1 Baskervill, Shockoe Project Master Plan, February 2024, https://rva.gov/sites/default/files/2024-02/Shockoe%20Project_Masterplan%20for%20The%201 0%20Acres_v2.0_8.5x11.pdf; Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, Shockoe Valley and Tobacco Row Historic District, 1981

https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/VLR_to_transfer/PDFNoms/127-0344_ShockoeValleyAndTobaccoR owHD_1981_Final_Nomination.pdf; Frederick W. Beers, Section G in Illustrated atlas of the city of Richmond, Va. (Richmond, VA: F.W. Beers, 1876). https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/beers_images/11/; Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond, Independent Cities, Virginia (New York: Sanborn Company, 1924, republished 1952) https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn09064_016/.

We frame our module around the orienting question: What does ownership of a place mean? We ask students to engage with this site at different temporal and geographic scales and through different disciplinary lenses in order to parse the meanings of ownership. This module is designed to help students approach an unfamiliar place and identify, differentiate, and define concepts such as legal ownership, cultural ownership, sacrality, possession/dispossession, labor and material investment, and attachment/belonging. In this way we want to make visible the layers of meaning a site contains and defamiliarize the assemblage of buildings and surfaces that students encounter today. We ask, whose stories are visible or invisible on this landscape?

Where is the potential for change? Who has a voice in that change?

We consider the 7-Eleven as part of the broader Shockoe Bottom landscape – in particular, highlighting its connection to The 10 Acres and the sites of Lumpkin’s and the African Burial Ground along the Trail of the Enslaved. We also read it as a reflection of decisions at the city and statewide levels that severed the visible connections of the site with its history, creating the “empty” spaces that greet visitors today. This module invites students to think about the site first discretely and then as embedded in larger frameworks. Our activities introduce five different ways of reading the landscape - as a product of public policy, as a result of accumulated land divisions and sales, as a sacred place, as a place of contemporary community activity, and as a product of labor, material, and design decisions.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to identify and explain a landscape as an assemblage of layers and scales.

Students will be able to differentiate and define concepts such as legal ownership, cultural ownership, intellectual ownership, sacrality, possession/dispossession, labor and commodification, and attachment/belonging. They will be able to articulate how these concepts connect to landscapes.

Students will learn and apply interdisciplinary methodologies to exploring place, including archival research and close reading, mapping (ethnographic and material labor asset), and the 10 Questions for Young Changemakers framework.

Students will learn to understand a place as containing meaning within various paradigms for multiple communities and stakeholders. They will understand how community action and civic engagement can shape places.

Connection to Institute Themes

Our module centers place-based learning by moving from the on-site experience of the landscape itself into readings, archives, policy documents, and activities to generate a different imagination of the landscape. Through the frame of ownership, we engage with the cross-cutting themes of indigeneity, enslavement, and dispossession.

Module Impact

 This module encourages students to think about historic sites as constantly in conversation with contemporary landscapes and communities. By asking students to engage with Shockoe Bottom first as it exists today - considering who lives there or might feel ownership of the space - then move into the past, we hope they will learn how to be conscious of their role as researchers. How do we counteract a site’s history of dispossession by recognizing and respecting the stories of all those who claim ownership of it in our own time?

Schedule Overview (detailed Activities section below)

Day 1 - In-Class Framing

What does it mean to study a landscape? What are some of the methods and approaches we might take? We ask students to consider the relationship of humans to natural and built environments and how people from different backgrounds (historians, social scientists, city planners, community members) have approached this question. Students will read the two short pieces below and compare the perspectives and approaches each offers. We close this class by discussing what it means to enter a new place - what do you need to know? How can you be respectful visitors?

LaPier, Rosalyn. “Land as Text: Reading the Land.” Environmental History, 28, no. 1 (2023): 40–46.

Lewis, Peirce F. “Axioms of the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene.”

Journal of Architectural Education 30, no. 1 (1976): 6-9.

Day 2 - Mapping Landscapes and Spaces: A Contemporary Perspective (Activity 1)

Having discussed the broader concept of landscapes, we visit the Shockoe Bottom site as a group/class. The objective of the visit is to utilize the entirety of our senses to think about the site we are visiting. The objective of this exercise is to consider how landscapes manifest, who spaces belong to, who has access or does not, what ownership and belongingness looks like. It is important to be not only respectful of places, but to also leave them undisturbed even as we learn from them. In particular, what can we learn from the site? What are the lenses through which we might examine the site? What are the most dominant narratives we can associate with the site? We shall later analyze the site through the different lenses that we identify.

