Former Richmond City Councilman Sa’ad El-Amin filed a lawsuit this morning against Virginia Department of Historic Resources Director Kathleen Kilpatrick.

From the RTD:

The suit seeks to order the department to conduct an archaeological dig of a Virginia Commonwealth University parking lot at 1541 E. Broad St. to determine the true boundaries of a cemetery for African-American slaves.

The suit challenges an historic resources report that found that boundaries of the burial grounds extend 50 feet into the parking lot. [via]

 ”Meet Me in the Bottom- The Struggle to Reclaim Richmond’s African Burial Ground” premieres October 23 at the Grace Street Theater at 7:00 p.m.

The Burial Ground for Negroes (ca. 1750-1816) is located north of Broad Street, between 15th and 16th Streets. It is the oldest municipal cemetery for enslaved and free Blacks known toexist in the Richmond area. An 1810 map shows the Negro Burial Ground near Broad Street and Shockoe Creek.  Today the Burial Ground for Negroes sits adjacent to a parking lot owned by Virginia Commonwealth University. In fact, there are questions as to whether the Burial Ground lies beneath the parking lot. Activist and other groups have protested what is seen by many as a desecration of sacred ground. This documentary tells the story of the community’s efforts to reclaim the Burial Ground as the final resting place of their ancestors.

Admission is free. Following the screening, there will be a community discussion. For more information visit the movie’s website.

Following last week’s protests, Style Weekly presents an argument in favor of the repaving of the parking lots which lie over the negro burial ground. The reasoning? Repaving may help protect the artifacts that are buried beneath the asphalt.

The Shockoe Bottom parking lot may have caused a stir, but some people say the unintended consequence isn’t a bad one — that the history is locked in — even if it makes for ugly PR.

The paving over of the negro burial ground at 15th&Broad, delayed last year after protests, is under way today. Kenneth Yates posted the following message along with pictures of the repaving.

We will not know for sure until a proper archeological excavation has been done. This is now made that much more difficult with another layer of asphalt to break through. Perhaps they believe that, those in Richmond who don’t find this issue particularly important, will see the shiny new asphalt and assume the issue has been resolved.

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The Virginia Historical Society invites the community to attend Hidden Things Brought to Light: Finding Lumpkin’s Jail and Locating the Burial Ground for Negroes. The free event will be held this Saturday, February 28, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

“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.”

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From a flyer being left on cars in the VCU parking lot. For more info, check out the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project.

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The 6th Annual Commemoration of Gabriel’s Rebellion and the Burial Ground for Negroes has been announced for Friday, October 10, at Asbury United Methodist Church (324 N. 29th Street). Hosted by the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, The Defenders for Freedom Justice & Equality and the United Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) Prosser-Truth Division #456. [via]

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The agenda for the next city council meeting (9/22) has items of local interest:

Res. No. 2008-R84 (Patron: Vice-President McQuinn) – To *** determine the feasibility of the City acquiring, developing, and maintaining the site of the Negro Burial Ground *** to be managed by the Richmond Slave Trail Commission ***.

The Richmond City Council Slave Trail Commission will hold open forum public community forum meetings to hear and discuss ideas from Richmond citizens on how to properly memorialize the site of an historic Richmond Negro Burial Grounds located in the Shockoe Bottom area of Richmond. Land on this site was recently identified and set aside by Virginia Commonwealth University. The entire Richmond community is invited and encouraged to attend and participate in this important community discussion.

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The Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods (ACORN) has announced the Golden Hammer winners for 2008. The winners of the 6 different awards are: Rachel Flynn, Calder Loth, Historic Housing LLC (David White, Larry Schifflett, Louis Salomonsky), Three Strands Management (Gray Oliver, Cynthia Oliver and Tory Smith), Better Housing Coalition (T.K. Somanath), and Shanna Merola.

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VCU and the Richmond Slave Trail Commission have confirmed the location of a burial ground for slaves and free blacks covered by Interstate 95 and a parking lot on the VCU/MCV campus.

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While photographing pre-Civil War sites around Richmond, Shanna Merola discovered that many of the structures used during the city’s slave trade have been erased from the landscape, with few markers to indicate their historical significance. With a pinhole camera, she captured images of the Manchester Docks, Lumpkin’s Jail, and the Negro Burial Ground or, rather, the asphalt parking lots and empty fields that now cover these landmarks. Merola will exhibit her work at the Valentine Richmond History Center in a show opening Feb.1@6PM.

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