Sacred Ground and Civic Memory: The Berglund Center Site Explained

Sacred Ground and Civic Memory: The Berglund Center Site Explained

Why place, history, and obligation matter in Roanoke's casino debate.

By: By a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

Dear Henry, 

Recently, in my note The Cost of the Roads I’ve Traveled, I wrote about Roanoke as a crossroads that has never been fully realized. I have since learned, from reporting by the Roanoke Rambler, that the city is again at a crossroads, and this time it appears poised to make a poor choice.

A casino is being proposed for Roanoke, and among the locations under consideration is the Berglund Center site. Of all the possible options, this one is the most troubling.

The Berglund Center, formerly the Roanoke Civic Center, was constructed in 1971 and sits atop one of many Roanoke neighborhoods cleared during the urban renewal era that began in 1955. Homes, businesses, churches, and lives were removed to accommodate civic construction, Interstate 581, and commercial development. The loss was profound. Still, the structures that replaced those neighborhoods, the interstate and the civic center, were at least public in nature, intended for shared civic use. A casino placed on this site would be something fundamentally different.

A gambling facility is not a neutral form of redevelopment. It introduces a predatory industry into a corridor already shaped by displacement and disruption, without offering the shared civic benefit once used to justify the land’s original sacrifice.

The proposed site also lies directly across Orange Avenue from the First Baptist portion of Old Lick Cemetery. Once part of a much larger burial ground containing more than 1,800 individuals, this historically Black cemetery was deeply scarred by urban renewal and highway construction. In 1961, 961 people, most of whom were unidentified, were disinterred and reinterred in a mass grave at Coyner Springs. The remaining portion of the cemetery was left isolated and largely inaccessible.

Years later, educator and community servant Ellen Forbes Stick noticed the overgrown site from her office in the Booker T. Washington Building. Her investigation uncovered the grave of Henrietta Samples and, in 2019, led to the founding of Friends of Old Lick,  an organization dedicated to preserving and restoring the cemetery. Through that work, it has been documented that many Black founders of Roanoke are buried there, including Reverend J.J. Jefferson and Civil War veteran and formerly enslaved man John W. Leftridge. These individuals bore silent witness to the destruction of their neighborhood. They now bear witness to what may come next.

Across Interstate 581 from the Berglund Center stands the Basilica of Saint Andrew. Completed in 1900, the church was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register in 1971 and to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. In 2023, it was elevated to the status of a minor basilica. Today, it is a Catholic pilgrimage site, housing fourteen relics, including a fragment of the True Cross. Together with the Mill Mountain Star, it forms a symbolic and literal entrance to the city. That a casino would share this skyline is a troubling juxtaposition.

Adjacent to the basilica is Roanoke Catholic School. That a gambling facility would stand within sight of both a house of worship and the children entrusted to that school should give the city serious pause.

Some places carry obligations. Sacred ground, whether marked by burial, worship, or the formation of children, demands a higher standard of care. The memory embedded in this site makes its use for gambling not merely questionable, but inappropriate.

Roanoke has been here before. Its residents have repeatedly been asked to accept harm quietly in the name of progress. This moment presents an opportunity to choose differently, to honor history rather than repeat its mistakes.

xoxo a.d. elliott

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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