Charlottesville finally removed its statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in July. Since then, the spaces where the racist monuments once stood have been empty, as the city decides what should go there.
During a virtual forum hosted by the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project last week, Black activists Bree Newsome Bass and Emil Little shared their experiences confronting Confederate monuments, and discussed how public spaces like the ones in Charlottesville should be treated after the Confederate iconography is removed. Atlantic columnist and poet Clint Smith moderated the event.
After 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof shot and killed nine Black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, the state lowered its American flag atop the capitol to half-staff to honor the victims—but kept its Confederate flag flying high. Due to state law, the rebel flag could only be lowered after a two-thirds approval by the state legislature.
Instead of waiting for legislators to “essentially decide that our lives matter,” Newsome Bass felt she needed to take action and show defiance against white terrorism. Ten days after the horrific shooting, she scaled the flagpole outside the state capitol, and tore down the Confederate flag. She was immediately arrested.
“So much of the national focus of discussion was on the display of the flag, not the circumstances that led to a white man in his 20s being so errantly racist that he decides to go into a church and murder people,” said Newsome Bass. “It highlighted the disregard for our lives as Black people.”
The next month, South Carolina finally removed the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds—something Black activists had called for for decades.
Following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, students at the University of North Carolina held their own protest against the university’s Silent Sam statue, which commemorated a Confederate soldier. For months, white supremacists had been visiting the racist monument, causing many Black students to feel unsafe, explained Little.
“I’m thinking the school’s going to have our back on this,” said Little, who was a doctoral student at the university. “But I’m watching police shove students, laughing at them, mocking them, hitting them.”
Over the next year, Little participated in sit-ins in front of Silent Sam, and passed out materials about the racist history of the monument. Fed up with the university’s refusal to take action, Little smeared red ink—mixed with their own blood—onto the statue during a protest in 2018. Little was arrested and later found guilty of vandalism.
“If you’re so proud to have this armed solider still standing for this cause, why not depict what he stood for, which was the murder of Black people and their enslavement,” said Little.
Little was inspired to smear real blood on the statue by a protest they witnessed while studying in China, during which migrant workers threw blood on a police station.
“The next day, even though there was no blood, people were like, ‘This has been tainted.’ They wanted to avoid it,” said Little. “I knew that doing [my protest] during the day meant that people would see the red ink and blood…and we believe that when something is bloodied it’s tainted.”
Four months later, hundreds of student protesters toppled Silent Sam. A tree has since been planted at the former site of the statue.
When recontextualizing the spaces where Confederate monuments once stood, Newsome Bass said it’s important to go “a step beyond” replacing them with a statue of a Black historical figure, like Harriet Tubman.
“It has often been about idealizing particular figures, which goes to the way that society itself is organized around capitalistic ideas of individualism, white patriarchy, the idea that we have supreme white men that are elevated above the rest of humanity,” said Newsome Bass.
“How do we transform public space in a way that honors and celebrates the ideals of humanity or the inclusion of everyone?” she asked.
Little wishes the Silent Sam monument had been left, toppled, on the ground. “UNC getting rid of it was convenient,” Little said. “Not only did the monument disappear, but the history of contention around the monument disappeared when it was taken away.”
For people like the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Confederate spaces are sacred because of their family lineage and belief in the Lost Cause myth, Smith pointed out. “How are you thinking about what it means to…make clear that these things that are rendered holy are manifestations of harm?”
Newsome Bass said she classifies white supremacy as a religion, upheld by centuries of colonization and state-sponsored violence.
“One of the main ways we desacralize something is to name it and classify it as a thing,” she said. “When we are talking about taking down a monument, it’s never just about the monument—it’s about the deconstruction of this ideology of whiteness.”
Both activists encouraged the audience to educate themselves on white supremacy, and support activists and organizers fighting for Black liberation.
“You cannot enter into this kind of a thing without taking a side,” Little said. “To be an observer in a struggle for life and death for Black people to me means you’re already against me.”
The historical society receives a subsidized lease from the city for its space in the former McIntire Library, across from Market Street Park. For the next three years, the society will pay $9,000 a year for the building, whose market value is estimated at $114,000 a year. PC: Staff Photo
By Ben Hitchcock
“I feel like I’ve been training for this one job for 30 years,” said Coy Barefoot when he took over as executive director of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society in April of 2018. In an interview with ilovecville.com, the local author and media personality expressed his desire to rebrand the organization and create “a whole constellation of museums that will offer really rich experiences.”
Eighteen months later, Barefoot had resigned from the position. The society released a statement on October 12 thanking him for his work as executive director over the last year and a half.
