VCU news

By Mike Porter

Virginia Commonwealth University leaders and the East Marshall Street Well Project Planning Committee announced a process for the continued study, memorialization and reburial of human remains uncovered 20 years ago during construction on VCU’s MCV campus. The remains, believed to be largely of African descent, were discovered in an abandoned 19th century well.

The announcement came during an open house and ceremony this evening in the courtyard of the Hermes A. Kontos Medical Sciences Building on the MCV Campus.

“I commit to you today that the legacy of these human beings will not be that they were buried in a well and forgotten. It will be that they inspired us to move forward together,” said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. “We owe it to them, and to each other, to accelerate the pace of our progress.”

The planning committee, consisting of community and university members, was established last year to select an appropriate decision-making body to help determine the best way to study, memorialize and rebury the remains. In the coming months, the committee will hold a series of five community forums to gather input and recommendations.

“We have come to honor the memory of people whose names we don’t know. But they are not strangers to us. They are us,” said Rev. Eli Burke, co-chair of the planning committee. “We don’t know if they had families all those years ago, if someone cared for them, if their descendants are now our neighbors. So we are their children. We will be their impassioned advocates and their eternal voice. And it is our honor.”

The public was invited to view exhibits inside of the Kontos building and to share thoughts, concerns, questions and recommendations as the process moves forward.  

“Tonight — with compassion and contrition — our community has come together to memorialize and remember these souls,” said Sheldon Retchin, M.D., senior vice president for health sciences and CEO of the VCU Health System. “Let us use our time tonight to reflect on our history and to map a plan for the future.”

University leaders also announced plans for a memorial scholarship for students who commit to serving the human health needs of underrepresented communities.

“The life-changing and lifesaving work of these students will forever be the legacy of those individuals lost in the well a century and a half ago,” said Quincy Byrdsong, Ph.D., associate vice president for health sciences at VCU.

The open house and ceremony also featured a performance by the VCU Black Awakening Choir, the playing of music by composer and pianist Ashby Anderson and a libation pouring ceremony by the Elegba Folklore Society.

More information about the East Marshall Street Well Project is available at emsw.vcu.edu.