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PO Box 23202, Richmond, VA 23223 l Ph: 804.644-5834 l Fax: 804.332.5225 l E-mail: DefendersFJE@hotmail.com

For Immediate Release: May 22, 2011

Media Contacts: Ana Edwards – Phone (804) 517-4049 or e-mail <ourrosewood@comcast.net>

Phil Wilayto – Phone (804) 247-3731 or e-mail <philwilayto@earthlink.net>

Richmond activists to go on trial May 25

as victory arrives in nearly 20-year struggle

to reclaim city's African Burial Ground

Four were arrested April 12 after shutting down the state parking lot

that desecrated the cemetery for enslaved Africans;

lot was finally closed May 21 and is to be removed starting May 24

Four advocates active in the struggle to reclaim Richmond's African Burial Ground will go on trial May 25, charged with trespassing on the state-owned parking lot that for years desecrated this more than 250-year-old cemetery for enslaved Africans. As a result of ongoing community pressure, the lot itself was finally closed May 21 and is scheduled to be removed starting May 24.

At dawn on April 12, the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, eight community activists taped off the entrance to the downtown parking lot owned by Virginia Commonwealth University. For an hour and a half, as some 20 VCU police officers watched, the activists stood with signs and turned away cars and buses attempting to enter the lot

Finally, after refusing a police order to leave, Donnell C. Brantley, 62; Rolandah “Cleopattrah” McMillan, 48; Autumn Barrett, 38; and Phil Wilayto, 62, were arrested, placed in handcuffs and detained for two-and-a-half hours. If convicted, the four face up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.00. They are being represented on a pro bono basis by the law firm of Benjamin & DesPortes., one of the leading criminal defense firms in Virginia.

The trial is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at Manchester General District Court, 920 Hull St. in Richmond. At 9 a.m., the defendants and their supporters will hold a sidewalk vigil outside the courthouse. More than 70 people have signed up to attend. (See http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=178916822156946) Supporters are asked to wear white shirts or blouses in a show of solidarity.

The trial date of May 25 is celebrated worldwide as African Liberation Day, a day to promote anti-racist struggles.

BACKGROUND

The Richmond African Burial Ground is the city's oldest known municipal cemetery for Black people. From about 1750 to 1816 it was the final resting place for hundreds if not thousands of enslaved Africans and free people of African descent. It also was the site of the town gallows, where on Oct. 10, 1800, the great slave rebellion leader Gabriel was executed. Long abandoned, the site has been used since the 1970s as a commercial parking lot. In 2008 the lot was purchased by VCU, which, despite community protests, proceeded to “upgrade” the site.

After years of community agitation, the Virginia General Assembly earlier this year passed a bill authorizing the transfer of the 3.4-acre site from VCU to the City of Richmond for reclamation and memorialization. A budget amendment appropriated $3.3 million to compensate VCU for the transfer. With the encouragement of the Virginia State Conference NAACP, three private contractors have volunteered their services to remove the parking lot asphalt and replace it with sod, relieving VCU of the cost of those operations, for which it was responsible under the General Assembly bill. The City has placed a historical marker on the site, explaining its historical and cultural significance and Richmond's leading role in the internal U.S. slave trade.

And yet, until May 20, VCU was still using the African Burial Ground site as a parking lot.

“We decided to close the parking lot ourselves because we were tired of VCU continuing to park on the graves of our ancestors,” said McMillan of the April 12 action. “We wanted the whole world to see that this state institution has no respect for the community that surrounds it.”

McMillan, Brantley and Barrett are members of the Richmond African Burial Ground Community Organizing Committee (COC), an organization of more than 50 area residents formed to support the struggle to reclaim the Burial Ground. Wilayto is a co-founder of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, a Richmond-based community organization that initiated the COC and which has played a major role in the nearly 20-year-long struggle to reclaim the cemetery.

For more information, please contact the Defenders at (804) 644-5834 or e-mail DefendersFJE@hotmail.com.

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