The East Marshall Street Well Project is a collaborative initiative to ensure appropriate study, memorialization, and burial of human remains uncovered from an abandoned well in 1994 during the construction of a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) medical building. The remains of more than fifty individuals, including at least nine children, most of African descent, were used for anatomical study and education during the 19th century. The Medical College of Virginia (MCV), later renamed the VCU Medical Center when MCV and Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) merged to form VCU, relied on the exploitation of Black Virginians since its 1838 inception as a medical department in Hampden-Sydney College. MCV faculty and staff obtained human remains (archival evidence indicates predominantly through graverobbing) between 1848 to 1860 for use in anatomy and dissection classes, and then discarded these remains in a well. For reasons of economic expediency, the well, which was named the East Marshall Street Well (EMSW), was not fully excavated, and the remains that were collected were sent to the Smithsonian, where they were placed in storage. In 2011, a documentary produced by VCU professor of African American Studies Dr. Shawn Utsey, titled Until the Well Runs Dry: Medicine and the Exploitation of Black Bodies, drew attention to the history underpinning the discovery of the EMSW. Two years later, VCU convened the EMSW Project to implement the recommendations of the Family Representative Council (FRC), a group composed of community leaders representing the descendant community in Richmond, since the identities of the people whose remains had been excavated could not be determined. The EMSW Project consequently focused on unpacking the role of racism in medicine and on working to ensure that these individuals are given the respect historically denied to them and their loved ones.
Through a series of interviews, The East Marshall Street Well Oral History Archive documents the story of the EMSW Project since its inception. This archive was created in response to the 2018 recommendations issued by the Family Representative Council (FRC) that prioritized research, memorialization, and interment. Narrators include members of the FRC, as well as others connected with the EMSW Project. Stretching across thirty years, the oral history project records the reasons people joined this work, their respective roles, and the decisions behind the project. It offers a case study for community-led processes of institutional reconciliation work and university efforts toward reparative justice.
The project was organized through the Health Humanities Lab at the Humanities Research Center and funded through grants from the Quest Fund, the Medical College of Virginia Foundation, a Vertically Integrated Project grant from the Office of the Provost’s Transformative Learning Fund, a Division of Community Engagement Grant, and an Impact Award. It has received additional funding support from the Humanities Research Center, the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS), the History and Health Program in the Office of Health Equity, Office of the President, and the Honors College. The project benefited from collaborations with The Workshop and Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries. To ensure public accessibility, project continuity, and best practices in archival management, Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries serves as the repository for the project.
Copyright
This material is protected by copyright, and copyright is held by each narrator. You are permitted to use this material in any way that is permitted by copyright. In addition, this material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Acknowledgment of Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries as a source is required.
Additional research information
The collection is housed in Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries. Please direct reference and research inquiries to libsca@vcu.edu or call (804) 828-1108.
Research posters created by VCU Health Humanities Lab student fellows are accessible via the East Marshall Street Well Project Symposium Posters collection.
Background documents about the East Marshall Street Well Project are also available from the VCU Office of the President Documents collection.
Credits
The East Marshall Street Well Oral History Project was designed and created by postdoctoral fellows Dr. Maggie Unverzagt Goddard and Dr. Daniel Sunshine, postdoctoral advisors and project co-directors Dr. Chris Cynn and Dr. Michael Dickinson in collaboration with and under the supervision of the East Marshall Street Well Project Steering Committee and the Family Representative Council, with special thanks to FRC members Carmen Foster and Stephanie Smith. The project was organized through the Humanities Research Center’s Health Humanities Lab directed by Dr. Chris Cynn.
Community activist Ana Edwards is the primary interviewer, unless otherwise indicated. Audio producers include Dr. Daniel Sunshine, Jada Ross, Ramin Fazeli, Micah White, Michael Carrington, and Dr. Maggie Unverzagt Goddard with essential support from student employees at The Workshop, along with logistical support from Eric Johnson. Dr. Oscar Keyes at The Workshop provided expertise in audio recording through technical consultations and support. Dr. Chioke I’Anson at the Institute for Contemporary Art's VCU Community Media Center also provided guidance on audio production.
Credits for transcriptions and metadata entry, completed by Dr. Daniel Sunshine, Dr. Michael Dickinson, and Health Humanities Lab student fellows, are included for each interview. Digital Initiatives Librarian Irina Rogova, Head of Digital Libraries and Publishing Karen Bjork, and Maggie Unverzagt Goddard created the metadata categories, which document who completed metadata entry for each interview. Maggie Unverzagt Goddard established connections with campus partners like The Workshop and Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries and designed project workflow. Daniel Sunshine coordinated scheduling recording, drafting interview outlines, supervising student employees, digitization, quality control, and project management.
