VCU said it is moving to build a memorial and burial site after decades of study and public attention renewed interest in human remains recovered from a well on its medical campus. The university’s board of visitors approved funding for what VCU calls the East Marshall Street Well Project, which is aimed at returning the remains to a permanent burial and memorial on school property. VCU said the work is expected to start in summer 2027, and it is budgeting $3.6 million for the effort.
In its account of the project, VCU President Michael Rao framed the memorial as a response to a long-ago wrong, saying the university “initiated this journey” after recognizing “a profound obligation to restore the human dignity of the people who were not afforded respect in their physical existence.” VCU said the project’s mission is to honor lives with “permanence and reverence,” and the university linked the new work to historical practices surrounding medical training.
VCU said construction will follow a design that includes a circular memorial and a “unity chamber” inspired by Toguna structures of Dogon culture in West Africa. The project team said the design is intended to encourage “humility and thoughtful discussion” by using a low roof that facilitates seated reflection, with Stephen Davenport, VCU’s assistant vice president for social and economic development and the administrative lead for the project, describing the concept.
The university’s plans trace back to a discovery in 1994 during construction of the Kontos Medical Sciences Building on the VCU medical center campus. Workers found a brick-lined well containing human bones, along with materials that researchers said included hair and skin and remnants such as leather shoes and glass bottles. VCU said researchers later relied on Medical College of Virginia archival records in concluding that the remains were likely dumped in the well between the 1840s and 1860s.
VCU said researchers who examined the remains soon after the discovery found signs consistent with medical dissection and surgical training. In a paper published this year, VCU researchers wrote that a “preliminary anthropological analysis” showed postmortem signs of dissection and amputation consistent with anatomical training and surgical practice. The researchers said the constant demand for cadavers contributed to “routine grave robbing practices,” with targeting of African American burial grounds to supply the medical school.
VCU said the original recovery occurred when archaeologists had only a short time to examine the burial site after the bones were discovered. The university said construction continued after the remains were removed by backhoes and sent to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and initial analysis estimated that the well contained at least 44 adults and nine children. VCU said interest later revived in 2011 after the release of a film by a VCU professor and a separate report by two forensic anthropologists.
VCU said DNA testing results released in February identified at least 43 distinct adults and three juveniles of “predominantly African heritage,” most likely from Central-West Africa. The university said several sets of remains also showed traces of European ancestry, and it reported that skeletal analysis provided insight into heavy labor in these individuals’ lives and “the disregard for their bodies after death,” according to the study.
VCU’s announcement also tied the project to a wider history of using bodies of people of African descent for medical research in Europe and the United States, often without the expressed permission or knowledge of descendants. In that context, VCU cited a 2024 burial in Philadelphia of remains of 19 Black Philadelphians kept for research, and it also referenced another Pennsylvania case involving remains from victims of a 1985 police bombing of headquarters for a Black liberation group, where lawyers said city officials had assured families that all remains collected were turned over.
As the university moves toward the memorial and burial site, the East Marshall Street Well Project represents an attempt to convert recovered evidence and long-delayed analysis into a public, dedicated place for remembrance, burial, and reflection—built on a timeline VCU says will begin with construction next year.