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The Black August Planning Organization, in collaboration with Herb & Temple, welcomes you back to our annual pilgrimage to Richmond, VA, home of the Gabriel Prosser Rebellion. It has been 9 years since the last time we did this and we hope you can join us. In consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than taking a bus, we will caravan in our own cars so that we can practice social distancing and we will expect participants to wear masks and maintain a distance throughout the day.
We will begin our caravan from Washington, DC by meeting at The Big Chair in Anacostia at 7am with plans to leave at 730am SHARP! Be sure to dress comfortably, as this will involve some walking. Bring your own lunch and plenty of water.
Our tour guides for the pilgrimage will be Ana Edwards, Chairperson of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and co-founder of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice, and Equality and Janine Bell, founder and director of the Elegba Folklore Society. The Pilgrimage will be experienced in Three Parts:
Part I: Freedom Interrupted (10-130p)
Once we arrive in Richmond, we will convene at the Elegba Folklore Society and be exposed to African ancestral history. It is important to contextualize our history of resistance beginning with our freedom. We will then embark on an interactive experience along the Trail of Enslaved Africans, beginning at the James Riverbank where attendees have the chance to ponder the impact of enslavement on the enslaved as shared in their own words and from their own view. Participants will walk in our ancestors footsteps from their arrival point at rivers edge into Shockoe Bottom, the area of Richmond that housed the holding pens, jails, auction blocks, and burial ground. Shockoe Bottom was the center of Richmonds slave trade and played a pivotal role during the peak years of the nations interstate slave trade. In fact, Solomon Northup, author of 12 Years a Slave, was held here in 1841 at the notorious Goodwins slave jail before he was transported in chains to New Orleans. Richmonds slave trade industry was second only in importance to New Orleans between 1830 and 1865.
Part II: Black August Address and lunch (130-3p)
Picnic style (bring your own) lunch and Black August address from Jihad Abdul-Mumit, Chairman of the Jericho Amnesty Movement for political prisoners. Jihad was a former political prisoner and member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. This will be followed by a visit to the former Robert E. Lee monument which was reclaimed by Black Lives Matter activists in the region and renamed for Marcus David Peters, a local black teacher who was killed by the Richmond Police in 2018 while he was in the midst of a mental health emergency.
Part III: Gabriel's Rebellion: Death or Liberty in 18th Century Richmond (3-5p)
We meet at Richmond's African Burial Ground and travel from the city's founding at the mouth of Shockoe Creek and the James River, through the first decades of the new American nation to the epic story of Gabriel's Rebellion of 1800 and its impact on politics and Black life after the victory of the Haitian Revolution in 1804, and the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1808 turns Richmond into the epicenter of the domestic slave trade. This portion of the Pilgrimage will conclude at Spring Creek Park, where the rebellion was planned to begin.
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LocationThe Big Chair (Anacostia) to Richmond VA and back (View)
Martin Luther King Ave. & V Street S.E.
Washington, DC 19142
United States
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| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
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