Gov. McDonnell wants state to purchase site of Richmond's African Burial

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.

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