The Richmond Slave Trail Commission unveiled plans Oct. 19 for a slave heritage in Shockoe Bottom that would include a slavery museum. It’s hard not to examine what has been proposed by the commission, led by Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond, and not sense that we’re at the portal of something transformative.
This is all preliminary and costly at $100 million to $150 million. But the master plan developed with the help of Stockton Clay Architects makes too much sense not to happen as we approach the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
We’re not talking about an isolated slavery museum juxtaposed upon a Fredericksburg mixed-used development. Richmond’s proposal springs organically from the fertile soils of our unique history as America’s largest domestic slave market.
Read the full article in the October 29, 2009 edition of StaffordCountySun.com