. >>> joining me now is levar stoney, mayor of richmond, virginia. thank you for joining us, mr. mayor. >> thank you for having me. happy new year. >> happy new year to you as well. you centered on your struggles to keep your city afloat fiscally after covid ravaged it economically for the past year. cities and states are not slated to get a lot of help from this next round of federal covid relief. what does that mean for you as mayor of richmond, your streets, your ability to fight covid locally, in a city that is more than 50% black and latinx? >> reverend al, it puts us in a serious bind. you know, the fact that this current package doesn't have dollars for local governments really puts our local governments at a disadvantage. you've seen since march we've been on the front lines and fighting covid-19, but also on the front lines of also the fight against racial injustice as well. you know, back in march of 2020, i put together a budget base in equity that had major investigates as a sort of equitable policies that will provide for the sort of lifting up of black and brown com

so i have proposed to work with the city of richmond and mayor levar stoney to preserve the site knownthe devil's half-acre, or lumpkin's jail, and the african burial ground nearby. this project will turn this sacred ground into a heritage site that will tell the story of slavery and the people who experienced it. i want to thank delegate delores mcquinn for her advocacy on behalf of this project. north of here, along the potomac river, we will restore gravestones that were taken from columbian harmony cemetery, an historic african american burial ground in d.c. people buried there included one of d.c.'s first black policemen; many black union army veterans; elizabeth keckley, confidante of mary todd lincoln; two sons of abolitionist frederick douglass; and phillip reid, who helped create the statue of freedombo atop the u.s. capitol dome. in the 1960s, the cemeteryue was moved to make way for commercial development. the grave markers were dumped or sold for scrap stone, a dehumanizing act, and that was part of the goal. today, they are being used as riprap rocks to protect erosion on