RICHMOND, Va. Academy Award-nominated actor Djimon Hounsou did not warm up to the point. Standing in the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia on Friday, he named the event the way a founder names a charge.
"Run Richmond 1619, this cultural sports event that lets us experience over 400 years of Black history," Hounsou said.
The Aug. 28 press conference put the fifth running of Run Richmond 16.19 on the record two weeks before the Sept. 12 start at Abner Clay Park. Shakia Gullette Warren, executive director of the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, hosted the program in the museum. Speakers included Hounsou, Richmond Mayor Danny Avula, professional triathlete Sika Henry, and Black Girls RUN. Max Plank, program and marketing director for the Djimon Hounsou Foundation, made it possible for Virginia Union University students to attend and participate. After the program, those students interviewed Hounsou on the museum floor.
Hounsou framed the race as the public work of his foundation, not a drop-in appearance.
"This foundation is mainly to bring awareness and historical awareness to Afro-descendants," he said. "And so we're championing all of you to come and regardless of your age group, to run or walk it."
That invitation is the course design. Organizers offer a signature 16.19-kilometer run, the distance written to mark 1619, the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in English North America, and a shorter 8K run/walk. Registration is open at https://www.runrichmond1619.org/. The start and finish are at Abner Clay Park, across from the museum in Jackson Ward.
Why Richmond
Hounsou did not treat the city as a convenient venue. He treated it as the argument.
"And we're having this event here in Richmond, Virginia, simply because Richmond and Virginia encapsulates the history of America like no other place, no other states in America," he said. "And so that is the reason it is the cradle of American history. And that is the reason why we have the event here in Richmond."
The Djimon Hounsou Foundation organizes the race with Sports Backers, more than 40 community partners, and the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, where Warren is executive director. In 2026 the event is the official race partner of Black Girls RUN’s Sweat With Your Sole National Conference. A GPS-enabled audio guide narrated by Hounsou plays along the route so the course functions as an outdoor museum: Jackson Ward, the museum itself, and sites tied to the city’s role in the slave trade and the 1619 commemoration.
The VUU desk in the room
Virginia Union students did not only attend. Plank opened that door. Shout-out to Mekhi McGainey, Brayden Kaminski, Jasmine Jones, Joseph Harris, Jebril Thomas, and Rita Johnson, who put Hounsou on the record beside the podium and the BHMVA banner, then gathered for a group photograph in the same gallery. Dean Hollee Freeman’s assistant Valencia Clark was there with them, along with adjunct professor and NBC Channel 12 Richmond lead anchor Jasmine Turner, Dean Hollee Freeman, and Mass Communications professor CJ Nurse. A Mass Communications classroom had moved off campus and onto the museum floor.
That is the campus story inside a city story. VUU sits in Richmond. The museum sits in Jackson Ward. On Sept. 12 the race will run, in public and on foot, the history this university teaches.
Readers who want to run or walk can register at https://www.runrichmond1619.org/. Official signup pricing is scheduled to increase after Aug. 31.
Why this matters: An HBCU newsroom covering its own city is not a side item on a celebrity calendar. VUU students interviewing Hounsou at the museum is how Richmond’s HBCU puts a cultural race, and 400 years of Black history, on the record before the gun goes off.