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VICTORY IN THE STRUGGLE TO RECLAIM RICHMOND'S
AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND!
On May 21, 2011, VCU was finally forced to close its
downtown parking lot that has desecrated Richmond's African Burial Ground. On May 23, the land was formally turned over to
the City of Richmond. On May 24, the first of the offending asphalt was removed from this sacred ground. And on May 25, the
four Burial Ground advocates who were arrested April 12 after successfully blockading and shutting down the VCU parking lot
were tried in court, charged with trespassing on VCU property. Under pressure from the community, the charges were withdrawn.
Look for the next issue of The Virginia Defender (June 16) for full coverage and analysis of this these important victories.
And please support the continuing efforts to ensure the proper memorialization of this site by getting involved with the Richmond
African Burial Ground Community Organizing Committee (see statement below). A Luta Continua! The Struggle Continues!
Statement by the Four African Burial Ground Advocates following their trial
on May 25, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011, was a day of victory for us and the community.
We wish to thank whatever higher power we believe in, our lawyer, Steve Benjamin, and the community for showing up at the
Manchester Courthouse to support us. The courtroom was filled to capacity with supporters. It was awesome to see the room
empty out when we left. We also thank those who were not able to come but were there in spirit.
To Virginia Commonwealth
University, we say that “actions speak louder than words.” A true good-faith gesture would be to donate $123,000
to be used for the development of the African Burial Ground. This is the amount VCU is saving because of the generosity of
several companies that are donating their time, energy and equipment to remove the asphalt from the African Burial Ground
at no cost. In addition, VCU should donate all the parking fees they collected over the past three years to the African Burial
Ground. That money was to recover the cost of purchasing the land, but the cost has now been covered by the General Assembly.
To
the Slave Trail Commission, we say the Richmond African Burial Ground Community Organizing Committee is ready and willing
to interact with them in a positive manner. Our goals are to promote continued community input in regard to decisions affecting
how the African Burial Ground is to be memorialized and to promote the principle that any related contracts and jobs should
go first to the African-American community.
To the community, we say please continue to join us in deciding how the
African Burial Ground should be memorialized. Your input is so important. Our meetings are held on the first Sunday of each
month from 4-6 pm. Do come out. To receive meeting notices, please send your name, phone number and/or email address to: Janet
“Queen Nzinga” Taylor at <onerastaqueen@hotmail.com> or call (804)
347-3598.
Again,
thanks so much to everyone for supporting us. We really appreciate it.
Donnell C. Brantley
Rolanda "Cleopattrah"
McMillan
Autumn Barrett
Phil Wilayto
EMERGENCY
APPEAL - ISSUED MONDAY, FEB. 7, 2011
Dear friends,
This week, the Richmond Slave Trail
Commission plans to finalize the text of a public marker to be placed at the site of Richmond's African Burial Ground, land
now used as a parking lot by Virginia Commonwealth University.
Of course, there should be a marker
at this important historic site. However, much more important than the marker itself is the process that gets us there. The
progress that has so far been made on reclaiming the Burial Ground has been the result of more than 10 years of consistent
effort by community organizations and individual advocates. And yet the community has had no input into what this marker will
say about the historic, cultural and political significance of this Sacred Ground.
At the February meeting of the Slave
Trail Commission, members agreed there should be a forum for community input – sometime in April. But the Burial Ground
marker is to be unveiled on April 3 – too late for the community to weigh in on how this sacred ground should be described,
defined and memorialized. The community – first of all the Black community, whose ancestors were interred at this site
– must have the opportunity to share in the decision of how the Burial Ground will be memorialized.
Therefore, we are calling on the
members of the Richmond Slave Trail Commission to:
1. immediately make public the proposed
text for the African Burial Ground marker, and
2. postpone any decision on the text
until there can be meaningful community input in the form of public meetings.
Please support this effort by sending
the suggested e-mail below to members of the Commission, with copies to Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones and Kathleen Kilpatrick,
Director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. We ask that you do this immediately, before the Commission finalizes
the marker text.
And please forward this appeal to
all your friends, and ask them to send an e-mail right away:
Thanks,
Phil Wilayto
for Richmond's African Burial Ground
Community Organizing Committee(the committee that was formed at the Oct. 10 Town Hall Meeting on reclaiming
the Burial Ground)
…................................................................................................................
To: Members of the Richmond Slave
Trail Commission:
deldmcquinn@house.virginia.gov, jaybee@efsinc.org, bcampbell@richmondhillva.org, Cynthia.Newbille@Richmondgov.com, Tee.Turner@hopeinthecities.org, soutsey@vcu.edu, ralph.white@richmondgov.com
cc: dwight.jones@richmondgov.com, Kathleen.Kilpatrick@DHR.VIRGINIA.GOV
SUBJECT: Community input into the
text of the African Burial Ground Marker
It is our understanding that your
commission is in the process of finalizing the text of a public marker to be placed at the site of Richmond's African Burial
Ground. Of course, there should be a marker at this important historic site. However, much more important than the marker
itself is the process that gets us there. To date, the community has had no input into what this marker will say about the
historic, cultural and political significance of this Sacred Ground.
