Contact: Jennifer Guild
Virginia Historical Society
(804) 347-0660
www.vahistorical.org
Richmond’s African American History Discussed at Virginia Historical Society
Lumpkin’s Slave Jail and the Negro Burial Ground are Topics of Free Conference
On Saturday, February 28, 2009, from 9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. in Richmond at the Virginia Historical Society, the public is invited to attend a conference about Richmond’s African American history. "Hidden Things Brought to Light: Finding Lumpkin’s Jail and Locating the Burial Ground for Negroes" takes place at the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) and is free and open to the public.
Speakers at the half day conference will present recent scholarship on two downtown Richmond historical sites, the Burial Ground for Negroes and Lumpkin’s Slave Jail, both of which have special importance for the history of African Americans in Virginia.
“The goal of this conference is to provide a venue where members of the public can get accurate, historical information about Lumpkin’s Jail and the Negro Burial Ground,” said Jeffrey Ruggles, Virginia Historical Society Curator of Prints and Photographs and author of "The Unboxing of Henry Brown." “There is a lot of myth and emotion surrounding these two sites. We want people to have the correct information to start a conversation about the past and the future.”
Using a selection of old maps and documents from the VHS collection, Jeffrey Ruggles will speak about the historical background of the Shockoe slavery sites. Matthew R. Laird, Ph.D., historian at The James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc., and principal investigator for the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail dig, will discuss recent discoveries from the archaeological site. Dr. Christopher Stevenson, an archaeologist with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, will speak about locating the Burial Ground for Negroes in the present-day landscape. Dr. Lauranett Lee, VHS curator of African American history, will moderate the event.
The Lumpkin’s Slave Jail site is located west of Main Street Station, near the Interstate 95 and Broad Street interchange. An exploratory dig in 2006 found the original ground layer intact about eight feet below the surface. The 2008 dig required heavy equipment to peel away layers of paving and the foundations of later industrial structures. The excavation found the site of the jail complex, revealing a number of well preserved features, and archaeologists collected many artifacts.
The Burial Ground for Negroes is one of the oldest cemetery sites known in the Richmond area. An 1809 map shows the African American cemetery near Broad Street and Shockoe Creek. The Hidden Things Brought to Light conference will look at whether the Burial Ground for Negroes extends into a parking lot owned by Virginia Commonwealth University at 16th and Broad Streets and Interstate 95.
“It is appropriate that this conference takes place during Black History Month,” Jeffrey Ruggles said. “We need to explore this chapter of Virginia’s African American history that has been hidden or overlooked for many years. With so much information coming to light within the last several months, we are now able to analyze and explore the topics in ways we might not have been able to in the past.”
"Hidden Things Brought to Light" is sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society, the City of Richmond Slave Trail Commission, and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. For additional information about the free conference, please visit www.vahistorical.org/news/hiddenthings.htm.
