Board of Visitors approves plans for memorial for East Marshall Street Well individuals

By Brian McNeill

The Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors on Friday approved a plan to construct a memorial and to inter the 19th-century human remains that were discovered in an abandoned well on the MCV Campus during construction of the Hermes A. Kontos Medical Sciences Building in 1994.

The memorial is based on recommendations made by the Family Representative Council, a dedicated body of community members who served as symbolic descendants of the unnamed human beings from the East Marshall Street Well. It is the culmination of the East Marshall Street Well Project at VCU, which was formed in partnership with the community to ensure the ancestral remains, primarily of African descent, received appropriate study, memorialization and reburial, reflecting the dignity they were denied in life and death.

"This announcement of plans for the construction of a memorialization and interment site represents forward movement of not only our desire to properly inter the ancestral remains but it also satisfies the recommendations from the Family Representative Council as given in our report," said Rhonda Keyes Pleasants, chair of the Family Representative Council. "Furthermore, to finally and properly memorialize and inter the ancestral remains is satisfaction to the ancestors who have gone before us."

"The completed project will for many generations to come represent not just the remains that were found but also those believed to be still buried in other wells in the same vicinity of the Kontos Building," she said. "We honor the research that has taken place and look forward with great anticipation finally laying our loved ones to rest."

A place for reflection and discussion

The memorial and interment site will be built at the south end of the plaza between the Kontos Building and the Egyptian Building. The site will feature a "unity chamber" inspired by the Toguna structures of Dogon culture in West Africa. It will serve as a literal gathering spot and a symbol of unity, intended to create an atmosphere that encourages humility, equality and thoughtful discussion.

"[The memorial's design] is intended to encourage humility and thoughtful discussion by purposefully having a low roof to facilitate seated reflection," said Stephen Davenport, assistant vice president for social and economic development in the VCU Division of Community Engagement and the administrative lead for the project. "On a personal note … I started off at VCU as a student worker in the president's office. I've been working on this project since its inception and I'm deeply honored to have the opportunity to present this to [the Board of Visitors] today."

The project is estimated to cost $3.6 million and will be funded by MCV Foundation support, VCU non-Education & General funds, and VCU Health System funds. Construction is expected to begin in summer 2027.

"Years ago, VCU initiated this journey because we recognized a profound obligation to restore the human dignity of the people who were not afforded respect in their physical existence. The East Marshall Street Well Project's sacred mission is to ensure every life is honored with the permanence and reverence they deserve," said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D.

"I am deeply moved by the empathetic and dedicated work of the Family Representative Council and community leaders like Kevin Allison and Stephen Davenport, whose commitment has been the heartbeat of this path toward reconciliation," Rao said. "Together, we are creating a place of humility and unity where continued research illuminates the lives and identities of those individuals so they may finally be memorialized with dignity."

The human remains - from a minimum of 43 adults and three children, according to new DNA research - are believed to have been discarded in the well in the 1800s after medical students and faculty dissected and practiced surgical procedures on unlawfully obtained cadavers.

When the well and remains were discovered in 1994, archaeologists were only given a short time to examine the site and the remains were removed by backhoes before construction continued. The remains were sent to the Smithsonian Institution for further study.

A community's path to reconciliation

Renewed interest in the remains in 2011 were generated by the release of "Until the Well Runs Dry: Medicine and the Exploitation of Black Bodies," a film by VCU professor Shawn Utsey, Ph.D., and the development of an analytical report by forensic anthropologists Doug Owsley, Ph.D., and Kari Bruwelheide. The efforts detailed the practice of grave robbing and the treatment of the remains during construction of the Kontos Building.

In 2013, VCU President Rao established the East Marshall Street Well Planning Committee with members from the community and VCU to begin the path to reconciliation. With the assistance of Justice and Sustainability Associates of Washington, D.C., the planning committee held a series of community meetings and discussions where VCU acknowledged its insensitivity during the 1994 excavation, explained what had been done to safeguard the human remains and shared what had been learned through forensic study. The planning committee helped form the Family Representative Council to recommend a future course of action. (Read more: Community-campus committee will work to memorialize human remains uncovered in 1990s construction project.)

On Nov. 25, 2019, VCU and the Richmond community welcomed back the ancestral remains from the Smithsonian Institution with respect and dignity. (Read more: A Journey Home.)

In 2021, a set of panels were installed in the Kontos building to tell the story of the East Marshall Street Well and to honor and demonstrate respect for the individuals whose remains were discarded in it. (Read more: 'This is sacred ground': Panels commemorate 19th-century human remains found in an MCV Campus well.)

Since the ancestral remains' return to Richmond, work has been underway to implement the Family Representative Council's recommendations on research, memorialization and interment.

Earlier this year, VCU researchers published the results of a new DNA analysis of the remains, revealing ancestral information and physical descriptions of the majority of the individuals excavated from the well, painting more detailed pictures of their lives and identities. The new research refines previous estimates by the Smithsonian about how many individuals' remains were found in the well.

They found that most of the individuals were primarily of African ancestry, two were of mixed European and African ancestry, and one was primarily of European ancestry. Researchers also identified the likely regional ancestral origins of several of the individuals through their inherited maternal and paternal genetic information, pinpointing those individuals' ancestral origins to either Central West Africa or Eurasia. (Read more: DNA analysis illuminates the lives of East Marshall Street Well individuals.)