Day 3 - Public Policy Lens (Activity 2)

Rounding out the first week, students will think about legal ownership and civic participation. Did they find anything troubling during the site visit? What changes do they want to see to the site? Which levers–elections, court cases, or amendments—are likely to bring about the change they pursue? To which decision-makers must they speak? Etc.

Day 4 - Material-Labor Asset Mapping Workshop (Activity 3)

During week two, we plan to have students return for a second site visit. While on-site, students will conduct an environmental scan of Shockoe Bottom and produce a material-labor asset map. This exercise invites students to consider how mapping processes can move us between critical understanding and interpretations of the built environment and the body over time. They will engage with the question of how labor and material investment can be framed as a type of ownership.

Day 5 - Sacred Spaces (Activity 4)

After students have considered the history and policy of Shockoe Bottom, they will then determine the ways in which landscape ownership can be understood as a sacred space. We define a sacred space as a place that can evoke a sense of transcendence or connection to something greater than oneself. This contemplation recognizes the disrespected spaces once occupied by the indigenous and African descended populations that previously occupied the space.

Day 6 - Review Activity 5 and Wrap-Up Discussion

Throughout the entire module, students will read newspaper articles to explore the changing meanings of the Shockoe Bottom landscape. Students will see narratives of “erasure” during the eighteenth century of land ads giving the impression that potential European buyers would be the first to live on the land. Mid-nineteenth century articles reveal that Richmond’s economic growth came about through the buying and selling of Black bodies. Late-twentieth articles offer a glimpse of how the same place that represented the violent separation of African Americans from the families and friends could also be a site of healing, of coming together. And, recent twenty-first century articles that reveal the debates over the future of Shockoe Bottom serve as invitations for students to consider how the past might inform visions of their future.This module concludes by having students return to the question, “Who owns Shockoe Bottom?” How have students’ perspectives changed since the first site visit?

Activities

—----------------------------------

Activity 1 - Mapping Landscapes and Spaces: A Contemporary Perspective Guidance to Students:

Students can opt to visit the site at any time prior to the beginning of this exercise (students may also have previously visited the site/location). Students can also record images, sounds, videos and other visuals on site. Students are strongly encouraged to consider the objectives of this exercise and review publicly available material regarding the location (including, for example, incidents related to personal safety, etc.)

Instructor: Opportunities & Possibilities

This is a recommendation that the instructor model the contemporary mapping and the subsequent analysis of the site so that students have an idea of what might be expected of them. If so desired and executed, the instructor can select a site and go through all the activities, reflections and analyses detailed below. Students would then select a site other than the one that has been used as the template / example of the contemporary mapping of landscapes and spaces.

Materials / resources required:

Prior to site visit, students will ensure that they have the following:

1.     A map of the site (these may include online maps, or a Google Map with satellite view)

2.     Audio/visual recording device (this can be as basic as a phone with a camera or the more upscale recording devices such as microphones)

3.     Journaling resources (e.g., notebook, tablet or audio notes)

4.     ‘Reasonable access resources’ to account for mobility, temperatures and weather concerns

Question: How does ‘ownership’ present (how is it evidenced) in contemporary spaces of historical significance? (i.e., Shockoe Bottom site)

Objective(s):

At the end of the (site visit / activity) and subsequent reflections, students will:

1.     Observe and describe the characteristics of the site / location as it stands today (including variables e.g., terrain, landscape, topography, sense of care, geographical and physical orientation, individuals present and absent, (in/)security, relief

2.     Identify the contemporary dominant intentions and narratives of the site/location, from an examination of the available visuals (images, videos, sounds e.t.c.)

