The state’s planning for the emancipation monument is unfolding separately from the city of Richmond’s efforts to re-examine Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, but the MLK commission is working closely with the city to secure legal rights to put the statue on Brown’s Island.

The city has leased the island to the downtown advocacy group Venture Richmond, which has already placed a sculpture at the site of the planned emancipation statue. Venture Richmond has asked the commission to pay up to $80,000 to cover the costs of moving the existing geometric sculpture to a new location. The project’s total estimated budget is $800,000, which is expected to be paid for by a mix of public and private funds. The General Assembly has set aside $500,000 for the monument.

Other selections

In addition to Gabriel and Turner, the other pre-emancipation honorees chosen Wednesday are Mary Elizabeth Bowser, a pro-Union spy who passed secrets from inside the Confederate White House; Dred Scott, a Virginia-born slave who sued for his freedom and sparked the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision that found African-Americans were not citizens in the eyes of the law; and William Harvey Carney, a Norfolk native who was purchased out of slavery and fought in the first black military unit organized in the North.