The Shockoe ExaminerBlogging the History of Richmond, Virginia: "The Burial Ground: An Early African American Site in Richmond, Virginia." Notes On Its History and Location by Jeffrey Ruggles.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

"The Burial Ground: An Early African American Site in Richmond, Virginia." Notes On Its History and Location by Jeffrey Ruggles.

"The Burial Ground: An Early African American site in Richmond.

Notes on its History and Location."

By Jeffrey Ruggles.

We have another submission from Jeffrey Ruggles. He has provided us with a PDF of his article about the "Negro Burial Ground" in Richmond. Here is some background about Jeffrey:

"Although not born in Richmond, Jeffrey Ruggles has lived in the Richmond area since high school. He received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.F.A. in design/photography from Virginia Commonwealth University. In the 1980s, Ruggles worked as a photographer for the 1708 Gallery and Anderson Gallery and assisted with text, illustrations, and the design of 32 Canal Walk Historical Marker panels installed between downtown Richmond and Brown’s Island.

Ruggles recently left the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) where he was Curator of Prints and Photographs. While at the VHS, he curated two online exhibitions and four physical exhibitions. Ruggles also helped organize "Hidden Things Brought to Light: Finding Lumpkin's Jail and Locating the Burial Ground for Negroes," a conference at the Virginia Historical Society in February 2009. In addition to his work at the VHS, Ruggles is the author of The Unboxing of Henry Brown (2003) and Photography in Virginia (2008)." - from: http://www2.richmond.com/content/2010/apr/13/richmond-neighborhoods-community-conversation/

You can read Jeffrey's article HERE.

Some links on the topic:

Preliminary Archaeological Investigation of the Lumpkin's Jail Site (44HE1053), Richmond, Virginia - Prepared For the City of Richmond by Matthew R. Laird, Ph.D., James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc., Willimsburg, Virginia, May 2006.

Burial Ground for Negroes, Richmond, Virginia: Validation and Assessment Research Summary - A 16 page report prepared by the Department of Historic Resources, June 25, 2008.

Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project is a citizens group affiliated with the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, an all-volunteer community organization based in Richmond, Va. Both groups are involved in helping to document and educate the public about Richmond's slave history.

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Contributors:

Ray Bonis:

Ray worked at VCU Libraries' James Branch Cabell Library from 1989 until 2021. He is the co-author of Virginia Commonwealth University (2006) and Greetings from Richmond (2009) - an architectural history of the city.

Selden Richardson:

Architectural historian and author of Built By Blacks: African American Architecture and Neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia (2006), The Tri-State Gang in Richmond: Murder and Robbery in the Great Depression. (2012), and Richmond Murder & Mayhem (2023)

On History:

"The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today...The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow."
-- G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) from his "Autobiography of an Historian," An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949).

Key Dates in Richmond History
(more to follow)

1737 – William Mayo laid out the original street plan for the town of Richmond on land provided by William Byrd II.

1742 – Chartered as a town

1780 – Virginia’s state capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond.

1782 – Incorporated as a city.

1788 - Virginia State Capitol building completed.

1860-1865 – Serves as capital of the Confederate States of America.

1910 - Manchester, the city located just south of the James, is consolidated with Richmond.

1949 - Oliver Hill (1907-2007) elected to City Council, first African American since Reconstruction.

1968 - Virginia Commonwealth University created by the merger of the Medical College of Virginia and Richmond Professional Institute.

1977 - Henry Marsh elected as first African American mayor of Richmond.

2009 – Shockoe Examiner founded.