City Officials Giving Up on Slavery Museum

The City of Fredericksburg doesn't think the national slavery museum's bankruptcy plan is realistic or feasible, which could be a huge strike against former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's project on 36 acres in Celebrate Virginia near Central Park.

The City of Fredericksburg was the first creditor to file a strike against the organization. The museum is trying to reorganize itself back to life, but it would have to raise about $2.2 million in two years for it to succeed.

However, the City of Fredericksburg doubts the museum has the financial support to follow through with that plan and according to the Daily Press, the city's court filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court says the national museum's plan isn't realistic or feasible.

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The national museum came out to great fanfare in 2001, and in 2006 Wilder got actor Bill Cosby to get behind him to pitch for fund raising. C.C. Pei, a New York architect, designed the museum with a replica slave ship in glass that would've been seen from Interstate 95.

Even Cosby couldn't galvanize enough financial backers, and soon it seemed getting $55 million to build it was going to be impossible when the country fell into the Great Recession.

But by 2007, basically only a few statues and a black metal fence had been erected in what is now an overgrown garden at the site. National museum officials had already gotten behind on the city tax bills and tried to get City Council to give them tax-exempt status. But City Council denied the request and the museum has been in a bankruptcy restructuring to halt the city from selling the property. 

A June 27 hearing is scheduled to decide on the restructuring plan, according to WTVR.