3.     Reflect on the current use of the location by the different constituencies present at the site

4.     Assess the sense of ‘belongingness / ownership’ to / of the site based on observations, public presentation(s) and interviews of individuals onsite

5.     Examine the narrative of (in)visibility of the location given its potential significance (i.e., how accessible and visible the site is to the public)

6.     Conceptualize a (visual) ‘map’ of the contemporary experience of the site

7.     Explore perspectives and realities of who / what is not present at the site as a function of exclusion and limits to access

Activities

Students will undertake the following activities related to the task of mapping landscapes:

1.     Visit the physical site and consider doing so at different times (e.g., morning, evening)

2.     Record observations of the site through various media, e.g., video, sound and also reflect on the sensory impression of the location

3.     Reflect on the ‘experience’ of the place – listening to sound and experiencing the ‘place.’

4.     Review and articulate who and what is there, who/what might be expected to be there, and the ‘anomalous’ presence (absence) of individuals (things) from the site

5.     Use common mapping software to represent findings on the contemporary narratives they have identified regarding the site/place

Assignment

Once the student(s) have completed the site visit

1.     Create a visual map of the site – using, for example, Google My Maps with the features you saw and consider to be most important

2.     (If feasible and with consent), conduct interviews with the public present at the

3.     Write up a 1,000-word narrative on the site, including issues such as location, major features, nature and ease of of access (e.g., public or restricted), the demographics (those present and those not represented/absent), the constraints to your own presence, the sense of belonging and other interesting elements of the site.

4.       Develop multi-media narrative(s) that include images, historical or contemporary maps of the site, interviews, audio/visual recordings, sounds and other media that give a holistic picture (or a compelling snapshot in time) of the site/location selected. If a video is created, consider a length of no more than 10 minutes

5.     (With permissions), upload the multi-media product to YouTube

Personal Reflections of Community Impact

●      Students comport groups (or discuss in class) the impact the site has on the community (in the specific site) and around / adjacent to the community (e.g., whether the place promotes the overall purpose of the location, or whether it is an anomaly)

●      Students also reflect on how their own presence within the community reflects the norm or the exception to those who would ‘normally’ be present in the location

●      Students reflect on how their own presence at the location impacts, changes or improves the contemporary space. Read together with the other elements of this module, this may include the traditionally inaccessible locations, exclusion from spaces and other related issues.

Selected bibliography / annotated bibliography

City of Richmond (RVA). "The Shockoe Project." (Web). Accessed on 6/26/2024 from: https://www.rva.gov/capital-improvement-projects/shockoe-project

City of Richmond (RVA). "The Shockoe Project Revealed." (Web). accessed on 6/26/2024 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jbyZPxOyR

Barry Greene Jr., "Shockoe Project to encompass Richmond's 'full history'"

Virginia Public Media (VPM), (Web), February 28, 2024. Accessed on 6/26/2024 from: https://www.vpm.org/2024-02-28/shockoe-project-to-encompass-richmonds-full-history

Gary Shapiro, "Report from Richmond's Monument Wars: PUblic Art, National Trauma, Being with the Dead." Philosophy of the Contemporary World. December 17, 2020.

Accessed on 6/26/2024 from:

https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/12/17/report-from-richmonds-monument-wars-public-art- national-trauma-being-with-the-dead/

●      In the context of the racial 'reckoning,' Shapiro examines the history of Richmond, monuments and how the city was dealing with the public 'agitation' to do away with the monuments to the 'lost cause.'

Ana Edwards and Phil Wilayto, "The Significance of Richmond's Shockoe Bottom: Why it's the wrong place for a baseball stadium," African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Vol. 15, No. 1, Art. 1 [2015], Accessed from: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/1467

●      This article discusses the historical significance of Shockoe Bottom, and articulates arguments as to why it is the wrong place to place a baseball stadium, given its storied (if problematic) hidden history

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Activity 2 - Public Policy Lens

To be an effective civic participant, you need to know not only what matters to you and why, but also how to find allies. You also need a theory of change. Which levers–elections, court cases, or amendments—are likely to bring about the change you pursue? Or will change come from the actions and decisions of private civil society

organizations, whether nonprofits, businesses, schools, or churches? Will change come instead from individuals changing their own hearts and habits? Once you know which lever of change you’re interested in pulling, you have to figure out how to pull it. Which decision-makers must you speak to? Which influencers? Where are the decision-points to which you’d like to contribute by shaping the agenda or the evidence considered in a decision?

