“Ago?” (Are you listening?)
“Ame!” (We are.)
At the first TEDxRVA five years ago, Ed Ayers, president of University of Richmond at the time and a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, talked about the monumental but thwarted conspiracy of Gabriel, who strategized to free the enslaved and overthrow Virginia’s government in August 1800 — making the point that more than one history is occurring at one time. Soon after, a female voice from the audience shouted the word “African” after Ayers referred to the Negro Burial Ground in Shockoe Bottom.
I thought it ballsy that someone dared to call out Ayers with her history.
Ago?
Ame!
Ayers finished on the TEDxRVA stage, and up came Bill Martin, director of The Valentine history museum. He made a point of referring to the same woman in the crowd when a rare depiction of an enslaved woman came up on the screen — an 1857 painted portrait of "Aunt Betsy," the nursemaid for the Wickham family of Hanover County, which had recently become part of The Valentine’s collection. After Martin’s talk, I made a beeline for the woman, who was already talking with Martin. He introduced her as an independent historian and someone I needed to know.
Ago?
Ame!
“When [Bill] introduced me to you, it was the first time anyone has introduced me as an independent historian, and I was just so pleased hearing that. It gave me life,“ says that woman in the crowd, Free Egunfemi. She was in her 6 Points Innovation Center (6PIC) office on Sunday, pulling together final details on the first Gabriel Week, a series of free ticketed events marking Gabriel’s birth in 1776 and the plans he made to free the enslaved in August 1800.
Egunfemi and Martin crossed paths before TEDx, at a Valentine Community Conversation about Shockoe Bottom. During that event, she insisted that The Valentine’s moderator stop calling her ancestors "slaves" and instead say "enslaved people." Egunfemi didn’t even know who Martin was when he asked to meet with her after that event. “I enjoy people who bring different perspectives to a conversation. That’s Free,” Martin says.
They began having regular meetings over tea — a courting ritual of sorts. He learned, as have I, that she was a fourth-generation spiritualist and a vegan chef who had been involved with commemorations at the African Burial Ground for years. She shared that she wanted to stand on the shoulders of her ancestors, tell their stories and make them her life’s work.
In between, she went through The Valentine’s tour guide training program and led tours, including one in Highland Park, where her office is now located and where some of Gabriel Week will take place.
Free Egunfemi, founder of Untold RVA, learns her venture has won funding from Feast RVA. (Photo courtesy Free Egunfemi)
Martin and Egunfemi continued to meet as she developed the idea for her business concept, Untold RVA. Martin introduced her to Josh Epperson of Feast RVA, and by January 2014, she presented at the community crowdfunding dinner with an assist from longtime friend Enjoli Moon and won the $1,500 grant to launch her start-up.
Her goals included being a voice for commemorative justice — making sure the stories that have been hidden or downplayed finally receive their due — and to be an African-American voice at the region’s planning tables for events like TEDxRVA. “There weren’t enough black people in the room. It was really skewing the conversation to be really truncated,“ Egunfemi says. “People didn't get to hear the fullness of the creative community. ... We are not a monolith. ... I wanted to get some my peer group who aren’t institutionally connected, but [who are] independently creative, in the room.”
Since then, Untold RVA has developed history-focused outdoor art around the city, including a wheatpaste mural series that includes a phone number interested individuals can call for recorded information about moments in history. She has educated youth about public history and art at 6PIC, organized the 6PIC Kwanzaa Festival and Emancipation Day events, led tours and given talks for numerous groups, and consulted with Preservation Virginia. She’s also been featured in a short PBS documentary. Next year, she'll travel to Ghana for the Chale Wote Street Art Festival, where she was awarded a grant to install an interactive wheatpaste series.
Next week’s Gabriel Week is the fruition of partnerships she’s cultivated over a decade, particularly working with Ryan Rinn of Storefront for Community Design, as well as her time spent studying Richmond’s history and following her faith.
"I knew Richmond was not the kind of town where people would easily embrace ancestor communication and public altars unless it was connected to something more neutral and familiar, so I made a plan to combine spiritualism with hidden history," Egunfemi says. "Then, because of my relationship with Ryan Rinn and how he worked with me for five years to fold me into the community design family, I began to incorporate tactical urbanism, place-making and way-finding and all of the engagement techniques that allow people to interact with Untold RVA in the built environment."
“Like Lucy Goode Brooks said, ‘It’s amazing what one woman and her friends can do,’ “ Egunfemi says of her over 50 Gabriel Week partners, whom she describes as her “conspiracy of good people,” a description derived from a graduation speech by journalist Charles Kuralt. Events that run Aug. 27 through Sept. 2 include a history escape room for families at the Library of Virginia, a parade to Gabriel's Freedom Park at 3100 Meadowbridge Road and the showing of the movie "Tobacco Burn" at Browne Studio.
For Egunfemi, the highlight of next week will be when Mayor Levar Stoney reads a proclamation Tuesday evening at The Valentine that will recognize Gabriel Week as an annual event and acknowledge the need for commemorative justice in the city. “For me, it will be like the Rosetta Stone of proclamations.”
Egunfemi revealed details of Gabriel Week in front of a crowd of more than 200 last Friday at the Creative Mornings gathering at the Robinson Theater.
“Ago?” she began.
“Ame!” we answered.