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Interview with Carmen Foster Part 1
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Dr. Carmen Foster, who serves on the Family Representative Council. They discussed Dr. Foster's deep family history in Richmond, and how she got involved in the East Marshall Street Well Project. This is part one of a two part interview.
In this first interview, Dr. Foster discussed her family’s long history as Black medical professionals in Richmond, Virginia. Her father, Francis Merrill Foster, was a dentist known in the community as a storyteller. She also shared family history on the lives of Harriet Taylor and her daughter, Virginia Taylor, exemplary Black midwives in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Woven into this family history are conversations about the gentrification of Black spaces, race relations, and economic opportunity in Richmond through the decades. Next, Dr. Foster discussed joining the East Marshall Street Well Project and the process of community consults. Drawing on her experience as a leadership educator in government and in higher education, Dr. Foster concluded by reflecting on the novel success of the Family Representative Council, but also some of the challenges that accompanied this trailblazing project. The conversation continues in Dr. Foster’s second interview. -
Interview with Carmen Foster Part 2
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Dr. Carmen Foster, who serves on the Family Representative Council. This is the second and final interview with Dr. Foster. In this interview, Dr. Foster reflected on the organizational challenges of the East Marshall Street Well Project, but also the opportunties for tying this reparative work into a larger vision for Black public history in Richmond.
In this second interview, Dr. Foster returns to finish her discussion with Ana Edwards about the East Marshall Street Well Project’s goals and broader implications. This wide-ranging conversation was built on several core themes: organizational challenges within the EMSW Project, building community support, VCU’s opportunity to reimagine public history in Richmond, and spiritual healing. Throughout, Dr. Foster reiterated that the FRC are volunteers providing a community vision for the EMSW Project, but that VCU must supply the leadership for realizing that vision. Her hope is that the EMSW Project can align with Project Gabriel and the city’s plans to redevelop the historical landscape of Shockoe Bottom to tell a comprehensive history of race in Richmond. -
Interview with Jennifer Early
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Daniel Sunshine, a VCU postdoctoral fellow and public historian, interviewed Dr. Jennifer Early, who serves on the Family Representative Council. In this interview, Dr. Early discussed how her career in nursing and community health led her to join the Family Representative Council. She discussed her role as the only white member of that body, leveraging her expertise on the research committee and deferring to her co-members on burial and memorialization. With her background in health administration and project management, Dr. Early reflected on the structural challenges of reparative community work and how to overcome them. She closed by outlining her hopes for the future of the East Marshall Street Well Project.
This interview begins with a discussion of Dr. Early’s career in nursing and as a community health case manager. These experiences motivated her to confront larger organizational challenges around community health and community-engaged research, which led her to earn a doctorate in health administration. During that time, she joined the Family Representative Council of the East Marshall Street Well Project. She reflected on her unique role as the only white “family member” of that body, and explained her strengths and the moments when she purposely defers to African American “family members.” She recalled her experience on the Research Committee considering the ethics of genetic testing on the ancestral remains, as well as her role in the 2019 return of Well remains from the Smithsonian. Dr. Early also voiced her disappointment in the City of Richmond for failing to create a unified public history landscape around the legacies of slavery. She concluded by discussing the organizational challenges faced by the project and potential remedies. Finally, she imagined what success would look like for the East Marshall Street Well Project. -
Interview with Jodi Koste
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Jodi Koste, who recently retired from VCU as the University Archivist. In this interview, Ms. Koste discussed her memory of the discovery of the East Marshall Street Well in 1994, her role in advising VCU administrators about the institution's history, and her vision for how the East Marshall Street Well Project can be memorialized and taught at VCU.
In this interview, Ms. Koste sat with Ana Edwards to discuss her experience with the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ms. Koste is one of the only people affiliated with the EMSW Project who was actually present during the discovery of the well in 1994. She reflected on the creation of the East Marshall Street Well Project in 2013, and the formation of the Family Representative Council. Ms. Koste also recounted providing historical context for the Cold War-era atomic radiation program and the Confederate memorial removal process. The interview concludes with a conversation about what a successful endpoint for the East Marshall Street Well Project would look like, as well how VCU’s attitude towards its institutional history has shifted over the decades. -
Interview with Joe Jones
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Dr. Joseph Jones, a member and former chair of the Family Representative Council (FRC) of the East Marshall Street Well Project.
