Richmond African Burial Ground advocates
to go on trial May 25; pre-trial vigil planned

Four activists were arrested after shutting down VCU parking lot;
will be represented by Benjamin & DesPortes law firm

Pre-Trial Vigil *9:00am*
Trial Begins *10:00am *

*Richmond Manchester General District Court
920 Hull St Richmond, Virginia*

A May 25 trial is scheduled for four Richmond activists arrested April 12
after successfully blocking cars from entering the state-owned parking lot
that sits on a more-than 250-year-old Black cemetery.

Donnell C. Brantley, 62; Rolandah “Cleopattrah” McMillan, 48; Autumn
Barrett, 38; and Phil Wilayto, 62, are charged with trespassing on Virginia
Commonwealth University property after being told to leave, a Class 1
misdemeanor. If convicted, they face up to a year in jail and a fine of up
to $2,500.00.

The four are being represented on a pro bono basis by the law firm of
Benjamin & DesPortes, P.C. Steven Benjamin is First Vice President of
the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a former president of the
Virginia chapter. DesPortes is a member of the Board of Directors of the
American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

The trial is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at Richmond Manchester General
District Court, 920 Hull St. At 9 a.m., the defendants and their supporters
will hold a sidewalk vigil outside the courthouse. Supporters are asked to
wear white shirts or blouses in a show of solidarity.

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 lot.

After years of community agitation, the 2011 Virginia General Assembly
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 pay for the transfer. With the encouragement of
the Virginia State Conference NAACP, three Richmond-area private contractors
have volunteered their services to remove the parking lot asphalt and gravel
and replace it with sod, relieving VCU of the cost of those operations, as
required by the General Assembly bill.

And yet, as of today, VCU is still using the African Burial Ground site as a
parking lot for its students and employees.

“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, who with
her three co-defendants and four other protesters held signs for an hour and
a half in front of the parking lot entrance, preventing cars or buses from
entering the lot. “We wanted the whole world to see that this state
institution has no respect for the community that surrounds it.”

Brantley, McMillan and Wilayto are members of the Defenders for Freedom,
Justice & Equality, a Richmond-based community organization that has played
a major role in reclaiming the cemetery. Barrett is a member of the
Defenders' Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project. All four are active
with the Richmond African Burial Ground Community Organizing Committee,
which sponsored the parking lot protest, held on the 150th anniversary of
the start of the U.S. Civil War.

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

For more information, please call (804) 644-5834 or e-mail *
Defenders...@hotmail.com*.

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*Richmond Industrial Workers of the World* • P.O. Box 7055 • Richmond,
Virginia 23221-0055
(e) richmond...@gmail.com • (w) www.richmondiww.org • (p) 804-496-1568