Shockoe Institute explores enduring impact of slavery and how to expand freedom today

By — Amna Nawaz Amna Nawaz By — Anne Azzi Davenport Anne Azzi Davenport By — Hunter Bonaparte Hunter Bonaparte By — Jiaya Echevarria Jiaya Echevarria Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shockoe-institute-explores-enduring-impact-of-slavery-and-how-to-expand-freedom-today Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio The Shockoe Institute in Richmond, Virginia, opened its doors this spring to try to open minds about the enduring impact of enslavement and how to seek solutions to improve civic life now. Amna Nawaz has a look at the effort for our Art in Action series, exploring how art and democracy shape one another, as part of our CANVAS coverage. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Amna Nawaz: The Shockoe Institute in Richmond, Virginia, opened its doors this spring to try to open minds about the enduring impact of enslavement and how to seek solutions to improve civic life now. I took a look at the effort for our series Art in Action at the intersection of arts and democracy, part of our Canvas coverage. A Tuesday summer afternoon and another student tour through American history. Woman: So I never use the term slave. What term do I use, those of you who know me? A what? An enslaved person. Amna Nawaz: Like other institutions, this one tells the story of America's system of slavery. But 17-year-old Alana Newton and 14-year-old Tatiana Porter say this exhibit called Expanding Freedom goes further than what they learned in school. Alana Newton, Girls For a Change: You can physically feel how severe and how textbooks taught in school will try to sugarcoat it and lessen the severity. Tatiana Porter, Girls For a Change: Some people are not taking into consideration of what our ancestors did for us. Walking through this exhibit really opened up my mind to different perspectives. Amna Nawaz: That link from the past to the present is central to the Shockoe Institute, located in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy and once the largest trading market for enslaved people in the upper South. Marland Buckner, President and CEO, Shockoe Institute: People are generally unaware of the sheer size of the domestic slave trade. Amna Nawaz: Marland Buckner is president and CEO. Marland Buckner: Nearly one million enslaved Americans were moved from the upper South to the lower South, forcibly removed, in many instances forced to march 1,000 miles. It's 1,000 miles from Richmond to Natchez, 1,000 miles, the equivalent of one 747 jet per week. The first half of the 19th century, is an extraordinary time of deprivation and of tyranny. And that is not a story that many Americans are really conversant in at all. Amna Nawaz: The institute was born of an 11 million dollar grant from the Mellon Foundation. For the record, the foundation is also a funder of the "News Hour." Buckn