●      Objectives:

○      Review government institutions for civic engagement

○      Identify, interpret, and assess the perspectives of multiple stakeholders on social, cultural, and political issues

●      Readings:

○      Lazarus, J. (2020, October 15). City moves to reacquire portion of unmarked Black cemetery at Shockoe Hill. Richmond Free Press. https://richmondfreepress.com/news/2020/oct/15/city-moves-reacquire-por tion-unmarked-black-cemete/

○      Noe-Payne, M. (2022, March 22). Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground in Richmond gets landmark designation. Radio IQ. https://www.wvtf.org/news/2022-03-22/richmonds-african-burial-ground-ge ts-landmark-designation

○      Larsen, P. (2024, February 23). Stoney says ad firm using African burial ground as ‘bargaining chip’. VPM.

https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-02-23/stoney-says-lamar-advertising-usin g-shockoe-african-burial-ground-as-bargaining-chip

●      Based on your experience walking through the space and what you have learned about it, do you think any aspect of the space, how it’s maintained, or how it’s presented to the public needs to change? Why? [“Ruins of Empire II”]

○      To impact change on the site, you need to start with the entity that has ownership of the site in the eyes of the law.

■      A private entity

●      Lamar Advertising billboard example

○      Remediation through negotiation and the courts

■      The local government [ORD. 2020-213]

●      A democratic government is one ‘of the people, for the people, and by the people’

●      (with a subscription) use RVA deed search to pull up the deed for 1305 North 5th Street

■      In most constitutional democracies, there are three core levers of change:

●      1. you can change the rules directly by amending the Constitution [19th Amendment]

●      2. you can reinterpret the rules of the Constitution and the rights it guarantees in the court system [Western Union telegrams]

●      3. you can bring change by voting for new decision-makers or on referenda. [Gilbert Hunt’s petition]

●      Case study - Lenora McQueen

○      In-class readings:

■      Schneider, G. (2022, October 28). Where’s Kitty Cary? The answer unlocked Black history Richmond tried to hide. The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/richmond-s hockoe-african-burying-ground/

■      Lazarus, J. (2020, March 6). One woman's crusade brings attention to long-forgotten black cemetery. Richmond Free Press. https://richmondfreepress.com/news/2020/mar/06/one-womans-cru sade-brings-attention-long-forgotten/

○      Groupwork Discussion

■      What did Lenora want to change? Why?

■      What levers did she pull to bring about the change she sought?

■      How did she identify and engage critical stakeholders?

■      What did her efforts accomplish?

●      Homework: 10 Questions for Young Changemakers

○      Sixties activists insisted the personal is political. Changemakers in the digital age get that idea, and one-up it with another rallying cry: the political is social and cultural. Drawing on this knowledge, the 10 Questions for Young Changemakers framework is built around different strategies to engage peers, audiences, and allies in high-quality, equitable, and effective participation in digital-age civics, activism, and politics. The framework actively supports the secure development of student identities as participants in public spheres, so that civic and political engagement today doesn’t harm or haunt you later, but is productive and intentional. The 10 Questions for Young Changemakers is a project within the Democratic Knowledge Project (DKP).

○      Please begin by reading through the primer on the 10 Questions.

○      Then, peruse a few examples of applying this framework here.

○      Finally, reflect on what social, cultural, and political issues do you care about and why? The core elements of your story of self, your values and beliefs, probably help explain why some issues that appear in public debates are more meaningful to you than others. Start by name the issue(s) that matter to you and, in roughly 250-300 words, answer the 10 questions below.

■      Why does it matter to me?

■      How much should I share?

■      How do I make it about more than myself?

■      Where do we start?

■      How can we make it easy and engaging for others to join in?

■      How do we get wisdom from crowds?

■      How do we handle the downside of crowds?

■      Are you pursuing voice or influence or both?

■      How do we get from voice to changes?

■      How can we find allies?

○      NB: If you need more information or clarity on any particular question, please see here.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Activity 3 - Material-Labor Asset Mapping Workshop

 Site / Topic:      10-acres of Shockoe Bottom

Ownership as labor and material investment

Overview / Background:      What would be the gateway for this place?

Guiding questions to be addressed with this module:

How do we place people, communities, and sources of labor back into the site? How do you come to understand the histories of dwelling, commerce, labor, natural resources, and architecture that have been a part of the history of this site overtime? How do we come to understand the racilaization of the built world through tracing the materials and infrastructures that make up a place?

Module Objectives:             Think critically about the spatial infrastructure and identify

the multiplicity of design strategies embedded within a place, a community, or a landmark. 

Understand the socio-political constructions of a historical site/landmark through a human-centered lens of labor and related systems that are a part of the built environment.

