RICHMOND, Va. (RNS) \u2013 From 1830 to 1860, tens of thousands of enslaved people disembarked ships at Richmond\u2019s Manchester Docks, an entry point into a bondage system that built Virginia\u2019s wealth and shaped the city\u2019s history. Shackled together, the enslaved people trudged along a muddy trail connecting the docks to the city\u2019s auction house, where they were sold and bought as property.<\/p>\n
Today, the path, known as the \u201cslave trail,\u201d is part of a citywide walking tour exploring Richmond\u2019s role as a major hub of the domestic slave trade.<\/p>\n
As about 20 Virginians marched in line, in silence, over the muddy trail on Saturday (June 13) \u2014 some clinging to one another to understand the experience of enslaved people who walked the trail in chains \u2014 a gospel singer performed the African American spiritual \u201cWade in the Water\u201d alongside them.<\/p>\n
Walking silently, Renee Munford, who is Black, said she felt her ancestors. The 65-year-old wondered what they thought as they walked, whether they were afraid, confused or both. At some point, she cried.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I looked out at the water, all I could see was people coming in on ships and disembarking, and just in a frenzy, so my heart bled for that,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The silent walk was the first part of a historical and spiritual pilgrimage through Richmond led by two local Episcopal churches. The gathering, called \u201cWalking With the Enslaved: The Church\u2019s Role in Slavery Pilgrimage,\u201d seeks to cover the city\u2019s racial history from the steps of Virginia\u2019s state Capitol to a notorious 19th-century slave jail to Richmond\u2019s first African church.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nParticipants in a slavery pilgrimage visit State Capitol square, Saturday, June 13, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (RNS photo\/Fiona Andr\u00e9) TOP PHOTO: Docent Glyn Hughes, center right, speaks to a group at the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue, Saturday, June 13, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (RNS photo\/Fiona Andr\u00e9)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The daylong retreat grew out of a partnership between St. Paul\u2019s Episcopal Church, Virginia\u2019s largest Episcopal parish that was once attended by Confederate army Gen. Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and St. Philip\u2019s Episcopal Church, one of the South\u2019s oldest Black Episcopal churches, founded in 1861 by enslaved and freed Richmonders. The two congregations designed the experience centered on stories of enslaved people and enslavers, prayer and African American spirituals, which they hope will make for a transformative and eye-opening encounter for all who take part.<\/p>\n Just as the country prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence \u2014 and Juneteenth, the commemoration of when enslaved people of Galveston got news of their liberation on June 19, 1865 \u2014 these Episcopalians are trying to reckon with the role of their city and their denomination in slavery as a founding reality of the United States. The churches\u2019 collaboration reflects both the Episcopal Church\u2019s racial reconciliation focus, announced in 2016, by then-Presiding Bishop Michael Curry \u2014 the first African American to lead the denomination nationally \u2014 and a broader citywide effort to confront the city\u2019s slave-trading past.<\/p>\n St. Paul\u2019s and St. Philip\u2019s, both of whose histories were shaped by Richmond\u2019s role as a major slave-trading center and the capital of the Confederacy, are hoping to translate these efforts into personal transformation.<\/p>\n Before they embarked on the pilgrimage, the group gathered for an introduction session at St. Philip\u2019s. Nikki Fernandes, one of the tour\u2019s docents, reminded them of the day\u2019s spiritual goal. \u201cWe hope you leave this pilgrimage with something, and that the Holy Spirit will guide what that something is,\u201d said Fernandes, a Virginia native and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n Walking through these historic sites is more likely to transform people and help the history solidify in their minds than something less immersive, said Jerry Gilbert, one of the pilgrimage\u2019s co-chairs and a vestry member at St. Paul\u2019s. \u201cThat may be what people would call the ancestors talking to you, or the place talking to you. \u2026 But I think it really happens because I\u2019ve felt it happen,\u201d Gilbert told RNS in an April interview.<\/p>\n St. Paul\u2019s Episcopal Church, Saturday, June 13, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (RNS photo\/Fiona Andr\u00e9)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Many participants had heard about the pilgrimage through the churches. The project started at St. Paul\u2019s and took off after the congregation reached out to St. Philip\u2019s to collaborate. Gilbert said the church needed a \u201cnonwhite majority\u201d partner to improve the walks.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew that sometimes white privilege is very blind to seeing all of the aspects of a situation when race is involved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n St. Paul\u2019s, perched on Richmond Hill near the Virginia Capitol, traces its roots to Monumental Church, established in 1814 by prominent Richmonders \u2014 \u201cnearly all\u201d enslavers, according to the church\u2019s website<\/a>. During a tour stop on Richmond Hill, Glyn Hughes, another docent, stressed that the freedom ideals that fueled America\u2019s founding collided with Virginia\u2019s reliance on slave trading and its leaders\u2019 affiliation with Episcopal and Presbyterian churches.