First, the ongoing discussion pertaining to the Lumpkin’s Jail site and the nearby graveyards, beneath a parking lot now used by Virginia Commonwealth University. The Richmond Slave Trail Commission favors this location for a museum about the tragic and lengthy history of slavery here. 

At 11 a.m. this morning, a press conference called by the commission was scheduled but was canceled without explanation. Maybe something came up with the General Assembly that former City Council member and current House of Delegates member Delores L. McQuinn had to address? Or maybe everybody was sent running for cover with the incendiary invective tossed into this debate by none other than Sa’ad El-Amin.

If you’re reading this as a relative newcomer to Richmond, the name probably doesn’t mean much to you, but if you’ve been around long as I have, it’s like getting revisited by yesterday’s too-spicy lunch. It’s 2010, and the new decade seems afflicted by a woozy hangover from the good-old, bad-old days of the late 1990s and early Aughts.

El-Amin was one of our more tempestuous Council members, who in 2003 ended up sentenced to federal prison. But he’s back and in fine form.

There was slavery, then the war to end it, and Richmond is a major hub for the study of both. Yesterday, the Board and staff of the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar and the Richmond National Battlefield Park, operated by the National Park Service (NPS), announced the union of their visitors and retail sections.

“This site will serve as the region’s 'Gateway to the Civil War,' ” the center’s press release explained. It’ll offer visitors a one-stop-shop. “Visitors can gather information about the region’s battlefields, experience In the Cause of Liberty, the Center’s flagship exhibit, or discover what Richmond’s role was during the war in the NPS exhibit space.

"The new visitor-information area will be located on the ground level of the Pattern Building and is slated to open in October 2010, just in time to welcome visitors for the 150th commemoration of the Civil War.”

The two entities have shared the 8.3-acre landmarked site along the James River since 2006. The long-overdue joining-together will give tourists a far more convenient and accessible entry into the city’s Civil War story.

As is typical with Richmond, we take a step forward, just to take one back.