At an event Tuesday night, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney presented a plan for Shockoe Bottom that activists say may finally be the real deal.
“In order to bring our history to life in an accurate and inclusive way in Shockoe, I’m excited to share with you The Shockoe Project,” Stoney told a crowd at the old Main St. train station.
Once a focal point of the Atlantic slave trade, historians and locals have tried for decades to get a museum built to acknowledge the area’s past.
But Richmonders have heard mayors make such promises before.
Former Governor Doug Wilder first promised a slavery museum in Shockoe in the early 2000s. Then there were enough baseball stadiums with attached museums pitched to the city that this reporter might have to take off his shoes to count them all.
Stoney himself aimed for a redevelopment project called Navy Hill to replace the city’s coliseum, and he threw his weight behind a Southside Casino.
None of these projects ever materialized.
Paul Goldman is a longtime Democratic activist and former advisor to Governor Wilder. He’s also skeptical of Stoney’s pitch.
“To the extent that this is finally something that looks like it's for real, everyone in Richmond should say ‘great, let’s check out the details,’” Goldman said. He also pointed to Stoney's gubernatorial bid as possible grounds for the announcement.
The earliest stage of the project includes a visitors' center in the bottom with some development around the area. That’s being funded with about $40 million in city, state and grant money from the Mellon Foundation.
Richmond Delegate Delores McQuinn has long been involved in the effort and said those funds should bring this project closer to reality.
“The stakeholders who are at the table now are committed to the entire project and to make certain we’re moving it forward,” she told Radio IQ.
And Richmond Delegate Mike Jones, who only has to go back a few generations to trace his enslaved ancestors, said he hopes something happens soon.
“Regardless of what was announced the Commonwealth should do something because of what we mean to this capital,” he said, pointing to the state's capitol building, built by enslaved people in the 1790s.
The first steps of the project are expected to be a welcome center which starts the memorialization process.
The proposed slavery museum is expected to follow, but it's over $200 million price tag inspired doubts in Goldman.
“I don’t think it's a coincidence it's in the last year of his term and he’s running for governor,” Goldman said.
Other advocates for the project, including those who say planning started as early as 1998, seemed optimistic this time around.
But they also suggested a healthy dose of skepticism couldn’t hurt.