Multiple members of the society’s board of directors declined to comment directly on Barefoot’s resignation, citing a policy that forbids discussing personnel decisions, and Barefoot did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He told at least one person, who later described the conversation to C-VILLE, that his pay was being cut amid fundraising difficulties.
Barefoot’s departure is the latest shake-up at an institution with a tumultuous recent past.
In 2017, the historical society found itself in an unwelcome spotlight when UVA professor Jalane Schmidt, hoping to conduct research in advance of the June Ku Klux Klan gathering in Charlottesville, was stymied in her request to view a collection of KKK robes and membership certificates owned by the society. “Just a few days before the Klan was coming, these people were so recalcitrant,” she recalls.
The society declined to reveal the names of the owners of the robes in its collection (they were finally revealed in May of this year). And it came under more criticism for failing to respond to the August Unite the Right rally that happened right outside its front door.
At around the same time, the society was seeking to renew its lease. Since the 1990s, the organization has been given a deal on rent at 200 Second St. NE, a column-fronted hall (formerly a whites-only library) owned by the city, just a few yards from the statue of Robert E. Lee. ACHS’ rent is well below market rates, and that generous lease raises the stakes for everything that happens at the society.
The increased scrutiny over the lease renewal revealed years of dysfunction and declining membership. At a City Council meeting that September, Councilor Kathy Galvin called the nonprofit “an absolute mess,” and a local historian accused the society of having an antagonistic relationship with the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
“It’s a shame that we basically have a black historical society and a white historical society, but that’s the way it’s played out,” former ACHS executive director Douglas Day later told C-VILLE, referring to the Jefferson School and ACHS.
The ACHS “just served as a genealogical society for white people, that’s what it seemed like,” Schmidt says.
Director Steven Meeks abruptly resigned in February 2018, and Barefoot was hired that April.
Under Barefoot, the historical society met nine of 10 goals set for it by City Council, and in February of this year agreed to a three-year lease with two one-year renewal options.
The market value for the building is estimated at around $114,000 per year. The historical society will pay just $9,000.
The current physical condition of the premises reflects an institution in transition. A recent visit revealed an empty exhibition room, maintenance equipment scattered around the main hall, and a cart of stackable plastic chairs in the middle of the lobby. The artifacts on display include a rusty cavalry spur from the Civil War skirmish at Rio Hill and a 1920s doll owned by a girl who died of pneumonia.
That collection doesn’t stand out in Charlottesville’s crowded historical tourism landscape. Shelley Murphy, who was elected chair of the board six months ago, conceded that it has been difficult for the society to attract visitors and philanthropy dollars. “Not that it’s competitive, but it is competitive,” Murphy says. “There’s I think 800 or more nonprofits in the area. For people coming in from out of town or even local, you have Monticello here, you’ve got Montpelier here, and you also have Highland.”
Despite these problems, there are reasons to believe that the organization can be turned around. The last two years have seen a near-total overhaul of the society’s board of directors. In addition to Meeks’ resignation, notable departures include Ken Wallenborn, a retired doctor who spent years arguing that Thomas Jefferson did not father the children of Sally Hemings.
“There seem to be more bona fide historians being asked to be involved, like Phyllis Leffler, Shelley Murphy…Certainly more women and people of color,” Schmidt says of the recent changes.
UVA history professor John Edwin Mason says he’s been “unofficially invited” to join the board. “I think that the society can play an important role in the reexamination of our history—something that’s happening in many places right now,” he says. “There’s tremendous energy out there at the moment.”
In order to survive, the historical society will need to shed its image as an insular and inaccessible club.
Barefoot made motions towards that end, renaming the institution the Charlottesville Center for History and Culture and launching a new website. But the site’s featured blog has not been updated since October 2018, and the sign in front of the building, as well as the Facebook page, still say Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.
Board chair Murphy says Barefoot “started that change movement” and the society will build from there. “My hope coming in to the future is that we’re building local community partnerships,” she says. “We don’t want to just be sitting here and not serving.”
The Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statues have remained at their respective locations throughout the trial. (Staff photo)
Five current and former city councilors can breathe a little easier now that a judge has ruled they aren’t personally liable for their votes to remove two Confederate statues downtown.
Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore penned a letter to the opposing legal teams in Monument Fund v. Charlottesville on July 6, explaining that he determined the individual councilors have statutory immunity because they didn’t act with “gross negligence,” nor did they approve a misappropriation of funds. That gets current councilors Mike Signer, Wes Bellamy, and Kathy Galvin, as well as former officials Bob Fenwick and Kristin Szakos, off the hook for any personal liability in the case. It also means there’s no longer a need for a jury, and the two sides will proceed toward a bench trial tentatively scheduled for September.
The Monument Fund claims City Council violated state law when it voted to remove the Robert E. Lee statue in Market Street Park. It later amended the suit to include Council’s decision to take down the Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statue located three blocks away from Lee after the Unite the Right rally in August 2017. The case has moved slowly since it was initially filed in March 2017, and several motions are still under review.
One of those motions is the plaintiffs’ request for a summary judgment on the defense’s equal protection argument under the 14th Amendment. The Monument Fund did make its case before the court, represented by University of Richmond law professor Kevin Walsh. He told Moore that while the plaintiffs don’t dispute that many people are offended by the monuments, no one is personally being denied equal treatment by the statues’ presence as “there is no right not to be offended.”
Chief Deputy City Attorney Lisa Robertson filed a written statement to the court but her team won’t make its oral argument until the next hearing, which is slated for July 31. She declined to comment until then.
With a jury off the table, the plaintiffs also backed down on their request for a change of venue. Instead, they’ll seek a new facility for the proceedings, because the air conditioning unit in the court’s temporary building is too loud and must be shut off during the hearings, making the courtroom much hotter during the summer.
They previously argued that it’d be impossible to compile an unbiased jury in Charlottesville due to the defendants’ roles as elected officials—now a moot point—and “incessant news coverage,” including that of C-VILLE Weekly, which they allege “savaged” the plaintiffs, according to the motion to move the trial.
Plaintiff Edward Dickinson Tayloe II is also suing C-VILLE Weekly, along with news editor Lisa Provence and UVA assistant professor Jalane Schmidt, for defamation for statements in this feature story. He is seeking $1 million plus $350,000 for punitive damages. A copy of that complaint is here: tayloe v. c-ville.
Frank Earnest, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, is the heritage defense coordinator of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Photo by Eze Amos
It was the same old, same old in Charlottesville Circuit Court on March 13, when attorneys involved in a lawsuit to keep the town’s Confederate monuments in place hashed out all-too-familiar arguments.
It’s been two years since the Monument Fund and a dozen other plaintiffs filed suit in response to City Council’s vote to remove one of the town’s most controversial memorials, the General Robert E. Lee statue, and attorneys appeared frustrated by the lack of progress. This hearing followed an unsuccessful settlement conference between the parties in February.
A trial is scheduled for September 9.
“Still, to this day, we don’t know which damages they’re pursuing,” said defense attorney Parker Rider-Longmaid. He practices with Jones Day, the largest law firm in the country, which is representing councilors Wes Bellamy, Mike Signer, Kathy Galvin, and former councilor Kristin Szakos in the suit pro bono. Former councilor Bob Fenwick and the city are also defendants and are being represented by city attorney Lisa Robertson.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys Ralph Main and Braxton Puryear have continued to request money for damages, though the monuments depicting generals Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson have faced no physical damage, even while temporarily shrouded after the Unite the Right rally that left three people dead.
Judge Rick Moore said perhaps the money, if awarded for damages, could be used for preservation, which he called, “the only hook the plaintiffs have, in my opinion.”
It’s unclear how much the plaintiffs are asking for.
Puryear suggested damages could be awarded for attorneys’ fees or the $3,000 in taxpayer money that councilors used for the black tarps that covered the statues. But, said Rider-Longmaid, “We don’t think the plaintiff[s] should have another opportunity to cook something up” about how to collect damages. The judge did not make a ruling, but questioned whether a case could be made for the cost of covering the war generals.
Moore, who has previously ruled councilors are individually liable for their vote to remove the statues, also didn’t rule on whether they showed gross negligence when they did so. Defense attorney Esha Mankodi, also with Jones Day, said their opponents would need to prove the councilors exercised “scant care” to win that argument.
That wasn’t the case, she added, because the city officials deliberated for 10 months before taking their original vote, held approximately 20 public meetings, and sought a legal opinion from the city attorney.
But Main said that was something for a jury to decide, and the judge took it under advisement, though he hasn’t yet ruled on whether it will be a jury or a bench trial.
Plaintiff Frank Earnest, who holds the title of heritage defense coordinator within the Sons of Confederate Veterans, sat in the front row of the courtroom.
The 63-year-old Virginia Beach resident told C-VILLE last month that his organization has denounced racist groups over its 100-year history.
“We have nothing to do with those people,” he said. “We don’t want to see monuments to defending our state removed.”
Frank Earnest (center) and local attorney Jock Yellott (right) are plaintiffs in the suit to keep the city’s Confederate monuments in place. Photo by Eze Amos
City Councilor Wes Bellamy spoke candidly about Confederate statues, the controversy over his old tweets, and the effect his career has had on his family. Photo by Mina Pirasteh
By Jonathan Haynes
City Councilor Wes Bellamy sat down for a revelatory interview at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center January 10 to promote his new book, Monumental: It Was Never About a Statue.
The title alludes to the former vice-mayor’s push to remove Confederate monuments from Charlottesville parks, and the racist backlash it inspired, which culminated in the August 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally. “If it’s just about the statues, people aren’t going to kill you,” he said. “People don’t drive a car into a group of people over the removal of a statue.”
Andrea Copeland-Whitsett, director of member education services for the Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce, conducted the interview. She began by addressing the derogatory remarks Bellamy had tweeted about women, white people, and the LGBTQ community between 2009 and 2014, and the outrage that erupted when the tweets resurfaced in November 2016.
Bellamy called the tweets “something evil-inspired,” and described his personal experience of the scandal for the first time. He was spending Thanksgiving in Atlanta with his wife when he got a call from a blocked number. According to Bellamy, the voice said, “Hey n—-r, we’re going to break you down. This is Trump’s country now.” Then he received another call from his office letting him know that his old tweets had been sent to City Council and local press.
He could hardly believe they were from his account. “I was so far past that [kind of attitude],” he said.
Come Monday, “a tsunami hit.” Friends and allies turned their backs on him. Then-governor Terry McAuliffe publicly denounced him. He was devastated. Though he remained on City Council, he resigned from his positions at Albemarle High School and on the Virginia Board of Education.
Ultimately, he said, the experience was humbling. “I used to walk around thinking I was a hero. It was a very necessary lesson to me that I am not.”
Bellamy’s tweets were dug up by Jason Kessler, who organized the Unite the Right rally the following year.
The movement to remove the city’s Confederate monuments is often presented as Bellamy’s idea. But he gives credit to Mayor Nikuyah Walker and local high school activist Zyahna Bryant, who drafted the original petition asking City Council to remove the statues and rename Lee Park.
Bryant contacted him after McAuliffe vetoed a bill that would protect Confederate monuments in March 2016. “You can remove the statue,” she told him.
He teamed up with then-councilor Kristin Szakos, who had been publicly questioning the presence of Confederate monuments, and calling on the city to end its celebration of Lee-Jackson Day.
When Bellamy and Szakos held a press conference, he began to fear for his safety. Staring down “a sea of individuals” bearing Confederate flags and shouting, “I was concerned someone was going to shoot me,” he said. Afterwards, Bellamy began receiving death threats on a daily basis, and “would hear loud beats on the back window” of his home after midnight.
It wasn’t about the statue, he said. “People believed we were going to change what was theirs, that this is their community.”
Though his tenure in office has been tumultuous, Bellamy professed an unremitting love for Charlottesville, praising local residents for coming together to confront racial inequities. There are other cities that have the same issues, he said, “but we’re really willing to talk about it.”
The former Lee-Jackson House at Washington and Lee in Lexington is now called Simpson Hall.
GettyImages
Goodbye, Robert E. Lee
The statue remains in the former Lee Park, but the park’s name has changed—twice—in the past year. That trend is happening across the state, most recently last week in Staunton and Lexington.
By name
Lee Park is now Market Street Park.
Robert E. Lee High School in Staunton will be renamed, pending the results of a survey of city residents.
Lee-Jackson House at Washington and Lee will be known as Simpson Hall in honor of Pamela Simpson, a dean who helped make W&L coed.
Robert E. Lee Elementary in Petersburg is now Lakemont Elementary. (J.E.B Stuart and A.P. Hill elementaries there became known as Pleasants Lane and Cool Springs elementaries, respectively, July 1.)
In brief
Johnny Reb petition
Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are not the only Confederates being asked to leave Charlottesville. Activist Matthew Christensen is collecting signatures on a petition that demands the removal of the Johnny Reb statue in front of the Albemarle County Circuit Court. Despite a City Council vote to remove the generals, current state law does not allow localities to make such decisions.
Father/son murder charges
Richard Spradlin, 56, and his son Kevin Moore, 34, have been arrested in the 2004 unsolved murder of Jesse Hicks, who was reported missing in Fluvanna 14 years ago, and whose remains were found in Albemarle County a decade later. The two are charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and using a firearm during the commission of a felony.
R.I.P. Mr. Putt-Putt
Former Albemarle supervisor L.F. Wood, 82, died October 11. Wood owned and operated the Putt-Putt golf course for 58 years and chaired the Board of Zoning Appeals, as well as the Seminole Trail Volunteer Fire Department board and the Albemarle County Police Foundation.
Stay out late
The Market Street and Water Street parking garages will now be open 24 hours, which means parkers no longer have to get to the garage before midnight to avoid turning into pumpkins. The first hour is free and then it costs $2 an hour in both garages.
Fewer boozin’ students violations
The number of UVA students committing liquor law violations dropped by 43 percent last year, according to a recent report by the Cavalier Daily. While alcohol violations referred for disciplinary action totalled 599 in 2016, and dropped to 416 the following year, the number of alcohol-related arrests have been consistent. Police made 54 and 52 of those in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
Quote of the week
“I feel that we made a huge leap forward at the most recent rally in terms of presentation, messaging, and holding a high expectation for what conduct should be like at a public demonstration.—Jason Kessler, referring to the Washington Unite the Right2 rally in an email “Seeking White Rights Activists in Washington, D.C.”
Heated market
Folks at the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors say the local home market is hot. In a comparison of the third quarter of this year to that of 2017, fewer houses may have gone up for sale, but more of them were purchased, for more money, and faster. Here are the bricks that built that conclusion.
Sales climbed by 4.4 percent, with 1,051 homes sold this quarter compared to 1,007 bought this time last year.
Those homes were more expensive, too. The median sales price soared past $294,007 to $309,000.
They were also snatched up quicker. The median number of days on the market was 56, or six lower than the third quarter of 2017.
Perhaps that’s because there were fewer homes to be bought—the inventory of residences for sale declined 9 percent, with 1,297 for sale in the third quarter of this year, compared to 31 more the previous year.
Braxton Puryear is one attorney representing plaintiffs in the case. Staff photo
In a lawsuit aimed at keeping the statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in Charlottesville, city councilors have been ordered to turn over documents related to conversations of removing them—a decision the council made, initially just to remove Lee, in a 3-2 vote in February 2017.
Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Rick Moore ordered June 19 that current councilors Wes Bellamy, Mike Signer and Kathy Galvin, and former councilors Bob Fenwick and Kristin Szakos, who were serving at the time of the vote, would have to supply documents dating back to September 2016.
Plaintiffs are asking for paper trails, including emails, text messages, phone calls, memos and videos from official city accounts and councilors’ private servers, and have specifically asked for those between the city leaders and members of activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Showing Up For Racial Justice, according to acting city attorney Lisa Robertson.
“The plaintiffs are showing their hand,” she said. “It comes close to a witch hunt, your honor, and I don’t know any other word for it.”
Plaintiffs include 11 individuals, such as attorney Fred Payne, a city resident who “enjoys both Lee Park and Jackson Park and the monuments erected therein on a regular basis,” according to the lawsuit, and two groups: the Monument Fund and the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The suit was filed in March 2017, before the spaces were renamed as Emancipation and Justice parks, respectively.
Robertson argued that the plaintiffs didn’t succinctly define the type of documents they’re seeking, and that the range of dates from which they want to collect evidence was too wide. (While the judge ruled that councilors would need to sort through materials dating back to September 2016, plaintiffs had originally asked for that through January 2016.)
Plaintiffs attorney Ralph Main didn’t deny that the scope of evidence was large.
“We wanted to find out if there was something going on ahead of time,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a fishing expedition.”
Robertson called the plaintiffs’ request “painful” and asked the judge if he had any idea of the sheer volume of emails councilors received from people all over the nation in the wake of their decision to remove Lee and Jackson. And Moore said, yes, because of the national movement to contact city clerk Llezelle Dugger, and tell her how he should rule. Through her, Moore said he received “thousands” of messages.
He then ruled that councilors would not need to turn over messages they received, and only the ones they sent.
Last week, he ruled that councilors are not immune to legal fees or paying for damages related to their vote to remove the Confederate statues, and Robertson said it could be two more weeks before the city’s insurance company is able to determine who’s covered.
Individual councilors may have separate attorneys, and should not be compelled to turn over evidence until that’s sorted out, argued Robertson. But Main said deadlines are quickly approaching, and they’ve been parties in the suit since it was filed.
Brian Lambert and Christopher Wayne await the outcome of their March 26 trials. They were charged with multiple counts of destruction of property and trespassing for attempting to remove the black tarps from the once-shrouded General Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson statues in their respective parks. Photo by Eze Amos
Immediately following a March 26 trial in which Charlottesville’s Brian Lambert was found guilty of multiple charges of trespassing in Emancipation and Justice parks and attempting to remove the tarps from the shrouded statues, Lambert could be seen applying a trail of Confederate flag stickers on surfaces in the direction of the General Robert E. Lee monument.
Judge Joseph Serkes had just sentenced him to four years in jail, with all but eight months suspended, in a hearing where Lambert flashed a distinctive hand signal behind his back. With his right thumb forming a circle with his pointer finger, and his three additional digits in the shape of a “W,” he held the “white power” symbol for about 30 seconds before turning to wink at the few people who showed up to support him, including Jason Kessler.
Louisa attorney Richard Harry defended Lambert, while Richmonder Christopher Wayne was represented by Thomas Wilson on similar—but fewer—destruction of property and trespassing charges. Wayne was sentenced to three years, of which all were suspended but five months.
The Richmond man’s trial was unorthodox, and he engaged in several debates with the judge. Lambert patted him on the back multiple times in what appeared to be an effort to get Wayne to stop talking.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Cooper Vaughan said Wayne’s frequent outbursts and repeated tampering with the city’s tarps after being arrested were an indicator of his disrespect for the City Council’s August decision to shroud the Confederate statues while the city mourned the deaths that took place during the summer’s Unite the Right rally.
“He’s absolutely right,” Wayne said.
“They believe these laws do not apply to them,” said Vaughan, who added that active jail time was the only way to convey to the men that there are consequences for breaking the rules.
Lambert also was charged with assaulting the Reverend Seth Wispelwey, a United Church of Christ minister, in the early morning hours of November 5, when the clergy member testified he was walking to his parked car on Second Street when he saw and heard what appeared to be someone cutting down the orange fencing surrounding the Lee monument.
Wispelwey said he called out to Lambert that he was trespassing.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I’m trespassing. What are you going to do about it?’ And started coming at me with a knife [with a six-inch blade] in his hand,” said Wispelwey.
But a Charlottesville police officer testified that when he apprehended Lambert, the man had a box cutter and a firearm on him, but no such knife.
Lambert was found not guilty of assault in that interaction, but the officer said he was unsteady on his feet, his speech was slurred, and he told the cop his name was “Brian Brian.” He was charged with public swearing or intoxication and paid the $25 fine on December 28.
In the same November interaction, the officer said Lambert made a “spontaneous utterance” that he had cut the tarp off the statue “at least seven times” by that point, and when he was caught doing so—also while apparently drunk—in a January 9 encounter, he told police he was “doing a public service,” according to another officer’s testimony.
“He told me he was never going to stop,” a third officer told the judge.
Judge Serkes reminded the men that they couldn’t keep taking matters into their own hands. “That’s why we’re a country of laws,” he said.
Outside the courthouse, Lambert took a drag from a cigarette.
“We’ll take our punishment like men,” he said.
The two plan to appeal their verdicts.
Christopher Wayne (center) was unhappy to see the media outside of the hearing in which he and Brian Lambert (right) were sentenced to jail time. Staff photo
Corrected March 27 at 4pm to more accurately reflect the length of the blade Lambert was allegedly carrying November 5.
On August 29, Mason Pickett was once again spotted writing "Bellamy is a jackass" on the Downtown Mall's Freedom of Speech Wall. File photo
“Wes is a jackass” became a familiar slogan to those living in Charlottesville last summer, as it was scrawled on a giant cardboard sign carried by local retiree Mason Pickett, and its derivative, “Bellamy is a jackass,” was often chalked on the Downtown Mall’s Freedom of Speech Wall as well as several sidewalks.
It’s a phrase that took a shot at City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who was vice-mayor at the time and called for the removal of the monuments of Confederate war heroes General Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from their eponymous downtown parks. The verbiage with an unfavorable adjective left Pickett scorned by many and at the center of two misdemeanor assault charges.
Judge Joseph Serkes heard testimony from two alleged victims—Davyd Williams and Lara Harrison—who described what they deemed aggressive behavior from Pickett on two separate occasions.
On the first occasion, Williams said he was erasing “Wes is a jackass” off the free speech wall with a newspaper and a bottle of Windex on August 24. When Pickett approached Williams, the retiree allegedly “shoulder-checked” him as he was erasing, smacked his hand twice and snatched the bottle of liquid cleaner out of his hand “hard enough that the handle broke,” according to the testimony.
When officers with the Charlottesville Police Department spotted the interaction and intervened, Pickett allegedly walked a few hundred feet to a CVS, bought a bottle of Windex and gave it to an officer to give to Williams. He offered that he made a mistake and was sorry.
Williams told the judge he had erased multiple times Pickett’s “obscenities,” which were written on the wall directly outside the Virginia Discovery Museum, a hotspot for young kids.
“Did anyone designate you to be the obscenity police?” Sirks asked, and eventually said justice would not be furthered by finding Pickett guilty of assaulting him.
Pickett racked up his second assault charge on September 11, when he was holding a large cardboard sign, painted black and decorated with his aforementioned catch phrase in thick red letters, in front of the Albemarle County Office Building on the corner of McIntire Road and Preston Avenue.
Harrison testified she was driving past when she saw Pickett and his sign. She decided to park and display one of her own.
“I had seen him several times and I wanted to be able to counter his sign with a sign that I thought was accurate and protective of our community,” she gave as the reason she wrote “racist” on a legal pad she found in the backseat of her car and took her position on the sidewalk in front of him. The two had never met.
Pickett called police, and testified that he and Harrison were beside each other on the sidewalk. She allegedly stepped onto the street to get in front of him, and as he was moving his sign from side to side to face oncoming traffic, he says he may or may not have hit her in the face with it.
“He assaulted me,” said the woman who has attended meetings of the activist group Showing Up For Racial Justice. Its members are known for accosting people with beliefs that don’t match their own, according to Pickett’s defense attorney, Charles “Buddy” Weber, but Harrison said she has studied and taught nonviolent intervention.
You may recognize her from an August 15 image taken in Emancipation Park, where a lone young man dressed as a Confederate soldier and carrying a rifle and semi-automatic handgun was surrounded by numerous anti-racist activists, including members of SURJ. Harrison is photographed sticking her two middle fingers mere inches from the North Carolina man’s face.
In Pickett’s assault trial, prosecutor Nina Alice-Antony entered a photo of a red mark on Harrison’s left cheek as evidence, but the defendant insisted that he had “certainly no intention to hit the young lady.” The judge found him not guilty, citing that Harrison had witnessed Pickett turning his sign from side to side and still stepped in front of him on the street.
“Everyone has a right to protest, but you gotta use your common sense,” Serkes said. “Next time, use your common sense.”
Updated February 26 at 1:05pm with clarifications.
Correction: Judge Serkes’ name was misspelled in the original story.
In September, demonstrators with the RVA No-Hate Counterprotest gathered at Richmond’s Maggie Walker statue and marched down Monument Avenue, past the General J.E.B. Stuart statue above, to the General Robert E. Lee statue, where a pro-Confederate rally that brought fewer than a dozen supporters was held. Photo by SkycladAP.com
By Alexa Nash
Richmond, Virginia, was once the powerhouse of the South as the largest capital of the Confederate States of America. Today, one of the city’s most affluent streets, Monument Avenue, is home to five statues commemorating Civil War leadership—and one statue added more than 60 years after to honor Richmond native and tennis hero Arthur Ashe. The city faces big questions as its mayor, Levar Stoney, recently reversed course on his support of removing and/or relocating the Confederate statues. The commission he formed to study the city’s monuments and the act of contextualization is on hiatus until October following a September protest around Richmond’s Lee statue. In looking toward Charlottesville, where protests have erupted because City Council voted to move the statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, are there any concrete answers on how to confront a past filled with slavery and racism in creating a solid future?
History vs. heritage
Richmond’s monument history begins with the Robert E. Lee statue, conceived after Lee’s death in 1870. The 61-foot statue with four granite pillars and a marble base was erected in 1890 after funding from private sources fell through. The General Assembly passed an act to create a Governor’s Board to lead the commemoration efforts, and the $52,000 statue was slated for Monument Avenue to increase property values, according to the Virginia Historical Society. It was erected by black laborers and dedicated in front of 100,000 to 150,000 people.
Two other Confederate monuments, those of General J.E.B Stuart and the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, were erected within four days of each other in 1907. General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s statue was unveiled in 1919, and the statue of Confederate States Navy commander Matthew Fontaine Maury was erected in 1929.
According to a list of data of public spaces and symbols dedicated to the Confederacy, approximately a quarter of those spaces in Virginia and across the country, including schools, streets, monuments, plaques and other memorabilia, were dedicated between 1900 and 1918. This time period aligns with the Jim Crow law era of the South and the Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” ruling in 1896, which all stemmed from a Louisiana law that separated blacks and whites on railroads in 1890: the same year Robert E. Lee made his memorialized appearance in Richmond.
