Tag: Jalane Schmidt

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City responds to weekend tiki torch rally

White nationalists held another tiki torch rally in Emancipation Park on October 7. Photo by Jalane Schmidt

“The so called ‘alt-right’ believes intimidation and intolerance will stop us from our work,” says Mayor Mike Signer in an October 8 press release after about 40 white supremacists held another torch-lit rally in Emancipation Park. “They could not be more wrong. We must marshal all our resources, legal and otherwise, to protect our public and support our values of inclusion and diversity in the future.”

Richard Spencer. Photo: Jalane Schmidt

Police say the rally, led by UVA alumni Richard Spencer, started around 7:40pm October 7, lasted approximately 5 to 10 minutes and consisted of about 40 to 50 people—most wearing what’s become the uniform of white nationalists, khakis and white polos.

Witnesses identified the Right Stuff host Mike Enoch and Identity Evropa CEO Eli Mosley among the mix.

The white nationalists chanted the same refrain from their May 13 rally, “You will not replace us,” “Jews will not replace us,” and “Russia is our friend,” and they made it clear they’d be back to give the speeches they weren’t allowed to give August 12, says activist Jalane Schmidt. Then they hopped into vans and police say they followed them to make sure they left the city.

Schmidt was walking downtown when she saw the torches and called for backup. The UVA associate professor, who snapped photos of what she calls the “goons,” was one of about 20 activists who then gathered at Congregation Beth Israel in case any alt-right stragglers decided to target the synagogue while its congregation was outside celebrating Sukkot.

“As a city, it’s important that we stand up to and reject every notion of white supremacy, the kind that is both overt and covert,” said Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy in the city’s press release. “As a city council, I firmly believe that my colleagues and I are committed to addressing these issues and showing the community that we hear them.”

Bellamy said he looks forward to hearing from the city’s commonwealth’s attorney’s office about different ways to enforce current laws and ordinances, and how to create “new parameters to stop hate groups from feeling so welcome here.” They’ve also been working with outside counsel on new procedures that would give the city additional authority to control the conditions under which a group can hold a rally or demonstration. Council is scheduled to receive this report October 16.

According to the press release, the city is also discussing how to better equip the police department with the ability to gather intelligence, and the department’s public information officer and the city’s communications director are working to create unified communication protocols.

“This is not business as usual or a classroom exercise where every threatening public utterance or assembly is met with ‘freedom of speech,” says Councilor Bob Fenwick, who  calls the alt-right rally “a clear and present danger to the community.”

“I want to be clear, for all who believe that bigotry, racism, hate and any other form of oppression [are] welcome in our city, you are wrong,” Bellamy said. “The Charlottesville that I love is not defined by white supremacy. Our new Charlottesville stands together for each other.”

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Skeletons in the closet: Historical society displays KKK robes, keeps owners secret

Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society president Steven Meeks points out details in the emblem on a 1920s KKK robe to onlookers Wes Bellamy, Jalane Schmidt and Jane Smith. Photo Eze Amos

 

After several weeks of prodding by a UVA researcher, the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society produced two of the 26 Ku Klux Klan robes in its collection, but its president refused to reveal which of the city’s citizens wore those robes in the 1920s.

The yellowed robes were stretched out in the exhibit hall of the historical society July 6 for a private viewing that included the media, UVA researchers and members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces.

Two of the 26 KKK robes in the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society’s museum collection saw the light of day two days before the Loyal White Knights of the KKK hit Charlottesville. Photo Eze Amos

The robes were discovered in a shed in the eastern part of the city in 1993, according to the historical society. The Klan apparel was stored in a crate and had been exposed to dirt, heat, humidity and wear.

The resident who discovered and donated the robes did not request that his or her identity be concealed, nor did the donor request that the original owners of the robes remain anonymous, says historical society president Steven Meeks.

“Due to the sensitive nature of these artifacts, and in the interest of protecting the privacy of the descendants of both the donors and the original owners of the artifacts, at this time the society is not disclosing the address where the artifacts were found, nor the identity of the donor or the names of the two Klan members associated with this collections,” says Meeks.

Along with the robes was a KKK certificate of knighthood dated June 1, 1926. A facsimile of the certificate was enlarged and the name of the Klansman was redacted.

Meeks did not attempt to contact the donors, he says. He cited the impending visit of the Loyal Knights of the KKK as the reason for protecting the owners and their descendant

That decision caused some concern among the historians and members of the blue ribbon commission present.

UVA Associate Professor Jalane Schmidt, who is researching UVA’s ties to the KKK, which donated $1,000 to Memorial Gym in 1921, says she filed a research request with the historical society in mid-June to view the robes and received no response.

UVA prof Jalane Schmidt compared seeing the robes to going to a funeral, where you know someone died, but there’s still a heaviness in actually seeing the casket. Photo Eze Amos

She believes the robes should be displayed and the owners revealed. “This is not good practice for a historical society,” she says.

John Edwin Mason is a UVA history professor who served on the blue ribbon commission. If the historical society displays the robes, as Meeks suggested it might, to understand them fully, its job would be to interpret the artifacts, says Mason, “You can’t do your job as a historical society without the provenance being attached to the display of this archive. It just can’t be done.”

Mason questioned protecting the identity of owners “who are long since dead.” Knowing who wore the robes “is essential to understanding the role of the Ku Klux Klan in Charlottesville society,” he says.

Meeks did say the wearers of the two robes displayed “were neither one prominent members of the town.”

Steven Meeks. Photo Eze Amos

But a June 28, 1921, Daily Progress article on the newly organized Klan chapter and its inaugural cross-burning at Monticello says the event was attended by “hundreds of Charlottesville’s leading business and professional men.”

