A long lost Black Richmond cemetery that has an interstate highway and railroad tracks running through it is about to gain designation as a state and federal historic site.

On Thursday, March 17, the state Board of Historic Resources and the State Review Board are expected to cap a nearly two- year process and approve the inclusion of the 31-acre Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground on state and federal registers of historic sites.

Elected federal, state and local officials have all endorsed the historic designation for the cemetery that operated from 1816 to 1879. The City of Richmond has reacquired a small piece of the burial ground, bounded by 5th, 7th and Hospital streets, that was long used as an auto shop.

The designation would crown the efforts of Lenora McQueen, a Texas woman who championed the cemetery and pushed for full recognition of what may be the nation’s largest public cemetery for Black people. Her efforts generated support from professors, national and local preservation groups, as well as Mayor Levar M. Stoney and Richmond City Council.

But Ms. McQueen sees this victory as marred by what she calls the “continued desecration” of the site where she has relatives buried.

In the past two weeks, Ms. McQueen noted that a company called Segra, a technology firm that connects private and public operations to its high-speed internet connections, has trenched a new line through the cemetery.

Ms. Queen said the company gained permission from City Hall and rail giant CSX, which owns the tracks and land adjacent to it. That land was once part of the cemetery and is included in the area to be designated historic.

She has appealed to Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome E. Sears and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares to help protect the last resting place of 22,000 people, given that the historic designation does not prevent new development on the site.

She noted that after the cemetery closed in the late 1800s, it “was purposely made to disappear from the visible landscape and be almost completely erased from memory” as city officials divided up the land and disposed of it for a variety of projects.

“As a person with ancestors buried in the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, I cannot condone construction or activities of any kind that would desecrate their final rising place.”

She urged the three top state officials to put protocols in place to require notification of interested parties, most notably the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, when work is planned to ensure a proper evaluation is undertaken before the work is authorized, along with requiring full remediation.

The emphasis, however, should be on avoidance because it is a burial ground, she stated. She urged the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general to use their authority to provide attention and protec- tion for the cemetery that is “not only a place of local importance, but of state and national significance as well.”

She said she has not received a response to her request.