Therefore, we are calling on you
to:
1. immediately make public the proposed
text for the African Burial Ground marker, and
2. postpone any decision on the text
until there can be meaningful community input in the form of public meetings.
Sincerely,
(Your name here)
Gov. McDonnell wants state to purchase site of Richmond's
African Burial Ground; but parking lot will remain open, and memorialization would
be controlled by those who neglected it
Special Report from The Virginia Defender
RICHMOND, Dec. 22 – Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell held a press conference
today to announce what he described as a solution to the controversy surrounding Virginia Commonwealth University's continued
use of the site of a historic Black cemetery for a parking lot.
Flanked by city and state officials, McDonnell announced that he is including in
his proposed budget to the 2011 General Assembly a request for $3.3 million to be used to purchase the 2.5-acre site of Richmond's
African Burial Ground from VCU, its present owner, with the intention of then turning the land over to the City of Richmond
for memorialization.
A bill requesting the purchase and transfer is to be sponsored by Del. Delores
McQuinn, the former Richmond City Councilwoman who still chairs council's Slave Trail Commission. Once the transfer is completed,
the Commission would be in charge of its development. At the press conference, Del. McQuinn stated plans include a slavery
museum and genealogy center.
The fact that this press conference took place at all is a victory for the community,
however limited. As late as July 2009, most of those present were insisting the Burial Ground lay almost entirely under Interstate
I-95, with only a 50-x-110-foot section extending under the parking lot. VCU set aside that small section of land for memorialization,
an action immediately accepted by then-mayoral candidate Dwight Jones and Slave Trail Commission Chair Delores McQuinn. At
that point, VCU and the city considered the matter closed. It has only been continuing community organizing and protest that
has forced the city and state to acknowledge that the parking lot does in fact sit on the Burial Ground.
However, despite the plans announced today, cars will continue to be parked on
the Burial Ground. Assuming Del. McQuinn's bill is successful, it won't take effect until July 1. This is unacceptable. The
governor, the VCU Board of Visitors and VCU President Rao all have the authority right now to immediately order the closing
of the Burial Ground parking lot, and yet they refuse to take this action. If it's wrong to park cars on a cemetery, then
that practice must end immediately, not when it is physically or financially convenient.
Secondly, according to the governor's plan, the site's development would be left
to public officials and agencies that have failed dismally in their responsibility to defend this historic site. Anything
less than the full participation of the Black community in the planning and execution of the memorialization of the Burial
Ground must be seen as unacceptable.
According to the governor, the responsibility for examining the site would fall
to the Department of Historic Resources, while the authority to develop the site will belong to the Slave Trail Commission.
It was the DHR that in 2008 issued a report claiming that all but a small section of the Burial Ground lies under present-day
Interstate 95. That report was uncritically accepted by the Slave Trail Commission which has almost totally ignored the issue
of the Burial Ground. In fact, the commission has yet to even issue a statement declaring its position on whether the site
should be reclaimed and memorialized.
The site in question was used from approximately 1750 to 1816 as the only municipal
cemetery for Black people in the Richmond area. Most of the hundreds if not thousands of people buried there were enslaved
Africans or enslaved people of African descent. Because of Richmond's central role in the internal U.S. slave trade, it is
likely that millions of Black Americans could be descended from the ancestors buried there. The cemetery was abandoned and
forgotten until the early 1990s, when a local historian found a reference to a “Burial Ground for Negroes” on
an old city map. Since then, many community organizations and activists have been demanding the land be reclaimed and properly
memorialized.
On Dec. 16, 2010, community advocates held a press conference at the Burial Ground
and read a list of actions that will unfold over the next few months. (See “An Open Letter to the VCU Board of Directors
Concerning Richmond's African Burial Ground” in the latest issue of The Virginia Defender, posted at www.DefendersFJE.org.)
During today's press conference, Gov. McDonnell several times referred to the fact
that, this April, Virginia will be in the national spotlight as the country begins its five-year commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War. Because of this political pressure, it
is very likely that the parking lot will eventually be closed and that some kind of memorialization will take place.
However, this in no way mitigates the fact that, for the foreseeable future, cars
will continue to be parked on the final resting place of the ancestors. The responsibility lies with the government of Virginia,
the state that spawned the system of chattel slavery, financially benefited from it more than any other, provided a home for
the capital of the slavery-defending Confederacy and continues today to disrespect the African-American community.
The action plan announced on Dec. 16, including marches, rallies and civil disobedience,
remains in place. The campaign to reclaim and properly memorialize Richmond's African Burial Ground goes on. The struggle
continues.
Published: December 23, 2010, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Governor seeks transfer of slave burial ground to city
By Karin Kapsidelis
The African burial ground beneath a Virginia Commonwealth University parking lot should be preserved to tell the story
of Richmond's role as a slave center for next year's Civil War sesquicentennial, Gov. Bob McDonnell said Wednesday in announcing
a budget amendment that would transfer the property to the city.
