The site where Solomon Northrup, the main character in the Oscar winning movie "12 Years a Slave," was incarcerated in 19th century Virginia might one day be a baseball stadium.
The mayor of Richmond, Dwight Jones, is backing a $56 million plan to build a park for the local baseball team the Richmond Flying Squirrels on the same ground where Lumpkin's slave jail used to be in the 1800s, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The prison, also known as "the Devil's half-acre," is where freeman Northrup was taken after being drugged and kidnapped in 1841.
Northrup's present day descendants, however, do not want the historic ground to be developed. Before the Civil War, the district was the county's busiest centers for the slave-trade, according to THR. The district, known as Shockoe Bottom, housed over 90 slave dealers alone.
"Most people of African descent in North America have had ancestors who came through that area as they were being sold to slave masters in the South," Linsey Williams, Northrup's great-great-great-great granddaughter, told THR. "I think it's insensitive and allowing it to become secondary to a ballpark."
Williams, a child psychologist, has started an online petition against the proposed development.
Elizabeth Kambourian, a Richmond historical researcher, also opposes the development.
"An archaeological dig at the Lumpkin's jail turned up a lot of artifacts and things of interest," Kambourian told THR. "They need to do more exploration down there and they need to commemorate."
The site of "the Devil's half-acre" is now an underdeveloped area of asphalt and grasslands. In the area next to the jail is a slave cemetery that was discovered in 2011. In addition to ballpark the mayor plans to build a slavery museum, but the cemetery will not be destroyed since it is a designated historical landmark, according to THR.
The Richmond city council is expected to vote on the mayor's budget, which includes funding for the park, in May.
