FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) - The city of Fredericksburg is moving forward with an effort to reframe how a slave auction block on a busy downtown corner is represented.
A violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last summer rekindled a longstanding debate over the block.
Since then, the City Council voted to preserve it in place. The Free Lance-Star reports the city also hired the nonprofit group International Coalition of Sites of Conscience to help reach a consensus about telling a more complete history about the block and Fredericksburg itself.
The nonprofit recently held community input sessions and more are scheduled.
Marcie Catlett is the city school system's assistant superintendent. She said at one of the sessions that the site shouldn't be "pleasant" and that visitors need to realize slaves had been put in chains, whipped and separated from their families.
