
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 27, 1993                   TAG: 9305270225
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BY GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WILDER PLANS U.S. MEMORIAL TO HONOR SLAVES

In the emotional climax of a speech to African heads of state, Gov. Douglas Wilder pledged Wednesday to build a national memorial to the victims of the American slave trade in the place where the first Africans reached New World shores in chains: Jamestown.

The memorial - part museum, part monument - not only would chronicle the horrors of the slave trade but would "serve to instruct and educate Americans of our true heritage and to honor those who helped America establish its place among the nations of the world," Wilder said.

The governor spoke at an African/African-American summit in the nation of Gabon. A spokesman in Richmond said Wilder had discussed his idea with only a few people, and that he envisions a privately financed project on the scale of the new Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C.

Wilder's status as the nation's highest-ranking black elected official would lend "the right credibility, clout and credence to the effort," said Glenn Davidson, Wilder's press secretary.

Davidson said there are no plans for the project to use state money or land from the state-run Jamestown Festival Park, where a museum and village commemorate the 1607 settlement by English profiteers. He would not rule out state aid to the memorial, however.

Davidson said the governor has no particular piece of real estate in mind. "This is still in the preliminary discussion stage," he said.

Members of the board of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, which oversees the festival park, were surprised by Wilder's proposal.

"I have no knowledge of it. This has not been discussed," said state Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax, a member of the board. While he doubted the foundation would be part of a private effort, Gartlan said Africans "certainly were a significant part of the history of that area, and I think it's entirely appropriate in our situation that that be acknowledged and commended."

The first slaves arrived in America at Jamestown about 10 years after the colony was settled.

Wilder said in his speech that he got the idea for the museum last year, after visiting La Maison des Esclaves on Goree Island off the western coast of Africa. Preserved there is the processing station where Africans were gathered for their transition to American bondage.

by CNB