Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 76, printed March 26. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

By Ana Edwards

Richmond’s Trail of Enslaved Africans runs between the former slave-trading district of Shockoe Bottom just north of the James River and Manchester Docks at Ancarrow’s Landing on the river’s southern bank. The trail reminds us of the legions of Black people who once were bought and sold in what then was Richmond’s most profitable enterprise.

A new memorial gathering place will soon mark what is known as the Trailhead of this path of sorrow.

The Slave Trail Trailhead project is a landscape installation with a design based on the iconic image of the slave ship Brookes. (A drawing of how the ship’s designers planned to crowd captives into the ship was used in a now-famous abolitionist poster.)

A large grassy area around the installation will represent the rich African lifeways of the Motherland, while the entrance to the ship form itself will confront the viewer with the sudden and traumatic departure from all that was familiar to the millions of men, women and children. Stowed in the holds of thousands of ships for the horrific, months-long journey across the Atlantic, were African people condemned to permanent, generational enslavement in the “New World.”

In addition, a 12-foot polished stone sculpture of an African woman’s head topped with bowl-shaped containers will be installed on the grassy area near the entrance to the Trailhead structure. New York City- based artist Tanda Francis won the City of Richmond’s first public art commission for the Trail to create something that honors the fullness of Africa’s long history before trans-Atlantic enslavement. She calls it “Seed Well.”

Team Henry Enterprises, the Black-owned construction firm recently hired by the Shockoe Institute and Shockoe Project, has the contract for this project as well.

Subcontractors are in the process of submitting specification drawings for the steel, granite and other materials that will be used in the construction of the installation, which doubles as an amphitheater that can be used for performances and other events.