Marland E. Buckner will lead the “interpretive center project,” funded by the $11 million investment from the Mellon Foundation, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced this week.

The $11 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, announced last December, is part of its Monuments Project. The grant will fund the creation of an “interpretive center” in 12,300 square feet of space in the lower Trainshed of Main Street Station. The interpretive center will be used to orient visitors to Shockoe Bottom, provide informative and immersive educational and artistic content about Richmond’s role in the domestic trade of enslaved people. Within the facility will be a high-tech immersive experience that may contain audio, video, augmented reality, exhibitions, public programs and tech-guided tours will be created.

The interpretive center will be in the heart of Shockoe, the oldest part of the City of Richmond. Shockoe was the center of the Powhatan Confederacy prior to the arrival of the British in 1607 and by the mid-1840, it was one of the largest centers of domestic trade in enslaved Africans.

Mr. Buckner currently serves on the boards of the Valentine Museum, Bridging Virginia, and the Reinvestment Fund, one of the nation’s largest Community Development Financial Institutions. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

A Richmond resident, he serves as co-founder and principal of MB2 Solutions LLC, a global strategic consulting firm founded in 2008.

Mr. Buckner was named the interim executive director of Richmond’s Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia in Richmond after the death of Adele C. Johnson in April 2021. The Free Press reported that Mr. Buckner stepped down from that role in June 2022.