City officials in Fredericksburg, Virginia moved to have a slave auction block moved from a downtown corner on Friday. After two years of discussion within the city council, construction workers had the 800 pound block dug up from the street corner and moved out of the city.
“This is the significant step in living City Council’s directive to relocate the historic artifact, and to work to better tell a more complete history of Fredericksburg – specifically its storied African American history,” city officials stated in a press release.
"This was huge."
A 176-year-old slave auction block has been removed from Fredericksburg's downtown.https://t.co/SbVTcIHGvG pic.twitter.com/cBK4utuW7k
— ABC 7 News – WJLA (@ABC7News) June 5, 2020
The fight to remove the slave auction block has run through the city for years. However, it became a point of contention back in 2017 following the tragic events that occurred in nearby Charlottesville, Virginia. City Councilor Charlie Frye proposed the idea of removing the block immediately, but other councilors voted the proposal down.
Four years later, the removal of the block became a reality given the run of international protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death. In addition, Virginia Governor Ralpha Northam has announced that the state would remove confederate statues in the state’s capitol, Richmond.
