RICHMOND, Va. -- If you look closely at the logo for the Shockoe Institute, you will notice ripples emanating from a small circle: Shockoe Bottom.
A thoughtful design like this is a key component of the soon-to-be 12,000-square-foot immersive experience which will delve into the role Shockoe Bottom and Richmond played in the transatlantic slave trade.
The educational space is set to open in 2025 inside Richmond's historic Main Street Station.
The station lies in a part of the city that was the site of the largest domestic slave trade on the East Coast in the 19th century.
“This whole site remains an untold story," said Marland Buckner, the President/CEO of the Shockoe Institute. "It's a yet-to-be-designated global site of conscience, and I think that's our point of departure. We want Richmond, the nation, and the world to understand what happened here because Richmond, the nation, and the world were impacted by what happened here. The domestic slave trade, American slavery, and Richmond's role in it didn't just happen in a vacuum.”
The Shockoe Institute hosted an open house Thursday, displaying renderings of what the space will look like upon completion. Buckner said the exhibit will engage visitors in an intellectually and emotionally rigorous experience.
"So that people can understand the transformative impact that Richmond's role in the domestic slave trade had on the growth of America. We think that the story of America is the story of the struggle to expand human freedom. That's our animating impulse," Buckner said.
Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans were bought and sold in the auction houses and jails clustered in Shockoe Bottom. Buckner said the ripple effect from the horror that played out impacts all Americans since the country we now know, in large part, grew out of the industry of selling humans.
In partnership with historians, artists, and other creators, the educational space at the Shockoe Institute will tell those stories while honoring the many emotions this history will evoke in the modern day, Buckner said.
"That balance has proven to be very, very interesting, as we grapple with incredibly, incredibly difficult content. The sheer brutality of what happened here is overwhelming," Buckner said.
"If we can get people to understand the totality of our history, and speak about it candidly — say the things that happened, describe them truthfully, but do so in a way that doesn't weaponize the history but also doesn't gloss it over — we'll be in a much, much better position to have truly informed conversations about what our future should look like," he continued.
Once complete, the Shockoe Institute will serve as the "gateway" to the planned Shockoe Memorial Park, which as planned will span more than 10 acres to detail the city's involvement in the slave trade.
While the development of the larger memorial park has gone through plenty of ups and downs over the years, Buckner said the Shockoe Institute will begin construction on their space later this year and open to the public in 2025.
"The time for thinking is over, and the time for talking is done. It’s time to act," he said. "That's why we talk about the enduring impact of American slavery on our shared American experience. This is about all of us. This is about all of us, and it happened first here in Shockoe.”
The Institute's digital preview exhibit “Enduring” explores the organization's "mission to reveal and understand the lasting impact of American slavery on our shared American experience by exploring the notion of human beings as commodities, the ongoing Southern mythology surrounding slavery, and the denial of access to capital for individuals of color."
It will be taken around the Commonwealth over the next year-plus so more communities can learn about the project and history since its ramifications have ripple effects across the world.
You can learn more about the Shockoe Institute here.
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