The amendment would reimburse VCU $3.3 million from state funds for the lot near the MCV campus and would be the first
step toward memorializing the property by the Richmond Slave Trail Commission, McDonnell said. Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond,
chairwoman of the commission, will sponsor legislation to allow the property transfer.
McQuinn, Mayor Dwight C. Jones, and VCU and historic resources officials joined McDonnell at a news conference crowded
with activists who demanded the university immediately stop parking on the graves of slaves and free blacks.
The budget proposal by McDonnell, who last week penalized VCU for its 24 percent tuition increase, would help the university
dig its way out of the embarrassing and contentious ownership of the graveyard.
But the announcement at the Patrick Henry Building at the state Capitol did not have the one detail that the activists
said they wanted to hear.
"My question is, When are you going to stop the parking?" asked former Richmond City Council member Sa'ad El-Amin, founder
of the nonprofit Society for Preservation of African-American History and Antiquities, who filed an unsuccessful suit seeking
to force the Virginia Department of Historic Resources to conduct test excavations of the property.
"Get the cars off the parking lot immediately. Get the cars off, because it's wrong," VCU senior Aime Tudor told the governor.
They received no definitive answer, but Jones told them they shared the same goal to end the parking.
Jones said the city might have alternative parking that VCU can use. He also said he hoped some of the money that VCU will
receive can be used to remove the asphalt from the lot.
John M. Bennett, VCU's senior vice president for finance and administration, said the cars would be removed as quickly
as possible.
Asked if VCU might help the city pay to clear the site, Bennett said the university wants to recoup what it has spent on
the property.
VCU paid $3 million for the 2.5-acre property at 15th and East Broad streets in 2008. It also spent $460,000 on improvements.
The lot initially provided 400 parking spaces for VCU Health System employees. But about 50 spaces were given up when the
university set aside a 50-by-200-foot portion to be memorialized.
How many graves the site contains is in dispute. A 2008 state report found that most of the burial ground likely was covered
by Interstate 95 but that a portion could extend about 50 feet under the parking lot.
The property is where the rebellious slave Gabriel was executed, and it's next to Lumpkin's Slave Jail, which epitomized
Richmond's role as a major slave center.
Wednesday's announcement was called a community victory by Ana Edwards begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting
of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and by Shawn O. Utsey, chairman of the African-American Studies Department
at VCU. Both said much work still needs to be done.
Edwards said she was disappointed that no concrete plan was announced to remove the cars.
Statement issued Dec. 22, 2010, by the Defenders' Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation
Project just before Gov. McDonnell's press conference
Dear Friends,
The Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and the Defenders
have been informed that at 3:30 this afternoon Gov. Robert McDonnell will hold a press conference announcing that the Commonwealth
of Virginia will purchase the site of Richmond's African Burial Ground from Virginia Commonwealth University, a state institution
that continues to use this sacred ground as a parking lot.
First, if this is correct, THIS IS A COMMUNITY
VICTORY! It is because of the years of organizing, public education and
protest from so many people and organizations that the voices of the community are being heard. Every demonstration; letter-writing
campaign; the annual commemorations and vigils; every news story, radio broadcast, study and academic paper; the lawsuits;
the weekly leaflet distributions at the Burial Ground parking lot; discussions with the Slave Trail Commission, two VCU presidents,
the city of Richmond and two governors' administrations; presentations at international conferences; screenings of the documentary
"Meet Me in the Bottom;" every blog post; and every time one of us had a conversation with a friend or stranger has played
a part in this victory.
This development also vindicates the strategy of the Open Letter to the VCU Board of Visitors
issued by the African Burial Ground Community Organizing Committee: that as we get closer to April 12, 2011, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the issue
of the state of Virginia using one of the country's oldest Black cemeteries as a parking lot has the potential to attract
the attention of the country and the world. To read the Open Letter, see the latest copy of The Virginia Defender, posted
at www.DefendersFJE.org)
SECOND: The first goal of this community effort remains the same: The state of Virginia, whether it's
the governor or VCU, must immediately shut down the Burial Ground parking lot. We hope this is what Gov. McDonnell intends
to announce this afternoon. If he does not, the campaign of marches, rallies and civil disobedience will continue.
THIRD: If the state purchases
the Burial Ground site, this places its future directly under the control of the governor, who is still dealing with the fallout
from his having revived Confederate History Day – without even mentioning slavery. We call on Gov. McDonnell to make
a firm commitment that any memorialization of this site will be carried out in full consultation and cooperation with the
Black community as a whole.
The Defenders and our allies in this struggle will be attending today's press conference.
We will report back immediately what we learn. But regardless of what happens today, please plan to attend the Virginia Peoples
Assembly rally on January 15 where this issue will be raised. (1 p.m., Kanawha Plaza, downtown Richmond.)
The Struggle Continues!
Ana Edwards
Chair, Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project of the Defenders for Freedom,
Justice & Equality, Richmond, Virginia
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