FOUNDER, ELEGBA FOLKLORE SOCIETY

"Shockoe Bottom is a world heritage site.  Just as with Gorée Island, Elmina Castle or Ouidah, people are and, more so, will make pilgrimages to Richmond to find the missing pieces to our evolution puzzle, if it is developed properly.  This is a different kind of development than what Richmond is accustomed to.  The necessary and honorable development will put black stories first.  

African people left these and other West African ports, and when they arrived in the Americas — in Richmond — they were forced to accept new, dehumanized, less-than identities as slaves.  In telling a forward thinking story, Shockoe Bottom has the responsibility to be intentional about the African identity and prowess that created Richmond and the US.  An introductory paragraph is insultingly insufficient.  The policies legislated in Virginia that created the hierarchal inequities that exist today must be revealed and examined. 

A national museum and its surrounding development must be complementary to create an environment, an attraction, that is historically accurate, spirit-filled, unapologetically and restoratively African that welcomes locals and visitors to a multi-sensory experience of food, shops, cultural destinations and lodging choices that are black owned by any means necessary. People are asking what really happened, and Shockoe Bottom should have the answers authentically.”