And a 1922 Progress story notes that robed and masked Klan members showed up with a floral tribute with three Ks spelled out in white flowers at the funeral of Albemarle Sheriff C.M. Thomas.

“I think [Meeks] is being overly cautious when it comes to the people who at the time were associated with the Klan,” says Mason. He says he’s much less bothered with keeping the names of the donors secret.

But Don Gathers, who chaired the blue ribbon commission, says what the Klan members stood for is “morally wrong,” and the fact that the donors did not request anonymity “raises the question why” Meeks would take that stance.

Doug Day, former executive director of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, says he displayed the robes in 2005 or 2006. “At the time, the provenance was already smudged,” he says. The garments were found in Belmont when someone bought a house there, he adds.

Day says he would have “real reservations” about releasing the names of the owners and donors. “Why expose them? To what end?” he asks. “It’s perfectly in the purview of the historical society to withhold the names.

Attorney and lifelong Charlottesville resident Lewis Martin says Meeks discussed the issue with him. “It wasn’t so much a legal decision as about where we are now,” says Martin. “The historical society didn’t want to expose any descendants” of Klan members, nor discourage anyone who might want to donate artifacts to the organization.

 

 

 

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‘Confederate fabulous:’ Gay and black issues collide at Lee Park

General Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveler, was gaily festooned at the Cville Pride Festival, until someone called police and accused the festival of defacing the statue. Guillermo Ubilla; SCHMIDT: Courtesy subject

As Charlottesville continues to grapple with its Civil War history and the statue of General Robert E. Lee on his trusty steed, for a while at the Cville Pride Festival September 17 in Lee Park, Traveler sported a multicolored boa in a bit of ironic subversion.

Until someone called the police.

“Confederate fabulous is not an option—they de-campified it,” says UVA professor Jalane Schmidt. “I saw Pride as prioritizing queer respectability politics over being an ally with everyone offended by white supremacy.”

Pride did not decorate the statue, but board member Matthew Brown climbed up and removed the boa, and festival organizer Lisa Green says she takes full responsibility for the decision.

“Even though we live in Charlottesville under a bubble, every year someone complains,” says Green. “If someone is going to complain, it’s not going to be because we’re not following the rules. It’s going to be because it’s an LGBT event.”

Green says the decision to remove the boa was difficult and there was a long discussion before it came down. “I made the call because the complainant kept calling,” she says, and she did not want the festival accused of “defacing public property.”

Schmidt notes that at other events, such as the Tom Tom Founders Festival, Traveler was decorated with legwarmers, and no one complained about that.

Tom Tom organizer Paul Beyer says that was done by a “guerrilla” knitting group, and not sanctioned by the festival.

“When groups use that park and they don’t say anything about the name, I see that as acquiescence to white supremacy,” says Schmidt. She cites “intersectionality politics,” and says, “I don’t stop being black when I talk about being gay.”

Schmidt teaches monuments and memory in UVA’s religion department, and she’s been vocal at City Council and Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces meetings.

She refers to Lee Park as “change-the-name park,” and says statues such as Lee and General Stonewall Jackson at Court Square should be removed and relocated, much as Hungary did with sculptures from its Soviet past that have been placed in Monument Park as part of the country’s history that isn’t lauded, but should be remembered “as a cautionary tale. I don’t want to airbrush history like the Kremlin used to do,” when those out of favor with the Communist Party were removed from photos.

At the time of the Civil War, 52 percent of Albemarle and Charlottesville’s population was enslaved, says Schmidt. “If anything, there should be monuments to the enslaved majority and to the Union troops who came to set them free. Over half were slaves. That’s what I think we should remember.”

Many have spoken in favor of keeping the statues and reframing them with plaques to provide more context. “That’s not enough,” says Schmidt. Nor does she subscribe to the idea of building more monuments to honor African-American leaders without removing the Confederate ones. “That’s not acceptable because these central places have already been taken by white folks,” she says. “Any monument to black people will already be peripheral.”

And for those who argue the statues were a gift, she reminds us of grandma’s ugly sweater, disposed of with hilarity at white elephant parties, or wedding rings after divorce. “They were a gift, but they represent an earlier self with which we no longer identify,” she says. “We’ve moved on, and it’s simply not appropriate any longer to wear this gift.”

For Pride organizers, there were no easy answers. Its president, Amy Sarah Marshall, was a speaker at the March rally in support of removing the Lee statue.

“We have had major discussions” on the issue of holding the Pride Festival in Lee Park, says Green. “A lot of people believe being in the middle of town, that’s also making a statement.”

And she says the decision to remove the boa did not reflect her personal views. “It was for the greater good of a nonprofit and we work very hard to be good citizens and community members.”

Both Green and Brown praise the police officers who worked the festival. “The officers were showing solidarity with the festival,” says Brown, who has family members in law enforcement.

He offered to take the boa down because he didn’t like the optics of “an African-American officer on a ladder photographed taking it down.” Personally, he hopes the “statue finds a new home,” he says. “Taking [the boa] down in no way represents approval of the statue and what it represents.”

Schmidt is unlikely to be convinced. She compares groups that use the park like Cville Pride and Tom Tom to “the nice white people during segregation who continued to patronize segregated establishments and didn’t say anything publicly if they objected to it. Your private regrets, expressed sotto voce, do not make you an ally or promote change. It’s time to stand up and be counted, because silence equals consent.”

Clarification September 29: The 54 percent enslaved population at the time of the Civil War includes both Charlottesville and Albemarle County. And Schmidt does favor statues of African American luminaries in place of the Confederate monuments.

Correction September 30: According to the 1860 census, 54 percent of the Charlottesville-Albemarle population was black, 52 percent was enslaved.