The Trouble in River City (It’s Not Pool!)

Summary

Richmond, the capital of Virginia, former capital of the Confederate States, has a deeply buried early history and a highly troubled recent one. The oldest parts of the city sit at the base of a 7-mile long cataract through which the James River falls from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain. Archaeological remains lie beneath flood deposits and centuries of accumulated urban debris. For decades these resources have been ignored or viewed as obstructions to development. Archaeology in the city has more recently come to be viewed by many as a tool for transcending and transforming the destructive racial politics of the Jim Crow and post-Civil Rights eras. I discuss projects which illustrate relations of identity, have spurred community interest and activism, sparked attempts to conserve and interpret sites which tell the stories of race relations, and which hold promise for developing a 21st-century post-racist community spirit in the city.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Digging the River City: Richmond Archaeology Past, Present, and Future   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 209