Judge Won't Protect Virginia Slave Burial Ground

Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights

Sometimes you have to separate the message from the messenger to give a full and fair hearing to a subject.

And that might be the case for the political power brokers in Virginia's capital city and former Richmond City Councilman Sa'ad El-Amin (pictured above).

To many of the power elite, El-Amin would politely be considered a royal pain in the neck.

In their view, not only does El-Amin seek to hold back the city's progress by trying to disrupt building projects in the Richmond area to preserve African-American historical sites, he also brought some measure of disgrace to the city by serving 32 months in prison for income-tax fraud conspiracy a few years back.

But El-Amin, the president of the Society for the Preservation of African-American History and Antiquities, has a message to share about the preservation of historical sites that is worth listening to, despite a recent setback in court.

Circuit Judge Clarence N. Jenkins Jr. dismissed El-Amin's effort to have a state historical agency explore the boundaries of a slave and free-black burial ground in the Shockoe Bottom section of Richmond in a ruling this week.

Jenkins found that the Department of Historic Resources has already investigated the site, now a parking lot, while El-Amin has raised doubts about the validity of the investigation. El-Amin also maintains that using the parking lot desecrates the slaves and free blacks who were buried there.

A 2008 state report found that most of the burial ground was probably covered by Interstate 95 and that it could extend under the parking lot, which is run by Virginia Commonwealth University.

El-Amin has also opposed plans to build a ballpark in Shockoe Bottom, adding that the community should be preserved to remember the community's role in America's slave trade.

I can see how city elders might be weary of El-Amin, but he makes a legitimate point on the need to preserve the relics of this nation's slave past.

In the same way that Goree Island in Senegal has become a tourist mecca due to its history as a slave-trading center, Shockoe Bottom could also become a destination where African Americans pay their respects and recall the plight of our ancestors.

Maybe if someone other than El-Amin were pushing the preservation idea, city fathers might sign on.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments