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Blue Ribbon commissioners identified

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces will meet for their first session June 16. Rammelkamp Foto

Nine members appointed to serve on Mayor Mike Signer’s Blue Ribbon Commission—created to make a recommendation to City Council on how to treat race, memorials and public spaces after a major controversy regarding the General Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park—now have about half a year and $10,000 to make it happen.

“I think the biggest problem will be that a lot of people think there are people who have already made up their minds,” says commission member Frank Dukes, a long-time mediator and UVA faculty member trained in facilitation who founded the University & Community Action for Racial Equity almost a decade ago. “This is going to be a learning process. I think people will join us in that willingness to learn and keep their minds open.”

Three members, Gordon Fields, Rachel Lloyd and Margaret O’Bryant, were appointed to represent the Human Rights Commission, PLACE Design Task Force and Historic Resources Committee, respectively.

Lloyd, a professional preservation planner and historical landscape architect, says different generations may reinterpret their community’s history over time. In fact, the opinion overload regarding Lee’s legacy in town began when a local high school student petitioned to have the Confederate soldier’s memorial removed and his park renamed.

“I doubt any of us are naive enough to think that the process will be easy or that our recommendations, whatever they are, will be universally popular,” Lloyd says.

O’Bryant has been the librarian at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society for over 28 years. She says the group’s final recommendation should be reflective of all aspects of the local community. “I hope we can work effectively and constructively without unnecessary disagreement,” she says.

Jane Smith, who says she was “amazed” to learn she was selected out of the 74 people who applied to be on the commission, is eager to work with the group of “dignified, respectful people” who were also chosen, though she says she doesn’t expect them to agree on everything. Going in with a “clean slate,” Smith, who is a retired graphic designer, says, “I love doing history research and so I’m hoping that I can be of use that way.”

Don Gathers works as the front desk supervisor at the Graduate Hotel, is a member of UVA’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes executive committee and is on the deacon board at the First Baptist Church on West Main Street. Gathers says he applied to be on the commission to serve and hopefully unite the community.

“I think everyone wants basically the same things,” he says. “They want better lives for our children, freedom to come and go as they choose and to not have their rights infringed upon due to someone else’s rights.”

Gathers, a Richmond native, grew up around similar controversies surrounding the city’s historic Monument Avenue, where many Confederate leaders are honored.

“I’ve heard the outcries, I’ve heard the problems, the issues, the complaints, the explanations,” he says. “I think the best thing that we individually and collectively as a commission can do [in Charlottesville] is to listen before we formulate any opinion or take any stance one way or the other.”

But commissioner John Mason, a historian and UVA history professor who is descended on both sides of his family from Virginia slaves, has an idea of where he stands.

“I think my starting point is that the memorials are less about the men who are depicted and more about what they symbolize,” he says. “What they symbolize to me is not what they symbolized to the people who put them up.”

Erected as memorials to the “lost cause,” which Mason describes as the story white southerners told themselves to cope with defeat 30 years after the Civil War, he says, “Psychologically, they wanted to tell themselves about the glory of this lost cause. I think it’s a story of sacrifice, valor and dignity.”

He also notes that the Confederate memorials were built at the height of Jim Crow laws, when “things had never been worse for African-Americans.” Before City Council April 18, Mason said the memorials hide history instead of making it more visible.

Not reached were commission members Fields, Andrea Douglas and Melvin Burruss. All nine will meet for their first session June 16.

Correction: The original article incorrectly stated when the commission would first meet.

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Council split on Lee Park commission

City Council heard from around three dozen people at its marathon five-hour April 18 hearing on the statue of General Robert E. Lee and the forming of a blue ribbon commission on race, memorials and public spaces. Much like the citizens that spoke before them, the councilors found themselves split on how to move forward.

Kristin Szakos and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, who held a press conference March 22 to call for removal of the statue and the renaming of the park, favored assembling the commission and getting an opinion within 60 days. Kathy Galvin and Mayor Mike Signer wanted a slower, broader examination of race in public spaces. And Bob Fenwick, who is often on the losing end of 4-1 votes, was ill and could be the decisive vote on the issue.

Signer called for the blue ribbon commission in March, and said his thinking had evolved after holding two town halls and hearing a majority of African-Americans say they don’t want the Lee statue removed. He proposed a new resolution for the commission to provide council with options for telling the full story of Charlottesville’s history of race relations and for changing the city’s narrative through its public spaces, including augmenting the slave auction block at Court Square, completing the Daughters of Zion cemetery and renaming options for existing structures. “I feel very strongly it needs to be holistic,” he said.

Both Szakos and Bellamy objected to dragging out the process and wanted to tackle the Lee statue quickly without getting bogged down in broader issues. “When do we stop talking and get to work?” asked Bellamy.

City Council will have a work session April 28 on the commission itself, and vote on whether to create it May 2. The first meeting in November was proposed for having the commission present its findings.

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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.

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The Battle of Lee Park: Lines drawn over General Lee

Unity in the community wasn’t quite achieved at Lee Park when some city leaders called for the removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee. Supporters of removing the statue as well as ones carrying the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia attended the press conference March 22. Photo Ézé Amos

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

Read more on the history on Paul Goodloe McIntire and his statue donation.

Read more on the future of the statue: Can it be moved?

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. 

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Can the statue be moved? Not just a local issue

Defenders of the statue of General Robert E. Lee include a great-nephew of sculptor Henry Shrady. Rammelkamp Foto

The Charlottesville park bounded by Jefferson, North First, Market and North Second streets isn’t the only Lee Park under heavy scrutiny.

Last July, a group of folks in Dallas led a demonstration at Oak Lawn’s Lee Park to demand that a General Robert E. Lee statue be removed and the park renamed. Activists felt called to “un-dedicate” the statue and rededicate it to “the spirit of the abolitionist movement, raising the spirits of six genuine heroes of the Civil War era”—Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Denmark Vesey, Maria Stewart, Harriet Tubman and Senator Hiram Revels, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Though the acts of un-dedication and rededication had no legal recognition, another issue concerning Confederate war memorials could—and this one hits a bit closer to home.

A Virginia state law says localities can’t “disturb or interfere” with Confederate monuments, but a judge in Danville ruled that legal protection does not apply to structures erected before 1998. A Confederate flag flown since 1996 above the last capitol of the Confederacy at the city-owned Sutherlin Mansion was removed in August.

This decision has been appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.

On March 10, Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed HB587—Republican Delegate Charles D. Poindexter’s bill—which would clarify conditions of the previous ruling in Danville and prohibit localities from removing any war memorials, including Civil War monuments, regardless of the date they were erected.

Though the Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill by a margin of 82 to 16 votes in the House, with local delegates Rob Bell, Matt Fariss and Steve Landes voting yay, and 21 to 17 in the Senate, Democratic Senator Creigh Deeds says he voted against it.

“Ultimately, localities are going to have to decide how they’re gong to commemorate the past,” Deeds says, adding that the discussion ought to be broader than just between 140 legislators at the General Assembly. “You can’t whitewash or change history,” he says. “You just have to learn from it.”

In Virginia, Deeds says the Civil War is commemorated in many different ways, with Confederate statues in every county, and high schools and roads named after Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

While he says he would be cautious about moving Charlottesville’s General Lee statue, he commends Mayor Mike Signer’s proposal of a Blue Ribbon Commission on Confederate Memorials to evaluate the community’s stance on the statue removal and renaming of Lee Park, explain the policy behind the effort, assess costs, explore options and develop a fundraising strategy.

In a statement proposing the task force, Signer alludes to dark chapters in Charlottesville’s past, including slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, segregation and Vinegar Hill.

“We see one of those chapters every time we’re in Lee Park or Court Square, where, in the 1920s, city leaders elected to celebrate the Confederacy and, by extension, slavery, by placing large monuments to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,” Signer says.

Deeds hopes the commission will consist of a broad cross-section of community members.

“If [a commission] is appointed, it shouldn’t just be made up of people with a predetermined view of what should happen,” Deeds says. “To be a genuine commission, it needs to be made up of people who are willing to consider all sides to come up with the right approach.”

Signer says planning for the task force is still in the early stages and he is discussing options while researching examples of similar groups in places such as St. Louis and Baltimore. “My hope is that this will be a deliberative and hopeful process that truly engages the community in exploring how we can best change the narrative in Charlottesville,” he writes in an e-mail.

Julie Langan, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, says her department is working to help UVA grad Molly Ward, Virginia secretary of natural resources, develop a list of best practices for how communities should approach historic monuments. Governor McAuliffe requested a report from the group by December, Langan says, and they are in the early stages of electing people to serve on the commission.

“We’ll want geographic representation,” Langan says. “We’ll want people who have diverging points of view.”

Langan, like McAuliffe, believes conclusions should be reached by the community and not regulated by state law.

“My inclination is to view something like the [General Lee] sculpture in Charlottesville more as a work of art than a Confederate memorial,” she says.

In the National Register of Historic Places, Langan points out that documentation for the monument at Lee Park has little to say about the Civil War. It emphasizes the high artistic value of the sculpture, the history of its design and its production.

