Liberty or death rang out here
St. John's Church on Church Hill is where Patrick Henry demanded liberty or death in March 1775 — though nobody wrote the speech down at the time, and the famous words were reconstructed decades later by a biographer interviewing men who had been in the pews. Richmond straddles the James River at the fall line, where the Piedmont drops to the coastal plain and Class IV rapids run right through downtown, the only city in America where that is true. It served as the capital of the Confederacy and has spent decades reckoning with what that means, most visibly along Monument Avenue. The arts districts in the Fan and Scott's Addition, a nationally recognized brewing scene, and a wall of public murals make it one of the South's most compelling mid-size cities.
