Slavery museum fits at Fort Monroe

A sprawling commercial development in Fredericksburg known as Celebrate Virginia was never an appropriate setting for a national museum devoted to telling the story of slavery. Now that those ill-conceived plans appear to be foundering, it's time to turn attention to a more fitting location - Fort Monroe in Hampton, which played a prominent role in the beginning and end of slavery in America.

Seven years ago, a nonprofit group led by former Gov. Doug Wilder chose Fredericksburg as the site for the U.S. National Slavery Museum after developers offered to donate 38 acres. Offers by Hampton University and Richmond were rejected.

The museum was expected to become a key attraction at Celebrate Virginia, a 2,400-acre project that includes stores, restaurants and golf courses. Kalahari Resorts later announced plans for "an authentic African-themed resort" and water park next to the museum.

Construction of the museum has yet to start, and - even in a better economy - supporters have struggled to raise money, despite high-profile backers including comedian Bill Cosby.

Now, as The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg recently reported, the museum is several months late paying a property-tax bill of roughly $21,000. Another bill is due in May. The newspaper also reported that the museum's executive director hasn't been seen at the museum's office since last fall.

Wilder didn't return a call to his office at Virginia Commonwealth University by The Virginian-Pilot editorial board inquiring about the museum's status. No one could be reached at the museum office; a message says the phone line is set up for outgoing calls only.

Given the long-running problems with the venture, it's time to re-examine where a national slavery museum should be located and how it should be operated.

Fort Monroe, which the Army is scheduled to close and turn over to the state in 2011, is a far more appropriate and dignified choice than the Celebrate Virginia site.

A state-appointed panel is studying the fort's future. The options include converting its 570 acres into a park through a public-private partnership, perhaps with help from the National Park Service.

There are many arguments for preserving the fort's rich history, but none more compelling than the role it played in the story of slavery.

The first enslaved Africans arrived in the British colonies in 1619, when a ship stopped at Old Point Comfort - as the fort's peninsula was then known - to trade slaves for supplies. A series of forts was built there with slave labor, and the peninsula later served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

But the most significant chapter in the fort's history involves three slaves - Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend - who fled to the Union-held fort early in the Civil War.

A Union general declared the men "contraband" of war and refused to return them, prompting thousands more to flow into "Freedom's Fortress." From those fugitives, some of the Union's first black regiments were formed. The general's decision, in many ways, set the stage for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

Gerri Hollins, a descendant of the refugees and president of the Contraband Historical Society, calls the fort "our Ellis Island."

Hollins would like to see the slavery museum at Fort Monroe, as would Scott Butler, a fellow member of Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park. "Given this wealth of history, what better place could there be for a national slavery museum than Fort Monroe?" he asked in a column in The Pilot last summer.

It's a question that leaders in Hampton Roads, including the region's delegation to the General Assembly and Congress, should be asking, too.