Run Richmond 16.19 takes place Saturday, Sept. 17, passing through historic sites across the city.
In 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown.
That event was part of the intercontinental exploitation of people, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and it will be commemorated here in Richmond on Saturday, Sept. 17, through Run Richmond 16.19.
“This event tries to do two things,” says Max Plank, program and marketing director at the Djimon Hounsou Foundation, a partner in staging the race. “To celebrate unity and diversity, because we feel it’s important to show where the power of America lies, and our point of view is the power is diversity.”
Run Richmond 16.19 is being offered as a 16.19-kilometer (10.06-mile) event with a $105 base registration fee and as a 6.19-mile route with a base registration fee of $55. The distances reflect the year that enslaved Africans arrived in North America. Organizers chose Richmond as the site for the race because of the city’s major role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade as a port for buying and selling enslaved people until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
The Run Richmond course will feature locations significant to the history of African Americans in Virginia. Shockoe Bottom, onetime site of a market trafficking in enslaved people, is part of the course, as is the Reconciliation Statue, a monument dedicated in 2007. It’s one of three that were placed in cities that played key roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade; Richmond; Liverpool, England; and Ouidah, today part of Benin in West Africa. The Richmond statue, sculpted by Liverpool artist Stephen Broadbent, depicts two bronze torsos in a close embrace. The torsos emerge from a rectangular base with illustrations of the slave trade, cotton plants and chains with an inscription reading, “Acknowledge and forgive the past, embrace the present and shape a future of reconciliation and justice.”
Other locations along the Run Richmond 16.19 course include Church Hill, Jackson Ward, Monument Avenue, the Freedom Statue and multiple murals.
“You can experience 400 years of Black history by running this event,” Plank says, “an experience we hope leads people of other ethnicities to be more understanding and open to this dialogue of healing and reconciliation that is needed.”
Run Richmond 16.19 is the first running event of the foundation’s Africa Reconnect Series, and Plank says they plan to hold it annually. Through running events in the series, participants can view the historic sites that are significant to African American culture in real time, an experience Plank describes as “cathartic.” Local event partners are Sports Backers, the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, and the city of Richmond. Registration is open through the day of the race.
Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Hounsou is a former model and actor known for his work in films including “Shazam” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.” He created the foundation in 2019 with the purpose to “strengthen Africa’s intergenerational identity and self-awareness” and “combat modern-day slavery and human trafficking,” according to his foundation’s website.
“Overall, the foundation deals with this identity issue and tries to make a reconnection,” Plank says. “It’s a cultural reconnection, as well as a reconnection to culture and history.”
Plank says the foundation seeks to unite people of all ethnicities, and to combat modern-day slavery and human trafficking, two forms of slavery that serve as root causes for the disconnect among cultures and ethnicities.
“We think the knowledge of the past informs a better future for everyone,” Plank says. “Only an open dialogue can lead to healing and bring people together.”