Keyterms / Concepts:        Place, placemaking, place keeping, sense of belonging, asset map, spatial labor, black space

Activity:               Material-Labor Asset Map

Create an environmental scan of this site by answering the Following questions: Who has lived in this area over time (called this place home)? What bundling types have existed in this place overtime? What organic and synthetic materials are a part of the footprint of the site? What are the municipal infrastructures that are a part of the site (water, waste, energy, etc systems)? What groups of people labored to create this built environment in the past? Who labors to maintain this site today? Who lives and moves throughout this site? What sounds and environmental textures are a part of this site? What structures and communities? What social histories of this place are deemed unknown or undocumented?

Process

Break the class into four groups: two working across each site (one group taking on labor and the other working on material in the development of the asset maps). After a site visit, the groups will have a series of primary materials, reports, maps, municipal records, property records, and readings to access in order to develop their mapping projects. The maps can take the form of listmaking, drawing, etc. Have the students interpret the social and landscape patterns, contested narratives, etc that is made evident from their maps. Get students to consider how the material reading of the place can move us between the built and the body utilize this mapping process to even consider the immaterial in this space. The module will conclude with each group presenting their maps at the end of this module.

References:      Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-belonging

by Roberto Bedoya [link]

Spatial Justice: Rasquachification, Race and the City by Roberto Bedoya [link]

Building Change: Architecture, Politics and Cultural Agency by Lisa Findley

Slavery in the City: Architecture and Landscapes of Urban Slavery in North America, edited by Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg

Black Memory versus State Memory: Notes toward a Method by Michael Hanchard

Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory edited by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton

The African Burial Ground by Yusef Komunyakaa [link]

Community and Neighborhood Asset Mapping: Process for Generating Participatory Art Engagement” by The Laundromat Project [link]

Implacing Architecture into the Practice of Placemaking by Lynda H. Schneekloth And Robert G. Shibley [link]

To the Honorable Alexander Spottswood his Majtis Lieut Governor of Virginia

Ann The Queen of Pamunkey} In behaof of ther selfe & her Nation of Pamunky Indians Humbly Sheweth

That whereas per the Consent of the Government wee sold unto Mr. Robert Napier fifty acres of Land who transferred the same unto Mr Jno: Pettiffer & he unto Mr. Hugh Owen who per the pretence of that did obtain a Pattent for three hundred & ten acres (as they say) & wee likewise did sell and assent that a Pattent might Issue unto Phillip Southerland & George Southerland for three hundred acres, both which are the bounds of our Indian Town, Now so it is may it please your: Honr: that when they obtained a pattent (or surveyd the same in order for a pattent) wee had no notice of this survey or laying of it out, and find when other people possession their bounds(as wee are informed is customary once in four years) yr Petitionr: never had no notice of the same, or ever was warned to any possessioning.

And thay as well as several others takeing the advantage of our Ignorance, doe every year clear, build, & occupy our Land wch is beyond their bounds that wee told them that they have pattents for as wee conceive. Therefore wee Humbly pray that yor: Honr: would not grant any pattents for any more land that’s adjoining to our Town (as wee are Informed Petitions for some are now lieing before you, and that you would protect in our Rights, having no one els to apply ourself unto for Justice, and wee being a small & poor Nationion are willing if it suits withyr Honrs: Leave & permission to Lett them the Land for yearly rent, and not other wise, Wee wholly leave our Selfs to yr Honrs: Justice, Councill & favour Which wee always found to be Honble: & Just & wee as in duty bound shall for ever pray ffor yr Honrs: Health & Continuance

Assignment Questions

1.     Who might have translated this document to English? How might this translation impact the meaning and intention of the petition? How might the translation impact the reliability of the petition?

2.     How does this document reveal the different understanding of land between the indigenous and the English settlers?

3.     In what way does this document reveal the indigenous understanding of land as sacred?

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Activity 5 - Newspaper Close Reading

 Every day of the module, students will read newspaper articles that provide students with the opportunity to see evidence of contests over the meaning of the place. We have compiled

 Questions for instructors and students to consider in analyzing the newspaper articles:

1.     In framing the history of struggle among African Americans, modern activists often use the phrase “Lumpkin’s Jail” as shorthand for the beginning of the struggles of African Americans in Richmond. Does this make sense to you? Or, do you think the place signifying the beginning of the struggle should be elsewhere?

2.     How do you explain the change over time in the description of Shockoe Bottom as a wonderful place to settle and conduct business in the eighteenth century to an undesirable place in the late-twentieth century that should be avoided because of crime, unsanitary conditions, and poverty?

