Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – A slave auction block has been at the corner of William and Charles streets in Fredericksburg, Virginia since the 1800s, but it may be moved.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, resident Ronnette Cooper said she can’t walk past the slave auction block without wondering if her ancestors were sold from that location.
“I came here in ’95, and I saw it and it shocked me, and it put a pain in my heart. And honestly I wanted to take a sledge hammer to it at that point,” Cooper said during public comment.
Cooper added that the recent events in Charlottesville stirred up that pain again.
She would like to see the auction block removed. As a history teacher, she said the historical significance is not lost on her, which is why she wants a plaque to be put on the spot to explain that the block was there, and it represents a horrific time in American history.
Resident Clint Van Zandt proposed putting a plaque on the site and moving the slave auction to a nearby museum.
“It’s not a statue. It’s not Robert E. Lee on horseback. It is a relic. It is an artifact of history, and the question is, “Where should that artifact remain?”‘ Van Zandt told WMAL.
Van Zandt thinks the entire community should be involved in any decision that’s made about the slave auction block.
The council’s only black member, Chuck Frye Jr., and the mayor will meet to talk about the auction block’s future according to Van Zandt.
A petition on Change.org https://www.change.org/p/virginia-state-senate-removal-of-slave-auction-block calling for the auction block to be removed had nearly 2,500 signatures Wednesday afternoon. The site said that petition will be sent to Senators Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and Charles Schumer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
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