Richmond, VA: Protest in Solidarity with #PrisonStrike Draws Connections to Racist Past

Submitted to It’s Going Down

Some comrades showed solidarity with #PrisonStrike while shedding light on the continued mass enslavement of Blacks that has occurred since the Virginia Vagrancy Act of January 1866 was enacted one month after the 13th Amendment legalized enslavement for those convicted of crimes and expanded greatly during Bill Clinton’s reign.

Former Virginia Governor McDonnell (who recently was given his freedom papers from federal prison over corruption convictions), current Governor McAuliffe, Delegate McQuinn, and Richmond mayor Dwight Jones were in attendance at this gathering which broke ground on the development Lumpins Slave Jail archaeological site.

The facility which was not a jail, as enslaved people do not often go before judges and juries, was a rooming house and tavern which had an area devoted to housing enslaved people between auctions and holding runaways.

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