Month Archives: June 2021

African History

How A Black Freed Woman Mary Jane Inherited The Properties of Robert Lumpkin Including The Devil’s Half Acre Jail House

1867 in Richmond, a Baptist minister, Nathaniel Colver was looking for an empty land where he could build a school for training Black ministers.  After long walks through the streets, he met amongst a group of Black people, a fair-faced freed woman who almost looked like a white woman, Mary Jane Lumpkin, who said she had a place that will serve as a school, according to the school history as written by Reverend Charles H. Corey.  Mary Lumpkin was the widow of...