![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/IMG_1221-e1461956244391.jpg\")
<\/a>Slave Trail Marker guiding us to Lumpkin’s Jail.| Photo by Brook Harty<\/p><\/div>\n
It had been half an hour since we first passed under the railroad trestle framing the Welcome to Shockoe Bottom sign on the sidewall of a Main Street building. My classmates Molly, Brook, and I were walking in circles, searching for some grand entrance or a giant arrow pointing to a well-maintained Lumpkin\u2019s Jail, once a horrific holding facility for captured and disobedient slaves. Instead, we found an unmarked cobblestone courtyard in a VCU parking lot hidden behind Main Street Station. Next to it was a tiny relocated cottage once owned by a slave, decaying on a trailer bed.<\/p>\n
As we arrived, Wendy Hudson, an IT specialist working in the nearby James Monroe Building, was cutting through the parking lot on her way home. She seemed perplexed when I pointed out the historic site nestled behind the moldy train sheds that she passes by each day to get to work.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Lumpkins Jail site in a VCU parking lot in the shadow the James Monroe Building.| Photo courtesy of Virginia Memory.<\/p><\/div>\n
I started to summarize the tragic history of the place, but after 20 seconds her mild intrigue melted to disinterest and restlessness. A minute later she was gone, leaving us alone in a parking lot with a half-acre patch of ground burying 300 years of Richmond\u2019s shameful history. Compared to the pedestaled glory of the Confederate statues along Monument Avenue, the obscurity of Lumpkin’s Jail was the first sign of Richmond\u2019s crooked historical landscape.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Obscure Lumpkin’s Jail Signage.| Photo by Joe Walderman.<\/p><\/div>\n
Lumpkin\u2019s Jail may be the most evocative of Richmond\u2019s unsung sites of sorrow, but it symbolizes a concentration of obscure but historically significant sites hidden in the east shadow of I-95. Shockoe Bottom is Richmond\u2019s oldest neighborhood, overflowing with history. It was the original blueprint of the city William Byrd founded in 1737, and the epicenter of the second largest slave trading hub in antebellum America. It is also on the National Trust for Historic Preservation\u2019s 2014 list of America\u2019s 11 most endangered historic places.<\/p>\n
This archaic downtown neighborhood has been a consistent focal point in changing the way Richmond remembers its slave-trading past. Dr. Erik Johnson, an urban economics professor at the University of Richmond, believes that the “Bottom” is at a defining point in its storied history. He says that there is a general consensus that it is being underutilized and must be rejuvenated to escape the suffocating poverty of Richmond\u2019s East End. Having walked the streets filled with decrepit parking lots and empty storefronts, I can\u2019t help but agree.<\/p>\n
However, the city’s proposed paths for development couldn’t be more different. One plan involves the creation of a heritage site and memorial park commemorating Richmond\u2019s dark past. The other is a $360 million development plan including apartment complexes, department stores and a minor league baseball stadium.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Proposed project map for Shockoe Bottom redeveleopment.| Photo courtesy of LovingRVA<\/p><\/div>\n
Mayor Dwight Jones\u2019 Revitalize RVA plan introduced in 2013 was the latest of a number of redevelopment plans for Shockoe Bottom over the past 10 years, most of which have been strongly opposed by activist groups. The mayor’s plan was touted for combining \u201ceconomic development in Shockoe Bottom, slavery and freedom heritage, and baseball,\u201d and it does include a Slavery and Freedom Heritage site. The plan is meant to develop jobs and economic activity in the characteristically impoverished East End of Richmond in a \u201chistorically sensitive\u201d way.<\/p>\n
But for many, such as Dr. John Moeser at the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, that is not the point.<\/p>\n
In a southern drawl tinged with sadness, Dr. Moeser observes that the project \u201creflects how disconnected and uncomfortable we are in properly acknowledging our dark past of human affliction that was the foundation of all we have today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor argues that an historic district memorializing African American suffering would be unsuccessful and wasteful without a \u201ccritical mass of development\u201d around it. Even so, building an entertainment complex on ground where humans were sold and tortured feels wildly inappropriate, and is representative of a citywide and national tendency to disrespect and gloss over our unpleasant past.<\/p>\n
A Richmond Speaks forum which saw the attendance of over 300 Richmond citizens in 2015 produced a report stating that most Richmonders want the area to become a place for \u201chealing, reflection and reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Richmond Speaks public forum discussing Lumpkin’s Jail| Photo courtesy of Civic Dialogue.<\/p><\/div>\n
Marcus Hasmus, a Richmond National Battlefield ranger at the American Civil War Center, agrees passionately with that conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cShockoe Bottom was an engine of a huge system violating basic human rights. Importing and exporting humans like objects. We can’t just forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasmus stares me in the eyes, demanding my attention, and pauses to let his words sink in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a responsibility and an obligation to acknowledge and explore the suffering and the abuse that were the foundations of our city and our country. Understanding and reconciling with our past is the only way that we can move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe map says we\u2019re close, it\u2019s definitely around here somewhere.\u201d \u201cIs that it?\u201d \u201cNo, I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s just a construction site. Wait, there\u2019s a marker!\u201d It had been half an hour since we first passed under the railroad trestle framing the Welcome to Shockoe Bottom sign on the sidewall of a Main Street building. Read more about Devil’s Half-Acre<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2045,"featured_media":569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51873],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unhealed-wounds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/Lumpkin.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-7R","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2045"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}