Virginia has struggled with how best to memorialize its history of slavery. The latest conversation is about what to do with a site in the heart of downtown Richmond that was once one of the largest slave-trading operations in the country. The site, called Lumpkin's Jail, has been set aside for a $20 million memorial.
A year of forums led by city officials have been tough for the community. But now, residents are looking for an outside perspective to reignite the conversation.
Max Page stands in front of a group of about 30 people. They've all been active in the city’s community forums on the memorial at Lumpkin’s Jail, a slave auction house and burial site often called the Devil's Half-Acre.
In front of a power-point full of ideas drawing inspiration from Holocaust memorials in Europe, and monuments to the disappeared in South America, he calls for attention.
"Well I think we'll get started. Hi everyone, thank you so much for coming tonight," he says, introducing himself. "I teach architecture and history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and I'm thrilled to be with my team from UMass Amherst."
Page hasn’t been at this year's community forums, he doesn’t have the same painful awareness of process and politics. But, he says, that is why he and his team were invited here. He was invited here by Sacred Ground, a community activist group, not by city officials.
“Precisely because we weren’t embroiled in all the local politics over many years, and rather we could bring kind of a fresh look to the memorial park idea,” says Page.
He is a professor of architecture and history, but Page is also an expert in engaging a community in design. That’s why he’s here, to get input from the people who care the most.
“If it’s something that’s plopped down by some experts from outside, or even a great artist, but with no input. It generally will fail," Page says. "And especially, this subject, in a city that’s a majority African American on a site that’s about the history of slavery, you have to involve the community.”
Everyone here tonight is full of ideas for the burial ground -- from a light-centric monument visible from the highway that thunders past, to a pop up market for minority-owned businesses.
Now, Page and his team will take these ideas and draw up renderings and plans. They have a short turn around time, only about 48 hours.
Jennifer Hurst Wender works for Preservation Virginia. She believes something unique will come out of these conversations.
“Who knows, it may be the next one where this one voice, that we hadn’t heard at all yet, comes up with this really brilliant idea. And we don’t want that to have been shut out,” says Hurst Wender.
Part of the challenge though is getting the entire community to speak. The crowd here tonight is mostly white, slightly older -- only a handful of African-Americans.
Christopher Green works for Dining Services at VCU and he’s made a point to be a vocal participant.
“It’s hard because I try to reach out to those pockets of the community which don’t have access to this and can’t come out cause they’re struggling from day to day, so I feel as though I’m representing,” says Green.
City officials plan to break ground on a memorial before the end of the year. They’re hiring their own designer to draw up plans. But Page and Sacred Ground hope the community can use this outside team's plans to help keep the conversation going.
The plans are being unveiled at the Black History Museum in Richmond Friday at 5 p.m.
