusive memorial of Shockoe Bottom's history.

More on Monday's city council meeting and the proposed memorials for Shockoe Bottom at WRIC and Richmond-Times Dispatch.

Shockoe Bottom in downtown Richmond was once the epicenter of the U.S. domestic slave trade. Its network of auction houses, prisons, workshops, and a burial ground made up the largest slave market after New Orleans.

Today, Shockoe Bottom is a patchwork of mostly vacant lots and surface parking. Plans to redevelop the district have been controversial—most recently, public and political opposition fought off the mayor’s proposal to construct a baseball stadium in the heart of the Bottom. This proposal has since been replaced by the mayor’s plan for a museum atop the Devil’s Half-Acre/Lumpkin’s Jail site, a small sliver of the historically significant land in Shockoe Bottom.

These projects are not appropriate to convey the magnitude of human suffering that occurred here, nor do they maximize the opportunity for healing, understanding and economic development.

A plan for a memorial park seeks to balance reflection and remembrance with equitable economic development. The result of a community process led by the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, the concept has recently been refined by UMass Amherst professors Max Page and Joseph Krupczynski with the Center for Design Engagement (CDE). which was broadly supported during a public presentation in June, 2016.

The CDE design proposal is now available for public review and input. Key graphics are captured in the slideshow below, and the full design proposal is available for download.

Please complete the form below to provide comments to the plan’s authors.

Thank you for helping us shape the future of Shockoe Bottom, a true National Treasure.

Your Comments

We need “the courage to confront and confess the history that has made us." –Leonard Pitts, columnist

In the spirit of this call to action, a team from the UMass Center for Design Engagement (CD*E) was invited by the Richmond-based Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project to conduct a series of community meetings, discussions, and presentations on how to advance a community-generated design proposal that commemorates and revitalizes Shockoe Bottom.

After an intense period of listening, discussing, and distilling, the CD*E team presented a preliminary design proposal at Richmond’s new Black History Museum and Cultural Center in front of a standing-room only crowd.

Now the team has polished that presentation and made it available online.

As conveyed at the presentation, the design proposal for a Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park seeks to recognize and reinvigorate this landscape as a site of conscience, a sacred site, and a place that can help build economic opportunity for all Richmonders.

Elements of their vision include creating a focal point for the district called Shockoe Square that would serve as a new gateway to Shockoe Bottom’s memorial sites and provide space for interpretation, outdoor films, music and drama performances, and a visually and symbolically striking “grove of light” installation.

Other features include a digital interpretive wall that would be a dynamic canvas for a variety of works, including art, films, and the names of the enslaved; and, a memorial landscape at the African Burial Ground that would incorporate Shockoe Creek and an elevated footpath to convey respect and provoke reflection in this sacred place.

In the educational and economic development arena, the team suggested local universities unite to form a new Center for Building Arts and Sustainable Development to help young people and formerly incarcerated individuals gain vocational skills. Recommendations also include creating a community benefit fund and a land trust to ensure that historic preservation work, educational investment, and affordable housing occur alongside commercial development.

As we shared earlier, thanks to the advocacy of people like you, the controversial proposal to place a minor league baseball stadium in the Bottom was withdrawn last fall, leaving the fate of the district still up in the air. City officials have indicated their desire to place a traditional museum atop a small slice of Shockoe Bottom, making the area vulnerable to large-scale, inappropriate development and missing an opportunity to think bolder and braver in planning Shockoe’s future.

With funding from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the UMass/Center for Design Engagement (C*DE) will travel to Richmond to join the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, Preservation Virginia, the National Trust, and the Storefront for Community Design in holding a community design charrette to refine and enhance the concept for the Sacred Ground Memorial Park. This work is a direct reaction to the community’s clear call for a fuller interpretation of Shockoe’s history, as expressed during the mayor’s Richmond Speaks process.

The six-day project, from May 29 through June 4, is a chance for community members to propose ideas and directly contribute to a series of design proposals that will help advance the ongoing effort to remember and revitalize nine acres of Shockoe Bottom.

So join us on Tuesday, May 31, or Wednesday, June 1, from 7–9 p.m. at the Storefront for Community Design (205 E. Broad Street, Richmond) to add your vision to the plans for a Sacred Ground Memorial Park.

Then come see the design proposals that will result from this public input at a special unveiling on Friday, June 3, at 5:30 p.m. at Richmond’s new Black History Museum and Cultural Center (122 W. Leigh Street.)

The success of this workshop depends upon the active participation of community members. Help us ensure a bright future for Shockoe Bottom that respects its past!

Email Erica Stewart at estewart@savingplaces.org with any questions.

Out of Richmond today came a stirring editorial from the Richmond Times-Dispatch that urges the City of Richmond to think bigger and bolder in its commemoration of slave history at Shockoe Bottom. This statement comes as the City presents tonight the results of “Richmond Speaks,” the name the Mayor has given to the public vetting of a City concept for a small museum on the Lumpkin’s Jail site.

After reviewing the “Richmond Speaks” report released by the City yesterday, today’s editorial concludes “Richmonders seem generally agreed on the need to memorialize the city’s role in the slave trade and the many victims of that trade who were passed through here in bondage. Now a growing consensus is emerging that the city must not short-change such an effort.”

The editors go on to argue that, “Turning Lumpkin’s Jail into a museum is a crucial first step, but it is far from sufficient. The slave trade was not confined to Lumpkin’s; the entire Shockoe Bottom area is hallowed with the blood and tears of slavery’s victims.” The full editorial may be read here.

We wholeheartedly agree, and have been staunch and vocal supporters of a more comprehensive and thoughtful plan to preserve the full nine acres of Shockoe Bottom.

So help us seize this critical moment for Shockoe Bottom’s future! If you are local to RVA, please attend the public meeting tonight at the University of Richmond from 6-8 pm. More information can be found here. If you’re not, stay up to date on developments using the Twitter hashtag #SaveShockoe and stay tuned for a call to action to send the message to city leaders that Shockoe Bottom deserves more.