On Monday night, Richmond City Council approved plans to buy vacant land that historically served as the city’s Burial Ground for Free People of Colour and Slaves.
The historic cemetery sits at the corner of 5th and Hospital streets, where a billboard and a long-vacant gas station now sit. The assessed value of the property is $145,000, which the city is prepared to pay at a tax delinquent auction. The Richmond Slave Trail will then be extended to the site from the area near Main Street Station.
Mayor Levar Stoney said acquiring the burial site and preventing future development on the property was a way the city could “practice real restorative justice.”
“The city has the opportunity to practice real restorative justice in this moment,” he said in a statement. “The next steps for recognizing Richmond’s complete history must include the acquisition of 1305 North 5th to better memorialize the Burial Ground for Free People of Colour and Slaves, a sacred space to many Richmonders of African descent.”
Stoney also thanked the work of advocates like Lenora McQueen and the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project for pushing the city to acquire the land.
McQueen, a genealogist and descendant of a woman interred there, said her own research showed that up to 22,000 people were buried in Richmond’s Burial Ground for Free People of Colour and Slaves. Speaking at the meeting on Monday, McQueen said she was glad the city is finally recognizing the importance of the land that falls outside of the walls of the official Shockoe Hill Cemetery.
“What is not mentioned in the written history and what is excluded from its historic designation, is what exists outside of those walls,” she said. “What exists there, though hidden and no longer visible on the surface, is also part of Shockoe Hill Cemetery.”
According to city officials, the City of Richmond established part of the property as a cemetery for free and enslaved people in 1816, and the last known burials were recorded in 1879. Remains have been desecrated over the years by extensive building and highway development.
City Council’s vote Monday night means that Richmond will be able to use money set aside in the budget for the planned slave museum and campus in Shockoe Bottom to also purchase 1305 North 5th Street.