3.     What is the future of Shockoe Bottom?

4.     Given that Shockoe Bottom was the business center of the domestic slave trade, what does it tell you about the mental map of white residents of Richmond when they described it as the “heart” of the city in the nineteenth century?

5.     Based on newspaper articles from the eighteenth century to the Civil War, one would get the impression that the only people who controlled the meaning of Shockoe Bottom were white enslavers and other business people who profited from the buying and selling of African American people. Can you discern from newspaper articles the meaning of Shockoe Bottom from the perspective of African Americans–a perspective that differs from the mental map of white enslavers?

 Very important point to keep in mind for all of the above questions: Instructors should make crystal clear to students that they must always ask who is offering the description. They must consider why different people might describe the significance of the place in different ways.

Annotated Bibliography:

Instructor:

○      1877 TO 1924 Virginia and Women’s Suffrage. Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

https://virginiahistory.org/learn/story-of-virginia/chapter/virginia-and-women s-suffrage [Primary sources to support the conversation about the 19th Amendment as a Constitutional change lever pulling example.]

○      ORD. 2020-213. City of Richmond. https://richmondva.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4652494&GUID

=08EDFBEF-7D28-40BF-8CF7-0080FCDC43BF [Text of OED. 2020-213

Student:

as a primary source to support the discussion of the City’s purchase and legal ‘ownership’ of the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground.]

○      Richmond (Va.) Petitions to Remain in the Commonwealth, 1816-1865. [Primary sources to support the conversation about the Gilbert Hunt’s petition to remain as a elected official change lever pulling example.]

○      Williams, K. (2024). Ruins of Empire II. [Earth, Steel, Aluminum]. Whitney Museum. New York, New York, USA. [Art work to support discussion of civic engagement through art.]

○      Gough, M. Z., Howell, K., & Cameron, H. (2022). “The Structural Challenge of Power and Whiteness in Planning: Evidence From Historic Black Cemetery Restoration.” Planning Theory & Practice, 23(4).

This article the roles of White planners and organizations in Black spaces such as Shockoe Bottom through a case examination of a burial site restoration planning process.

○      Jackson, R. H., & Henrie, R. (1983). “Perception of Sacred Space.” Journal of Cultural Geography, 3(2), 94–107.

This study suggests a typology for categorizing sacred space at three broad levels: mysticoreligious, homelands, and historical.

○      Fitzmaurice, Megan. “What Lies Beneath.” Reconstructing Southern Rhetoric (2021): 277.

This chapter of the book is centered on the history of the movement to recover and preserve Shockoe Bottom as an important historic site.

○      Lazarus, J. (2020, October 15). City moves to reacquire portion of unmarked Black cemetery at Shockoe Hill. Richmond Free Press. https://richmondfreepress.com/news/2020/oct/15/city-moves-reacquire-por tion-unmarked-black-cemete/ [A short pre-course reading to read about government ‘ownership’ on the site.]

○      Noe-Payne, M. (2022, March 22). Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground in Richmond gets landmark designation. Radio IQ. https://www.wvtf.org/news/2022-03-22/richmonds-african-burial-ground-ge ts-landmark-designation [A short pre-course reading to read about civic engagement on the site.]

○      Larsen, P. (2024, February 23). Stoney says ad firm using African burial ground as ‘bargaining chip’. VPM.

https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-02-23/stoney-says-lamar-advertising-usin g-shockoe-african-burial-ground-as-bargaining-chip [A short pre-course reading to read about private ‘ownership’ on the site.]

○      Schneider, G. (2022, October 28). Where’s Kitty Cary? The answer unlocked Black history Richmond tried to hide. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/richmond-shockoe-african-burying-ground/ [The first short reading for in-class civic engagement case study discussion.]

○      Lazarus, J. (2020, March 6). One woman's crusade brings attention to long-forgotten black cemetery. Richmond Free Press. https://richmondfreepress.com/news/2020/mar/06/one-womans-crusade-b rings-attention-long-forgotten/ [The second short reading for in-class civic engagement case study discussion.]

○      10 Questions for Young Changemakers. Democratic Knowledge Project. Harvard University. https://yppactionframe.fas.harvard.edu/ [Website students need to peruse ahead of completing the homework assignment to familiarize themselves with the 10 Questions framework.]

