Mayor announces city acquisition of Burial Ground for Freed People of Color on North 5th Street
Mayor Levar M. Stoney announced today the City of Richmond has
acquired the private land on 1305 North 5th Street – the known
location of the historic Burial Ground for Freed People of Color.
Back in February, the city was the only bidder for the property,
which was sold at auction for a bid of $145,000. City officials completed the
transaction on Friday, April 16 and obtained the title to the property.
The purchased parcel represents 1.21 acres of a two-acre public
burying ground established by the City of Richmond in 1816. One acre was
set aside for enslaved people and the other for free people of color. The last
reported burial was recorded in 1879.
Over the past 200 years, the cemetery was expanded, referred to by
various names, and desecrated -- including grave robbing to supply the Medical
College of Virginia with cadavers in the mid-nineteenth century.
In 1960, the city sold the property to the Sun Oil Company with no
acknowledgement of the cemetery. A small gas station was constructed on
the property, and in the 1970s a billboard was erected.
The city’s next step will be to identify funding and to issue a request
for proposals for a cultural resource management firm to perform additional
research and archaeological investigation, with a view toward proper
commemoration and memorialization of the site.
“This important acquisition is yet another step in our efforts to
reclaim the hidden and abandoned history of the African-Americans who built
this city,” said Mayor Stoney. “If we are to truly reconcile the shameful
history of slavery and injustice and heal as a city and a nation, we must
respect and honor the memories of those who lived and died under this
oppression by telling their stories so they will not be forgotten.”
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