DR. RAM BHAGAT

CO-FOUNDER, DRUMS NO GUNS FOUNDATION

“People who have been on the frontlines of the struggle have to be at the table. When the remains of enslaved Africans were found in New York, people from the community were an integral part of the conversation and strategy about how to move forward.

That goes back to indigenous African restorative practices, where if we are acknowledging the harm and accepting responsibility for it, those that have been harmed - whether its now or generationally - and those who caused the harm, have to be a part of the conversation. It can’t be status quo - consulting firms, politicians, corporations - who are deciding the spirit, the soul, and the heart of what that museum of enslavement should consist of or embody.

It has to be a spiritual aspect, too. For so long, Richmond was the 2^nd largest district for human trafficking based on color and for centuries this was ignored. It’s a holocaust. The descended people of the Africans whose bodies and spirits were attempted to be broken have voices that have never been silenced. They’ve risen up and we can’t allow quota interests to whitewash that monument to transformative spirit - the human spirit to not just survive but to thrive.”