○      McLeod, Christopher. “Why Sacred Places Matter,” Earth Island Journal, May 22, 2015.

○      Shampa Mazumdar, Sanjoy Mazumdar, “Sacred Space and Place Attachment,” Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 13, Issue 3, 1993, Pages 231-242. The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of the interconnectedness between spirituality, identity, and attachment to sacred spaces.

○     McHale, C., 2019. Toward A Unified Vision for Shockoe - The Shockoe Small Area Plan, City of Richmond, Virginia. United States of America.

Retrieved from https://policycommons.net/artifacts/3497875/toward-a-unified-vision-f or-shockoe/4298599/ on 27 Jun 2024. CID: 20.500.12592/r0gm4c. This small area plan was presented by the City of Richmond and the Shockoe Alliance Community Meeting on April 15, 2019.

Annotated List of Places in Own Communities/Campuses to Compare

Layered Sites of Ownership to Study in Baltimore

Pratt Street is a major street in Baltimore, Maryland. Pratt Street is named for Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, a supporter of Civil liberties in the 18th century. Pratt Street appears on maps of Baltimore as early as 1801. It forms a one-way pair of streets with Lombard Street that run west–east through downtown Baltimore. Pratt Street has historic significance as the location of most of Baltimore’s slave trading economy as well as the Baltimore Riot of 1861. Today it is known for being an important gateway into the Inner Harbor, connecting it with the Baltimore Light Rail line. Although considerably longer, there are several important sites along Pratt Street between President Street and Light Street (along the waterfront region) that was once the Port of Baltimore but is now known as Harbor Place. Below, please fine sites that can be examined translated from the module created for Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom.

Pratt Street – Site of Trade of Enslaved Africans

“Seeing the Unseen: Baltimore’s Slave Trade” https://www.baltimoresun.com/2022/05/04/seeing-the-unseen-baltimores-slave-trade-ph otos/

Pratt Street – Site of Harriet Tubman Escape

“Consider history in redevelopment of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor” https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/04/16/baltimore-inner-harbor-history/

Pratt Street – Site of First Casualty of the Civil War “1861 Pratt Street Riots” https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-pratt-street-riot.htm

Pratt Street – Site of Modern Consumerism

“Baltimore’s Harborplace: Elegy to a Dead Mall” https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/09/17/baltimore_harborplace/

Boston University, Charles River Campus

For Boston University, the history of its Charles River Campus began on February 28, 1920, with the purchase of 15 acres between Commonwealth Avenue and the Charles River. With the purchase, the scattered school could place itself firmly on Boston’s landscape, implicitly tying community to land ownership. For the city of Boston and the Boston Landmarks Commission, which designated a large portion of the campus as part of the Bay State Road/ Back Bay West architectural conservation district in 1979, the history of the area began in the 1880s. The Charles River Embankment Company dredged and filled the shoreline west of the Harvard Bridge, creating the land on which Bay State Road was laid out beginning in 1889. BU’s American Studies Program sits in a former residential structure on Bay State Road, which is now blocked from river access by Storrow Drive and the Esplanade.

Telling the deep stories of BU’s Charles River Campus requires a different approach than Shockoe Bottom, where narratives and counternarratives lie on and in the ground. Instead, students should take inspiration from Tiffany King’s The Black Shoals and consider the river bank as “always in formation” and a site of intersection and mediation between land and water. The “improvements” to the Charles River that created Bay State Road and ensured its “attractiveness and viability as a residential area” operated within a capitalist view of landscape as something to be conquered and owned. For the native Massachusett, the mudflats and marshes of the Charles (likely called Quinobequin, or “meandering”) were a liminal space - people moved up and down the river and extracted plants, fish, and other animals along its edges as the season, weather, and tides dictated. While BU’s land acknowledgment vaguely notes that “the territory on which Boston University stands is that of The Wampanoag and The Massachusett People,” there has been little attempt to grapple with the Indigenous and environmental stories of the Charles River Campus. In what ways has riverine “land reclamation” contributed to generations of dispossession and how can the university acknowledge that legacy?

BU’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Charles River Campus: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2020/bus-charles-river-campus-marks-its-100th-anniv ersary/

1979 Boston Landmarks Commission District Study Commission Report for Bay State Road / Back Bay West https://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/BayStateRoad_BackBayWest_ Study_Report_27_tcm3-32478.pdf