Richmond Free Press July 8-10, 2021 edition

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This week’s Personality a team player

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Richmond Free Press

VOL. 30 NO. 28

© 2021 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

www.richmondfreepress.com

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Finds home at HBCU B2

JULY 8-10, 2021

Not so fast

Richmond City Council informed that planned ONE Casino + Resort opening will be delayed 9 months or more, with casino opening in late 2024 and hotel not opening until late 2025 By Jeremy M. Lazarus

The 2024 campaign for Richmond’s next mayor will be in full swing before the planned ONE Casino + Resort will welcome the first players to try their luck at the slot machines, roll the dice on a craps table or play blackjack. Instead of being ready in December 2023

as City Hall initially announced, the casino’s completion date has been pushed back nine months to Oct. 1, 2024, City Council was notified Monday. And the 250-room luxury hotel that is part of the package might not open until Oct. 1, 2025, the council also was informed. All of this is assuming Richmond voters give

a thumbs-up to having full-blown gambling mecca in the city. Leonard L. Sledge, the city’s economic development director, made the disclosures during a meeting of City Council’s Organizational Development Committee. All nine members of the council are on the committee. The revised timeline for the resort is included

‘Telling the whole story’

in two ordinances the committee recommended for approval at the council’s next meeting on Monday, July 12. That means that for the time being, Rosie’s Gaming Emporium in South Side will be the only legitimate gambling operation in the Richmond Please turn to A4

Old forgotten cemeteries dot the city By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Peggy Stoots made an urgent call to the Richmond City Attorney’s Office just two days before a vacant quarter-acre parcel in South Side was to be auctioned off to recover more than $2,000 in past due property taxes. Ms. Stoots, who has lived near the property for 60 years surprised a staff member by saying, “You can’t auction that property. It’s a cemetery.” Her call led the auction set for mid-August 2018 to be canceled because, sure enough, she was right. The abandoned property at 2511 Hopkins Lane holds multiple graves of Black people. Virtually all of those buried there are members or relatives of a Smith family that acquired the property in 1886 when it was part of Chesterfield County, city records show. The estate of the late George Smith is still listed as the owner. The Smith land sits within a larger Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press wooded stretch that Workers from the state Department of General Services on Wednesday remove the 10-foot bronze statue of segregationist Harry F. Byrd Sr., a former Virginia governor and U.S. senator, from Capitol Square. During the mostly belongs to General Assembly session earlier this year, the legislature approved a bill by Delegate Jay Jones of Norfolk the city. The rest of authorizing its removal. No word yet on what will replace it. the wooded property was acquired as part of the right-of-way for construction of the modern Hopkins Road, which replaced Hopkins Lane By George Copeland Jr. the 10-foot statue was separated from its to observe the process with Gov. Ralph as a main road. Jeremy M. Lazarus/Richmond Free Press pedestal, lifted and secured to a truck by S. Northam. Ms. Stoots said This headstone in the Smith family After 45 years in Capitol Square in contractors with the state Department of For Delegate Jones, the statue’s that a now-deceased cemetery at 2511 Hopkins Lane in Downtown, the statue commemorating General Services around 9:40 a.m. removal held personal meaning. neighbor who was South Side is visible from the street. arch-segregationist Harry F. Byrd Sr. was The department removed the statue Mr. Byrd, a former governor who born in 1880 once At least 45 people are believed to be removed Wednesday morning, marking as a result of a new law that went into also represented Virginia in the U.S. told her that, before buried at the site, which is said to the latest undertaking in Virginia’s long effect July 1. Senate, was the architect of “Massive have been a private burial ground for the Civil War, the land the enslaved from a nearby plantation. reassessment of and reckoning with its For Norfolk Delegate Jay Jones, Resistance” to desegregation in the was the burial site for history of oppressing Black people and who introduced the bill that allowed South in the wake of the landmark 1954 enslaved people who were part of a large plantation that stretched other people of color. for the statue’s removal, it was “a long U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown to what is now Broad Rock Road. That remains unconfirmed. With federal papers tightly held in day coming.” As it turns out, this kind of cemetery is more common than Please turn to A4 one hand and a small smile on its face, He made the journey to Richmond most Richmonders know. According to city records and other documents, multiple small and large private properties exist that contain forgotten burial grounds, including sections of South Side that were once Free COVID-19 testing, vaccines part of Chesterfield before being annexed COVID-19 testing is available at various drug stores, clinics into the city. and urgent care centers throughout the area for people with The biggest forgotten site in Richmond so and without health insurance. Several offer tests with no far is at 1305 N. 5th St., which the city once out-of-pocket costs. owned and recently repurchased for more A list of area COVID-19 testing sites is online at https:// www.vdh.virginia.gov/richmond-city/richmond-and-henricothan $140,000. Most of that went to pay off area-covid-19-testing-sites/ a debt the former owner, who abandoned the Amira Jones, 3, has her hands The Virginia Department of Health also has a list of COVIDproperty, left attached to the deed. full with a teddy bear and cotton 19 testing locations around the state at www.vdh.virginia.gov/ candy at the recent Community The 1.2-acre parcel is part of a far larger coronavirus/covid-19-testing/covid-19-testing-sites/. Outreach Day at Hotchkiss Field Black cemetery where an estimated 22,000 Community Center in North Side. people are buried. Between 1816 and 1879, Want a COVID-19 vaccine? The free event was sponsored by the city owned and operated the historic Project Restore, Empowering Youth The Richmond and Henrico health districts are cemetery, now called Shockoe Hill African for Positive Change and the Capital offering free walk-up COVID-19 vaccines at the following Burying Ground. The land later was sold Area Health Network. It featured locations: for commercial and transportation uses as food, children’s activities, health • Friday, July 9, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—Henrico West Clinic, if the cemetery never existed. screenings, COVID-19 vaccinations 8600 Dixon Powers Drive, Pfizer; 9 to 11 a.m. – Care A former auto repair shop sits on the and information about community Advantage, West End Office, 3201 Hungary Spring Road, site that is gaining renewed recognition resources. The youngster attended Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson; 1 to 3 p.m. – Care Advantage, the event with her mother, Raiesha South Side Office, 10041 Midlothian Turnpike, Pfizer and as historic sacred ground as the result Jones, and her 6-year-old brother, Johnson & Johnson of extensive research and lobbying by a Jermon Dowden. • Saturday, July 10, 1 to 3 p.m.—Oakmeade Apartments, Texas woman, Lenora McQueen, who has 300 Airport Place, Highland Springs, Pfizer and Johnson & relatives buried there.

Statue of Virginia segregationist Harry F. Byrd Sr., architect of ‘Massive Resistance,’ removed from Capitol Square

A real sweetie

Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press

Please turn to A4

Please turn to A4


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