\u00a0<\/p>\n In front of the state Capitol, which once held church services for Presbyterians and Episcopalians but also served as the Confederate States Congress during the Civil War, Hughes invited participants to \u201cthink about how they were mingling Christian values to their ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n Docent Nikki Fernandes, center, addresses a slavery pilgrimage group on Saturday, June 13, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (RNS photo\/Fiona Andr\u00e9)<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t<\/span><\/p>\n After the 2015 killing of nine Black worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, St. Paul\u2019s started examining its own racist past. Five years later, the church removed Confederate symbols from the sanctuary, shedding the most visible reminders of its support for the Confederacy and cutting off its embrace of Lost Cause ideology<\/a> after the Civil War.<\/p>\n St. Philip\u2019s, nestled in Richmond\u2019s North Side, has served as a refuge for Black Richmonders through the Civil War, the Jim Crow era and today. Despite its prominence for the city\u2019s Black Episcopalians, the church didn\u2019t gain full representation at the diocesan convention until 1937.<\/p>\n The churches\u2019 partnership has been \u201ctransformational,\u201d said Crystal Green, a co-chair of the project and a member of St. Philip\u2019s. \u201cIt\u2019s part of a healing process that is 400 years in the making, so it\u2019s transformed our lives, our worship styles, and it\u2019s also built a lifetime of friendships.\u201d<\/p>\n Beginning at the \u201cslave trail\u201d shapes participants\u2019 experience of the pilgrimage\u2019s nine remaining stops, organizers noted. The recovered stories of Black Richmonders also ensure participants center the perspectives of enslaved people during the pilgrimage.<\/p>\n At the fifth stop, the First African Baptist Church, Fernandes recounted the story of Henry \u201cBox\u201d Brown, a member of the congregation born into slavery on a Louisa County plantation. In 1849, Brown escaped by shipping himself to Philadelphia in a wooden box to reach freedom in the North.<\/p>\n The tour cultivates a sense of sacredness through prayers, silent reflections and songs. The pilgrimage\u2019s opening prayer, which invites participants to \u201cleave the familiar, the comforting, the known\u201d to find a deeper sense of God, is echoed through the Bible verses associated with each stop. A preacher-style call and response ritual in front of each site also reinforces the pilgrimage\u2019s spiritual dimension.\u00a0<\/p>\n Participants in a slavery pilgrimage take some quiet time in St. Philip\u2019s Episcopal Church, Saturday, June 13, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (RNS photo\/Fiona Andr\u00e9)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cGod of love who traces our journeys,\u201d Hughes said as the group approached each stop. \u201cEnlighten the eyes of our hearts,\u201d participants replied in unison.\u00a0<\/p>\n The spirituals \u2014 including \u201cAmazing Grace,\u201d a hymn that predates the United States, and Thomas Dorsey\u2019s 1930s classic \u201cTake My Hand, Precious Lord\u201d \u2014 also help set the pilgrimage\u2019s solemn tone. For Shauntae Lilly, the gospel singer who accompanies the group, the songs are a tribute to the enslaved.<\/p>\n \u201cMy voice provides the voice of the journey,\u201d said the 43-year-old singer. \u201c \u2026 Sometimes stories are easier felt than heard.\u201d<\/p>\n Lilly, who grew up attending both Southern Baptist and Black Episcopal churches, said years of observing and listening to church choirs compensate for her lack of classical training. Like some Black participants, Lilly said she feels the presence of her ancestors during her performances.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel as if the good Lord uses my voice to do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The pilgrimage\u2019s last stops \u2014 the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground<\/span>, the sunken slave jail of Shockoe Bottom and its dried-up reconciliation fountain \u2014 sit under the shadow of Interstate 95. Built in 1958, the highway severed Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, a 150-year-old Black Baptist congregation and the pilgrimage\u2019s final stop, from Jackson Ward, Richmond\u2019s historical Black neighborhood.<\/p>\n Participants in a slavery pilgrimage stop under Interstate 95, Saturday, June 13, 2026, on the way to Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground in Richmond, Va. (RNS photo\/Fiona Andr\u00e9)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n To Hughes, the interstate\u2019s path through Jackson Ward is an example of \u201cinfrastructural violence\u201d and a reminder of continued harm inflicted on Black Richmonders, he told participants on the bus ride back to St. Philip\u2019s.<\/p>\n After lunch at St. Philip\u2019s, participants scattered across the sanctuary and garden for a period of silent reflection. Guided by a Gospel of Matthew verse quoting the Prophet Isaiah about people who \u201clisten, but never understand \u2026 look, but never perceive,\u201d participants then shared their emotions, frustrations and awakenings. Equipped with a form inquiring about how they felt, what they thought and what value they carried as they completed the walk, the group embarked on an hourlong discussion on the pilgrimage.\u00a0<\/p>\n As she sat on a bench by herself in St. Philip\u2019s garden after the walk, Monica Melton, an educator who has lived in Richmond for 20 years, said she was thinking about how to get more involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Louisiana congressional map that included two Black-majority districts, thereby hollowing out a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Melton said she has been concerned about Black voters\u2019 political power in the South.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really thinking less, maybe about the experience throughout the day, but like \u2018where is my voice?\u2019 like my political voice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The personal stories of the enslaved, which she called the \u201cmost powerful piece,\u201d also changed how she plans to approach discussions on racial history with her students.<\/p>\n Her husband, the Rev. Brent Melton, has also been impacted by the enslaved people\u2019s stories. When the couple, who are white, got home on Saturday, Brent Melton modified the sermon he had prepared for the next-day service to mention the pilgrimage.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-Enslaved-Walk5.jpg\")
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