Dr. Jones was the inaugural chair of the FRC Council. He shared his experience leading that body through a phase of education and then deliberation while drafting their recommendations. He also spoke about the innovation of community-engaged research in anthropology, and how it resonates with students. Dr. Jones relayed how his skeletal research with the ancestral remains at William & Mary has revealed new findings, as well as provided an opportunity to mentor the next generation of African American scholars. He discussed his experiences with public outreach through various grants to help fulfill the FRC vision of memorialization. He closed with a reflection of gratitude for being able to participate in the work of the East Marshall Street Well Project. -
Interview with Kevin Allison
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Dr. Kevin Allison,a professor and the current chair of the Department of Psychology at VCU, who served as Senior Assistant in the Office of the President from 2011 to 2018, where he oversaw the early administration of the East Marshall Street Well Project, the formation of the Family Representative Council (FRC), and the implementation of the FRC’s recommendations.
In this interview, Dr. Allison discussed his engagement with the East Marshall Street Well Project within the Office of the President and after his departure in 2018. He explored his initial introduction to the Well’s history and the early creation of committees to guide the project’s direction. Noting an emphasis on community involvement, Dr. Allison commented on the relationship between VCU and the community, with a particular focus on several collaborative events. Working closely to facilitate the continuation of the project, Dr. Allison discussed the FRC’s discovery process, the sharing of the final recommendations for the project, and the implementation of those recommendations. The discussion concluded with Dr. Allison’s reflections on the project’s progress after his departure, as well as the personal impact of working with the East Marshall Street Well Project community. -
Interview with Rhonda Keyes Pleasants
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Rhonda Keyes Pleasants, a a mortician and funeral home director who was the second person to serve as Chair of the Family Representative Council.
Ms. Keyes Pleasants described her life’s work as advocating for the dignity of the dead. That ethos led her to serve on the Family Representative Council, and eventually, to become its second chair. She recounted evaluating Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground and Evergreen Cemetery as potential burial sites before the Kontos Building plaza was chosen. Throughout the interview, Ms. Keyes Pleasants expressed her personal pain, weariness, and frustration that VCU has not made more progress towards burying the ancestral remains. She believes that too much emphasis has been placed on scientific research at the expense of burial. Most of all, Ms. Keyes Pleasants expressed concern that VCU will cite financial burdens as the reason why it cannot fulfill promises made to the Family Representative Council. -
Interview with Stephanie Smith
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Stephanie Smith, who serves on the Family Representative Council. In this interview, Ms. Smith discussed her deep roots in Richmond’s Black community and reflected on her extensive involvement in the project from its inception. She also discussed the project’s progress, her vision for its future, and the legacy of VCU.
In this session, Ms. Smith sits with interviewer Ana Edwards to discuss her experience as a part of the Family Representative Council member. Emphasizing her strong ties to Richmond, she reflects on her upbringing in the mid 20th century (00:00:41), her experience as a patient in the healthcare system, and her experiences with racism and classism at school and in the broader community (00:14:39). Noting the complex history of the Well, she walks through the FRC’s research of the Well’s history and adjacent examples of memorializing uncovered remains (00:25:59). From this process of discovery, she revisits the recommendations made for future research with DNA taken from the people whose remains were uncovered and her vision for creating a memorial for the ancestors (00:38:52). Smith elaborates on her future expectations for the FRC as a group, the legacy of VCU and its responsibility, and the need for institutional policies to be implemented (00:46:07). The interview ends with Smith noting the status of the EMSW Project’s implemented recommendations and the plan for internment of the remains (01:14:40). -
Interview with Tamela Brandenberg
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Olivia Washington, a junior who has worked as a fellow on the East Marshall Street Well Oral History and Memorialization Project, interviewed Tamela Brandenberg, IT Project Manager at Houston Methodist Hospital who became involved in the East Marshall Street Well Project as a first-year student in VCU’s Masters of Health Administration program.
In this interview, Ms. Brandenberg discusses her background, including her transition to Richmond for graduate school and how the Masters of Health Administration program at VCU has shaped her view of the East Marshall Street Well Project. She reflects on her initial reactions to learning about the East Marshall Street Well's history and the complex emotions it evoked, such as sadness and anger. Throughout the discussion, Ms. Brandenberg emphasizes the importance of advocacy, ethics, and patient empowerment in healthcare decision-making. She also reflects on how the project has impacted her perception of VCU and Richmond's history, and highlights the importance of acknowledging and learning from past injustices. As an early student researcher on the East Marshall Street Well Project, she highlights a particularly memorable moment: her time serving as a pallbearer to carry the Well remains from the Smithsonian back to Richmond. Finally, she expresses her hopes that the project will inspire others to recognize the value of supporting similar initiatives and learning from past mistakes to create positive change at VCU and beyond.