This is such an important video.

From the Richmond Racial Equity Essays project, an initiative of Ebony Walden, www.racialequityessays.com, listen to Kim Young, Director of Family & Community Engagement of Peter Paul Development Center, discuss the need for "increasing the visibility, eliminating barriers to the dreams and aspirations of, and creating pathways of opportunity for Black youth."  

The "Heritage Campus" needs to embrace this. 

21st Annual Gabriel Gathering at the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground

21st Annual Gabriel Gathering

Part One, the "People's Tribunal for Virgina's Prisons, Jail's and Detention Centers" takes place on Sat. Oct. 7 at the Richmond Convention Center and features testimony of current and formerly incarcerated men and women and organizations working for criminal justice transformation. A report from the event will be published in advance of the November 7 election.

Sat., October 7, 2023, 10 am to 4 pm

The People's Tribunal on Virginia's Prisons, Jails and Detention Center

Greater Richmond Convention Center, 5th & E. Broad entrance

The Parking decks is accessed from 3rd between Marshall and Broad streets.

Part Two, "Breaking the Chains in Virginia," borrows its title from artist Melvin Edwards' depiction of Gabriel the blacksmith transforming iron objects into tools of liberation. 

Tue., October 10, 2023, 6:30 to 8:00 pm

We Are Gabriel, Breaking the Chains in Virginia

Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground

Parking in lot behind Main Street Station with entrances at Grace + Ambler and 15th + W. Franklin  

Join us as we

• Honor the memory of the people interred in the first municipal burial ground for Black people of early 19th century Richmond, Virginia, who made up 50% of the population, and
• Remember Richmond's role as a slave trading epicenter made it an early site of mass incarceration for the distribution of Black people as captives used for labor;
• Recognize that Gabriel was one of the first people held in newly completed Virginia State Penitentiary before his trial on Oct. 6, 1800; and
• Remember Richmond's role as a slave trading epicenter made it an early site of mass incarceration for the distribution of Black people as captives used for labor; that Gabriel was one of the first people held in newly completed Virginia State Penitentiary before his trial on Oct. 6, 1800; and
• Understand slave labor's evolution to prison labor as a particular tool of US capitalism: the exploitation of Black labor following the end of slavery and the ongoing use of racism as a tool to prevent the unification of workers.

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Commemorative News Updates
Last month a statue of Frederick Douglass was erected and unveiled in Scotland. Read about it here.