From the 1830s to the Civil War, Richmond was the second largest slave-trading hub in the nation next to New Orleans. Shockoe Bottom, an area located along the James River, is one of Richmond’s oldest neighborhoods and was central in the slave trade. In a battle to preserve this Historic Slave Trade site, Ana Edwards, head of a coalition of scholars, artists, community activists, has argued recently that putting a minor league ballpark in Shockoe Bottom detracts from Richmond’s ability to come to terms with its slave past. Reasoning that if we do not deal with the slave trade history in Shockoe Bottom, Edwards continued, Richmond “will always struggle through this identity crisis that it has.” A museum in Shockoe Bottom would enable both local and national communities to interpret and examine Richmond’s role in the slave trade, shedding light on stories that deserve telling. In this, a slave trade museum or memorial site is important because it preserves the past and legitimatizes it by keeping the local communities incorporated in the past experiences. This commemoration helps local and national communities recognize the significance of certain events and draw connections to the past.

With no museum or preservation of Shockoe Bottom’s history, Richmond’s local communities may eventually either forget this history or continue to diminish its place in the city’s development. Many years ago historians Roy Rosenzwieg and David Thelan interviewed a group of Americans to gage who and what institutions they trusted as sources of historical knowledge. Museums scored highest, outranking even personal stories from family members. That trustworthiness could make the museum particularly attractive as a conveyor of history by local activists in Richmond.

But will trusted museums attract visitor? The problem may lie not in legitimizing museums and the stories they tell but rather in attracting visitors. Keeping museums relevant and interesting ultimately poses a challenge to public historians, as the task becomes attaining and sustaining local support. Historian Marie Tyler-McGraw acknowledges this challenge for historians in a recent essay about public memory and Richmond’s Monument Avenue. In light of the monuments, she argued that the local community was an informed and discerning first tourist. In this, McGraw realized the necessity of local support since inhabitants usually have a clear understanding of how venues will be received.

This semester the “Historian’s Workshop” seminar at the University of Richmond witnessed this challenge, as we toured a new exhibit at the Library of Virginia, To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade. We spoke with Barbara Batson, Exhibitions Coordinator at the Library who led the exhibition’s design and production team. Batson attested that even though it may not satisfy everyone, she hoped that the significance behind Richmond’s slave trade history would connect to various local communities.

People only attend attractions that interest them. Rosenzwieg and Thelan wrote how respondents sought out museums that presented artifacts or themes that resonate with their own lives. Visitors who feel a connection to a museum, whatever it may be, engage much more than impartial visitors. Justin Gilliam, the great, great, great, great grandson of Northup Gilliam (author of Twelve Years a Slave) believes that a Richmond slave memorial would solidify these connections to local and national communities, if only they learned about it. Gillian grew up knowing his family’s history and the role they played in Richmond. Easily forgotten, he wants other Richmonders (and beyond) to recognize their bloodlines, as he argued many African Americans undoubtedly had ancestors pass through Shockoe Bottom. In this, citizens are able to draw connections to Richmond’s slave trade would be drawn to not only visit it, but also encourage others to visit it as well.

Visitors to museums also access history through personal connections. Rosenszwieg and Thelan wrote that some people go to museums to cultivate deeper relationships with people who matter(ed) in their lives. They go to museums when friends or family are in town or when they vacation. In this, a museum at Shockoe Bottom would not only reach out to the communities of Richmond, but also to the “several hundred thousand people” that were sold out of Shockoe Bottom as Phil Wilayto, leader of the grassroots movement, indicated. Wilayto believes that the majority of African-Americans today can trace some ancestry to this small, eight-square block, area of land. Ultimately, citizens from all across the nation could potentially trace a linking to this type of memorial site or museum in Richmond.