Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities is offering guided walks on the Slave Trail every Saturday in February at 9:30AM. The walks are led by the department’s James River Park System staff and cost $5 per person. I got up and out early this past Saturday to experience this for myself…

The trail begins at Ancarrow’s Landing, at the end of Maury Street. On this day there were 10 of us on the tour led by Ralph White, manager of the James River Park System. The first 3/4 of a mile or so of the path winds through the woods alongside the James River, with a stop at a clearing at the site of the Manchester Docks. This path is approximately the path slaves would have walked on the passage between the boats and the holding facility at Lumpkin’s Jail on the other side of the river. The group walked and then stopped and White would provide context and take questions.

The tour then proceeds under I-95 and along the floodwall. Walking across Mayo Bridge gives you a good chance to see the city skyline and the river and think about how this has changed since Mayo built the first version of this bridge in 1788.

On the north side of the river, the tour cuts over to 15th Street. At 15th and Cary Street there is a long-decrepit building that has been connected to sale of slaves; this likely won’t make it into any advertising for the future condos that seem to be coming. Crossing Main Street on 15th, the tour moves into a parking lot behind Main Street Station to take in a small patch of ground cleared from the parking lot and guarded by a rickety fence. This clearing marks the archeological dig for Lumpkin’s Jail, a slave holding facility and auction house. The last stop on the tour is the Reconciliation Statue at 15th and Main.

As is stated in Shanna Merola’s current show, Tell Me Where You’re Marching, Tell Me Where You’re Bound at the Valentine Richmond History Center, these sites have been scrubbed of the the historical detail by time and neglect.

For $2, I was able to pick up Seeing the Scars of Slavery in the Natural Environment, an interpretive guide to the Manchester Slave Trail published by the James River Park System. The slim book is able to go into more depth than White was as the tour guide, and includes numerous historical photos and drawings as well.