General Robert E. Lee statue – Page 4

Paul Goodloe McIntire: Goodwill to all men?

The call to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee and to rename the park where it resides has also raised questions about the man who donated them to the city and the time in which he lived.

Paul Goodloe McIntire’s gift of the Lee statue came in 1924, a time when Ku Klux Klan membership was at its peak, says Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy. It was a time when “it was plausible to believe that the values and core beliefs of those in positions of leadership differed from the current leadership,” and he says some residents see the statue as a “psychological tool to show dominance of the majority over the minority” during that time.

Whether that was McIntire’s intention is not found in the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society files, although he did invite the Confederate Veterans, Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to plan the statue’s unveiling.

What is well-documented is that aside from Thomas Jefferson and his university, McIntire is the biggest benefactor this city has ever known. McIntire Park, McIntire School of Commerce and McIntire Amphitheatre at UVA—those are just the tip of his donation iceberg. He gave the city its first library, now the home of the historical society, and its first park—the now controversially named Lee Park.

One of the four parks he donated to the city was Washington Park, named for Booker T. Washington, “for use as a playground for the colored citizens of Charlottesville,” according to the 1926 deed.

At the same time, he donated 92 acres for McIntire Park, which was for whites only, and a newspaper headline read, “One for White and One for Colored,” suggesting that McIntire was attempting to strike some sort of balance, according to “The History of Washington Park” on the city’s website.

McIntire’s own history is entwined with Charlottesville’s. Born in 1860, he grew up in a house on East High Street where the now-chopped-down Tarleton oak grew. His father, George Malcolm McIntire, was the mayor who surrendered the city to General George Custer’s approaching Union troops, and some have speculated that his son’s gift of Lee Park in honor of his parents was to help assuage that painful memory.

The young McIntire studied for one session at the University of Virginia, and left because “he had to make a living,” according to a document from Albemarle County Schools’ Paul McIntire Day in 1942.

After a two-year stint working at the C&O Railway station, young McIntire headed to Chicago to work for a coffee and tea company. While there, he began to study and invest in the stock market, for which he apparently had a knack. He held seats on both the Chicago and New York exchanges, and he retired in 1918 and returned to Charlottesville to share the wealth.

UVA was a huge beneficiary, and gained a school of fine arts along with the commerce school, an orthopedic wing in the hospital and funding for psychiatry and cancer. Alderman Library received his collection of rare books, and the Museum of Fine Arts got 478 of his objets d’art, according to James Collier Marshall’s inventory of McIntire’s gifts in 1958.

Albemarle County schools also benefited from McIntire’s largesse. His first $5,000 was for maps, because he was shocked to discover that students didn’t have them.

Along with the Lee statue, McIntire donated sculptures of Lewis and Clark, George Rogers Clark and Stonewall Jackson, the latter of which is considered one of the finest equestrian statues in the country. McIntire’s favorite mount served as the model for Jackson’s horse, Little Sorrel. The donations were part of the early 20th century’s City Beautiful Movement, which attempted to create attractive and well-designed public spaces.

In 1975, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce named its highest award for citizens who make outstanding contributions to the community the Paul Goodloe McIntire Citizenship Award. Delegate Mitch Van Yahres was the first recipient; Marcus Martin UVA vice president and chief officer for diversity, is the most recent. In establishing the award, the chamber noted that McIntire’s “goodwill set a standard of service” for the community, says director Tim Hulbert.

The Battle of Lee Park: Lines drawn over General Lee

This article is part of a three-part story on the battle over the General Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park.

When Tony Horwitz wrote his 1998 classic, Confederates in the Attic, he subtitled it Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. Flash forward 18 years, and the legacy of the Civil War is still being debated as Charlottesville grapples with whether a statue of the 19th century commander of the Army of Northern Virginia belongs in a 21st century city park.

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy led the charge to send General Robert E. Lee packing March 22 at a press conference in Lee Park, the name of which he also wants changed. He circulated the petition of Charlottesville High ninth-grader Zyahna Bryant, who wrote, “When I think of Robert E. Lee I instantly think of someone fighting in favor of slavery.” He was joined in signing the petition by fellow councilor Kristin Szakos.

The event also drew those who don’t support removing the statue, most obviously the ones carrying the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. But others who weren’t waving flags question the push to move Lee.

