Talk about a missed opportunity to put Richmond in the spotlight.

We are talking about the celebration next week of the liberation of our city from the grip of slave power and the human oppression that was taken for granted since the nation’s founding.

This should be a huge event. After all, Richmond was at the epicenter of a dramatic struggle for the soul of America.

For four terrible years, the question of whether a flawed democratic nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal was debated in blood and cannon fire.

Foes of that proposition roared defiance from Richmond and waged a rebellion that sought to make slavery the lynchpin of a new nation built on white supremacy and the labor of men, women and children kept in perpetual bondage.

But on April 3, 1865, that defiance ended as mostly black American troops bearing the flag of freedom entered this city, took control and quelled the fires that the retreating army of slavery supporters created.

Suddenly, the bustling slave auctions were shut down. Suddenly, people could no longer be stripped naked and auctioned for the highest price. Suddenly, people could not be arrested for learning to read. Suddenly, the once mighty oppressors could be held accountable for whipping and beating and killing the oppressed.

Suddenly, the future of African-Americans in this country took a sharp 180-degree turn.

The political, social and cultural upheaval the Civil War unleashed is now more visible, though the struggle continues to force this city, this state and this nation to live up to the promises of its founding.

That is why we are focusing on this great moment in time in a three-part series, the first installment of which appears on A5 and in providing a schedule of events that appears on B8.

Still, you might think our city and our state would want to go all out to mark the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Richmond to the forces of liberty — a capstone of that great, horrible war.

You would think there would be some buzz in the community, some anticipation, some level of interest among the populace — fueled by a marketing campaign to alert everyone.

Alas no.

Oh, there will be various programs and even a wonderful parade of re-enactors of the U.S. Colored Troops who liberated this city and all those being held as slaves.

But it will all be minor league, attracting maybe a few thousand, and then quickly over — a typical Richmond yawn to a grand milestone moment in the history of our city, our state and our nation.

For our mayor and our City Council, the big events this year for Richmond involve the arrival of a brewery and an international bike race coming in September.

How could the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s climactic moment compare with that?

This is the kind of event to which you invite national and international figures.

This is the kind of event where you blow off fireworks and celebrate in high style with parades, with art, with great concerts of music and dance.

This is the kind of event that is taught to our children in our public schools. This is the kind of event for which social media was designed.

We saw what happens when people in leadership understand the importance of history just a few weeks ago in Selma, Ala.

We watched in awe as President Obama led congressmen and tens of thousands of ordinary people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of a major battle for voting rights. And we listened in awe to his moving remarks that were broadcast to the world — imprinting Selma in the minds of untold millions.

But the president will not be coming here to talk about his idol, the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, and his impact on our world today. Nor will any world figures of any stripe or color.

Our Civil War events are considered so unimportant that our City Council could not be bothered even to pass a resolution of support. The commemoration is regarded as so unimportant that Mayor Jones didn’t even mention it in his latest “Building the Best Richmond” newsletter.

The events are considered so unimportant that even the state’s tourism promotion website left them off this week’s list of upcoming Civil War events around the state that might interest visitors.

It is hardly surprising that people can be expected to be far more focused on Easter than on remembering a day so long ago, even if it is one of the greatest moments in the history of our city and our country — a turning point when the arc of moral justice bent toward justice.

Our prediction is that all of the planned activities for this Civil War moment will hardly bestir as much interest as the annual Easter on Parade that will take place Sunday, April 5, on Monument Avenue.

Sadly, we are too often a place of small plans. And as Richmond great Maggie L. Walker and many others have advised, “Make no small plans, for they have no power to stir the soul.”