This article highlights so many more atrocities than the construction of i64

Sounds like I-64 was the tamest of the crimes committed here. I drive past that rotting gas station every day. tear it down and build a memorial for those who were laid to rest there

I agree. I listed I64 because of how often people drive over the bridge without realizing. The stealing of recently deceased bodies for medical students and using bones for fill for a road expansion were way worse.

Thank you for sharing this.

This is a story about a woman researching her ancestry who uncovered horrific disregard for Richmond’s largest (and possibly the US’s largest) African American cemetery. If you have driven i64 east of Richmond, you’ve driven through it. Her story about finding connection to her 4x great grandmother is incredible.

This cemetery was one of three opened at the same time. One for white Christians, one for white Jews, and one for African Americans (free and enslaved). The other two cemeteries are well preserved. This one is hard to find because not much was intentionally preserved.

This cemetery and its entombed persons were regularly the victims of medical students sourcing bodies for schooling. Later on, it was paved through for the expansion of a road, the bodies were used to make fill for the road. Much more recently, I64, the railroad, and a gas station were built on top of this land without regard to the those entombed nor their descendants.

🤬really????

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oh wait until you hear about the hundreds of thousands who's homes were demolished for interstates

jesus christ. it’s one of those things that’s horrific on such a massive scale that your anger is bigger than your person. good on her for doing the work, as well as anyone she’s worked with.

more historic richmond homes (mostly in jackson ward, "shockingly") were destroyed during the construction of I95 than during the civil war

The Richmond-Petersburg turnpike is the largest remaining evil in the city and it needs to go.

I had no idea. Thank you for sharing this post.

The bodies were "Used for mortar"? Really?

And I64 didn’t even solve anything

I hate Washington post. I can't read it 😤

The federal highway system destroyed so much.

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The downtown expressway has the same ramifications

Used for fill, edited.

Sounds about white supremacy and capitalism. Look at Central Park, destroyed a massive community to build it. Lots of roads and highways were diverted to go through non-white neighborhoods too.

But then again people will come on here and says it had nothing to do with race.

Use reader in safari if you have iPhone. Sometimes takes paywall away.

In the same vein, a couple of years ago, there were headstones found in the Potomac that were removed and discarded because they were in the way of commercial development in DC. Disgraceful.