Lumpkin's Slave Jail — Attraction in Richmond

If you’ve read Devil’s Half Acre, you know this site is sacred ground. It holds the weight of unspeakable suffering and resistance — the epicenter of Richmond’s slave trade and the story of Mary Lumpkin, whose legacy demands to be remembered in full light. The book is extraordinary — vivid, painful, necessary — and it brought me here with reverence.

But finding it? Practically an act of excavation.

The site is tucked behind a public works building, with minimal signage, poor pedestrian access, and a sense of bureaucratic neglect that borders on insult. For a city that markets itself on history, Richmond — and Mayor Levar Stoney — should be ashamed of how this site is treated. There should be clear pathways, educational materials, a dignified entrance, and a sense of sacred preservation. Instead, you feel like you’re sneaking into a forgotten corner of a maintenance yard.

And that’s the real heartbreak: Richmond has an opportunity to lead, to own its past with honesty and care, and to uplift stories like Mary Lumpkin’s. Instead, it hides them behind fences and utility trucks.

Come here. Read the book. Feel the weight. But also raise your voice. This site deserves more — and so do the people who lived, died, and...

Five star review so that everyone visits this spot, reads the signs, has a moment of reflection & hopefully feels different when you drive over this on 95.

But there are genuinely no words for the rage that such an important spot has such a lack of presentation. I feel like the whole block needs to get shut down.

Visit this place if you are born/raised RVA or you are here for the weekend. It’s powerful in the way American history can make you feel. Makes you feel sick and the power to overcoming adversity right there on that soil. We all need to know...

Deeply moving historical, archaeological site. Part of the Shockoe Bottom Historic District and Memorial Park footprint representing public history of Richmond's role as 2nd largest slave trading marketplace in country through 1865. Known notoriously by 19th century Blacks and abolitionists as the Devil's Half Acre for Robert Lumpkin's spirit-breaking practices. Well designed, informative markers on site further development planned for 2017. Smithsonian magazine named it most important USA archaeological site of 2008. Managed by city Slave...