FORMER NATIONAL ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, HOPE IN THE CITIES

“The 1993 Hope in the Cities international conference tagged as ‘An Honest Conversation on Race, Reconciliation, & Responsibility’, and held in the former ‘Capitol of the Confederacy’ was cataclysmic to say the least and revolutionary in its public intention to heal America’s racial divide historically exacerbated by the civil war!

We not only identified the actual path where enslaved Africans were marched deeper into horrific living conditions but also the historic site of the ‘jail’ in which they were sold. Through facilitated groups, we identified a meaningful and successful process that helped to unearth the pain and share the hopes we had for our historic city!  Such ‘honest conversations’ underscored and created the ‘safe space’ that mediated our stalwart efforts towards racial reconciliation!

Thus, locating a copy of the ‘Reconciliation Statue’ here in Richmond crowned our efforts to diminish the painful memories of the trade of enslavement joining Liverpool, England, and Benin, West, Africa, in providing hallowed ground on which to plant this statue where it stands for all to see and be reminded that reconciliation is possible even across the most divisive racial lines!”