Shockoe Bottom
Located below sea level in the heart of Richmond proper is a borough called Shockoe Bottom. A quickly developing area, it features some of the oldest and most notable locations in the district including the Edgar Allen Poe museum, the first Jewish burial ground, and the Holocaust museum. Downhill features locally owned restaurants and bars (currently operating in limited capacity), while up the hill features natural beauty and urban artwork overlooking the vista of Richmond’s skyline.
However, there is a darker history that resides in this redeveloped area. From the 1830s through the Civil War, the area was the site of one of the largest slave trades in the United States, second only to New Orleans.
This is why Shockoe Bottom has significance far beyond Virginia. There may be no place in the United States that hold more meaning for Black Americans. Just as those of European descent can travel to the Statue of Liberty to see where their ancestors first stepped ashore in the New World and find new opportunities, so Americans of African descent should be able to travel to Richmond to see where their ancestors were forced to travel throughout the country to labor for others.
Today, many of Shockoe Bottom’s warehouses have been converted for residential or commercial use. Members of Richmond’s African-American, Quaker, and Jewish communities have all lived there at one time or another. This complex legacy makes its preservation and appropriate redevelopment even more crucial, especially when layered over the area’s slave-trading history.
Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom has the potential to become an educational center of international significance. Properly preserved, this small area that once held such cold, commercial brutality could become a life-affirming place of study, reflection and meditation.
Sources:
https://savingplaces.org/stories/underground-legacy-shockoe-bottom-richmond-virginia/#.YBM3COhKg2w
African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Volume 15, Issue 1, Spring 2015, Article 3: The Significance of Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom: Why it’s the wrong place for a baseball stadium
Elle Christine Travels 