At press time, Bryant’s petition had 676 signatures. A petition was started to add a statue of civil rights activist Julian Bond to the park, and that one had 517 signatures. And out of 231 comments on C-VILLE Weekly’s Facebook page, 145 favor keeping the statue, while 50 say it should go. That tally is unscientific, but it does show that 150 years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the issue deeply divides us today.

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy led the charge to remove the Lee statue, saying it would make the park more inclusive. Photo Ézé Amos

Bellamy says the reaction he’s gotten has been “overwhelmingly, extremely supportive,” with people thanking him for his courage.

For him, the issue first came up in 2013 when some residents expressed disappointment that he held a campaign event in Lee Park, where they said “things had happened to their grandparents” and where they would never set foot.

Bryant’s petition and Governor Terry McAuliffe’s March 10 veto of a bill that would have prevented the removal of war monuments made the timing seem right. “We felt this was something we should move forward,” says Bellamy.

He believes getting rid of the statue would do a lot for people psychologically and show Charlottesville is an inclusive city. “Just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean we should continue to honor it,” he says.

Four years ago, Szakos suggested the then-shocking notion that maybe it was time to get rid of the city’s Confederate monuments. This time around, she says, “The legal environment is now different and we can remove them.”

The year the Lee statue was unveiled —1924—was also the year Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, which strengthened Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage, she points out. Lynching was rampant, and statues of Confederates such as Lee “were part of an effort to remember the Lost Cause, to restore the past glory days of white Southerners,” says Szakos. “That is not what we stand for as a city.”

Those guys in white robes at the 1924 dedication of the General Lee statue? Not the Klan, according to the historical society, but the Richmond Light Infantry Blues, a Virginia state militia. Photo Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society — Those guys in white robes at the 1924 dedication of the General Lee statue? Not the Klan, according to the historical society, but the Richmond Light Infantry Blues, a Virginia state militia. Photo Norris Collection, C’ville Images

She also notes that Lee is not a Charlottesville native, nor is there any record of him ever being here. “This is not about whether Lee was a good man,” she says. His statue is a symbol that is “continuously hurting our neighbors.”

To those who say the issue is dividing the community, Szakos responds, “I don’t think this is creating divisiveness. It’s exposing divisiveness.”

Mike Farruggio, who ran for City Council in 2013, is offended by the rush to action in a city where everything else “is discussed and discussed and discussed.” Says Farruggio, “I think it’s very disrespectful and at the very least it could be put to a referendum.”

He’d like to see a plaque acknowledging the park’s history—that “Paul McIntire gave it for white people,” he says—while addressing the concerns of people in 2016.

Civil rights activist Eugene Williams, who headed the local NAACP in the 1950s, wants more commemoration of the city’s dark past, such as the slave auction at Court Square. Says Williams, “Both the slave auction block and General Robert E. Lee are history. I think City Council should be ashamed showing discrimination in dealing with history.”

UVA professor Ervin Jordan is a Civil War historian who’s written three books, including Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia. He’s also one of the few African-Americans in the country who specialize in Civil War history.

As a historian, Jordan says he’s not in favor of removing the statues. “Civilization should be constructive rather than destructive,” he says. “Charlottesville has enough space to erect new statues.”

He points to another consideration: “It costs a heck of a lot of money to move a statue. That Lee statue is pretty solid.” He estimates Charlottesville could spend several hundred thousand dollars to take it down, as well as spend money fighting lawsuits that he predicts Confederate groups will file.

The issue of how to handle distasteful symbols of the past “has troubled us for a long time,” says historian Ed Ayers, former University of Richmond president and former UVA dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Academics and historians agree: more history, not less.”

Interpreting the statues is not a substitute for having a conversation about them, he says. “We have to have an honest reckoning with what these statues are and where they come from.”

Those who defend them purely on the grounds of history don’t go far enough, he says. “All the history around us is constantly being revised,” and the Lee statue was put up four generations after the event it memorializes. “These statues were put up through a political process, and they’ll come down from a political process.”

The good news? “It’s a sign of civic health we’re having these debates,” says Ayers. “It’s what we’d expect a democracy to do, to wrestle with these topics.”

Correction: Mayor Mike Signer did not sign Bryant’s petition as originally reported.