East End

The most storied of these neighborhoods is Church Hill, which takes its name from St. John’s Church, where Patrick Henry famously delivered his rallying cry to revolution, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

But before that church was built, before the English set foot in this area, the hill was said to be the birthplace of Wahunsunacock, better known as Powhatan, the last king of the confederacy that ruled Tsenacommacah. The word Powhatan referred to the king, the confederacy, the land where Church Hill now stands, as well as the river which the English renamed James.

Once the English had ravaged the kingdom of Tsenacommacah, driven its tribes apart into confined reservations, and renamed it Virginia, William Byrd II began settling what is now Richmond. It’s said that the view from the top of Church Hill reminded him of his home, the town of Richmond in southwest London, and so he renamed the place in its honor. Byrd’s original street grid plan for Richmond includes much of the East End.

Our namesake, Maggie Lena Walker, was born to an enslaved mother in a Church Hill mansion, and after her long and influential life was buried in the East End Cemetery.

The East End suffered from intense disinvestment in the latter half of the 20th Century. White Flight saw the abandonment of many historic homes, and misguided “urban renewal” efforts destroyed the entire neighborhood of Fulton Bottom. The Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike (later I-95) and I-64 created physical barriers between the East End and adjacent neighborhoods and allowed wealthy car owners to flee to suburbia while keeping their jobs in the city.

But in the 21st Century, the East End began regaining popularity as a charming area with plenty of inexpensive historic homes, which attracted younger, wealthier, white households. This led to the pattern of gentrification and displacement which the Maggie Walker CLT is attempting to disrupt. In 2017, we built our first home there, and its owner became our first homeowner board member.