Paul Goodloe McIntire, who gifted Lee Park to the city in 1918, signed a deed June 14 of that year that said he desired “to erect thereon a statue of General Robert E. Lee and to present said property to the City of Charlottesville, Va. as a memorial to his parents, the late George M. McIntire and Catherine A. McIntire.”

Although some may question whether the city is able to remove the statue or rename the park that McIntire gifted, the deed says, “This conveyance is made upon condition that the said property be held and used in perpetuity by said city as a public park, and that no buildings be erected thereon, but the authorities of said city shall at all times have the right and power to control, regulate and restrict the use of said property.”

So can the statue be moved? Maybe.

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Rally to remove Robert E. Lee statue brings flagwavers

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy addresses a crowd of those who support removing the Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Park and those who called him racist believe it should stay. Staff photo

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s March 22 press conference at Lee Park to advocate removing the General Robert E. Lee statue and changing the name of the park drew Confederate supporters such as Virginia Flaggers, who at times shouted down speakers.

“When people come to this park, they should never feel uncomfortable,” said Charlottesville High School ninth-grader Zyahna Bryant after Bellamy introduced her as a “15-year-old warrior.” She has helped spearhead the movement to rid the park of its ties to slavery and the commander of the Confederate army. “We are in 2016,” she said. “Things have changed, and they are going to change.”

Protesters overpowered the voice of Amy Sarah Marshall, who said, “I’m speaking as a gay activist. Throw that in your truck and drive it.” Several members of the crowd joined Marshall behind the podium when she became emotional.

When City Councillor Kristin Szakos took the microphone, a group of supporters lined up in the front of the crowd to block out the cries from protesters.

While a mass of men and women waved Confederate flags and held signs supporting the historic statue, some cupped hands over their mouths and yelled into the crowd statements such as, “What about the white slaves?” and “Heritage not hate!” Several protesters called Bellamy racist. At least four uniformed Charlottesville police officers guarded the park.

Mayor Mike Signer has called for the creation of a “blue ribbon commission on Confederate memorials” to evaluate the presence of Confederate statues in the city.

Click to enlarge additional photos below.

 

A diverse group attended the conference.
A diverse group attended the conference.
One supporter of tearing the statue down brought her own sign.
One supporter of tearing the statue down waves a “Black Lives Matter” sign.
Many people came out to Wes Bellamy’s March 22 press conference in which he advocated removing the General Robert E. Lee statue from Lee Park. He also wants to change the park’s name.
Zyahna Bryant, a 15-year-old ninth grader at Charlottesville High School, says people walking by the park shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable.
Zyahna Bryant, a 15-year-old ninth grader at Charlottesville High School, says people walking by the park shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable.
lee-amy-sarah-marshall
When Amy Sarah Marshall became emotional while speaking, a group of people from the crowd came forward to stand by her side.
Some Confederate supporters belong to the local group called Virginia Flaggers.
Some Confederate supporters belong to the group called Virginia Flaggers.
Wes Bellamy and local radio personality Rob Schilling take a quick selfie in front of the Robert E. Lee statue before the press conference.
Wes Bellamy and local radio personality Rob Schilling take a quick selfie in front of the Robert E. Lee statue before the press conference.

 

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‘Neomasculinist’ group plans February 6 meetup in Charlottesville

Return of Kings was founded by Daryush "Roosh" Valizadeh, 36, a Washington, D.C., native and microbiologist, according to the International Business Times.

Charlottesville — Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a group founded by a self-described “pickup artist” is planning an international meet-up day February 6 in 165 cities and 43 countries—including Charlottesville’s Lee Park.

The group Return of Kings has been described as “misogynistic” and “pro rape.” It was founded by Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh, 36, a Washington, D.C., native and microbiologist, according to the International Business Times. Under the name Roosh V, he’s written such guides as Bang, a “pickup textbook,” according to Amazon, and Day Bang: How to Casually Pick Up Girls during the Day in 2011.

Valizadeh sparked outrage when he wrote on his blog a year ago that rape on private property should be legalized, although he later said the post was satirical.

Return of Kings followers will meet at the statue of Robert E. Lee between 8 and 8:20pm Saturday. Asked the question, “Do you know where I can find a pet shop?” group members will answer, “Yes, it’s right here,” according to the group’s website. Some of the meetups have been moved to private locations because of threatened protests.

Charlottesville Police say they’ve been made aware of the meetup, according to spokesperson Steve Upman. “We’ll certainly take steps to ensure everyone’s safety,” he says.