The most recent statue to go up in the Monument Avenue median is that of African-American tennis star and Richmonder Arthur Ashe. It was erected in 1996, 67 years after Maury’s statue. Ashe is the only African-American memorialized on the grassy lawn, and according to the Monument Avenue Commission, the addition sparked heated conversations beginning in 1993 about the appropriateness of him being remembered just down the street from five prominent Confederate leaders.
Conversations about the morality of the monuments and talks of removing them catapulted into the public eye again in 2015 when Black Lives Matter was spray painted onto the Jefferson Davis monument. Richmond police arrested Joseph Weindl, after they found him starting to spray paint “loser” on the monument the following night. Fast-forward to the past few months when, between vandalism, such as pine tar thrown on the J.E.B Stuart monument, and demonstrations, such as regular pro-Confederate flaggers around the monuments, Stoney set out to take control of the Monument Avenue conversation. (The latest spotlight on the monuments was the September 16 pro-Confederate rally that brought fewer than a dozen pro-Confederates, who were vastly outnumbered by counterprotesters. There were seven arrests and no injuries reported.) Stoney formed the Monument Avenue Commission, a group of historians, artists, authors, professors and public leaders, to discuss how to add context to the monuments, including discussing adding more monuments to the grassy median.
“Monument Avenue was a real estate development that began with the Lee statue…and it succeeded—as a development venture and in fabricating the Lost Cause ideology as truth,” Stoney said in his first commission statement. “In fact, it was nostalgia masquerading as history.”
The commission held its first public meeting August 9, and commentary from the community lasted for two hours. Opinions ran the gamut, from supporting contextualization to removing the statues to leaving them in place with no additions. Speakers were met with heckling and shouting for having different viewpoints.
The second commission meeting, originally set for September 13, was postponed until October due to safety concerns, after the events of August 12 in Charlottesville.
This impacted Stoney’s goals for the commission, and he reversed his opinion on removing or relocating the statues, effective August 16, according to a press release. Jim Nolan, the mayor’s press secretary, said the next public meeting will be a work session to plan for future community engagement, and there will be no public comment.
Future efforts
A recent push to pass a resolution to remove all of the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue by 9th District City Councilman Michael Jones was assigned to the Land Use Committee September 25, but he says he does not yet have the support of his colleagues. Jones says he will not “play the political game” of convincing the council to vote yes, but he will continue his cause.
“We can’t be afraid to have a conversation about this,” Jones says. “Since it’s been so volatile, there’s a greater conversation that needs to be had.”
Dr. Gregory Smithers, Virginia Commonwealth University professor of history, says he favors the removal of the statues.
“Yes, we need to understand the Civil War and its role in reshaping the nation, but we shouldn’t do that to the exclusion of other critical historical events and people who weren’t white, male, [or] took part in military engagements,” Smithers said. He also said that the timing of the erection of the statues—the time of Jim Crow laws, lynching and when Civil War soldiers were dying—contributed to the Lost Cause mentality and “Northern aggression.” According to a report from Governor Terry McAuliffe’s Monuments Work Group from 2016, 168 war memorials currently stand in Virginia, with 81 percent dedicated to the Confederate participants in the Civil War.
“In other words, Confederate monuments represent a conscious effort to rewrite American history, replacing it with the fictions of Southern heritage and the cultural and political myths of the Lost Cause,” Smithers says.
Contextualization, Smithers says, won’t work—because of the monuments’ location in Richmond’s busiest areas plaques won’t be sufficient. Relocating them to cemeteries, he says, would be a more appropriate place for their purpose of memorializing the Confederacy.
A statue of Maggie Walker, a Richmond native and the first female bank owner in the United States, was unveiled in July in Jackson Ward, a historically African-American neighborhood. Photo by Ash Daniel
In addition, new memorials are being placed throughout the city. Richmond native Maggie Walker, the first female bank owner in the United States and a civil rights activist, was memorialized in July in Jackson Ward, a historically African-American neighborhood. She was welcomed warmly by the community as an example of resilience, and Stoney said at the unveiling event that it was his favorite monument in the city.
The latest tribute slated for Richmond in 2019, as voted on by the state’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission, is the commemoration of emancipation memorial featuring 10 prominent African-Americans, which will be erected on Brown’s Island. It will memorialize Nat Turner, the leader of a violent slave rebellion in southern Virginia, and Gabriel Prosser, who unsuccessfully attempted to lead a slave revolt in Richmond, as well as Mary Elizabeth Bowser, Dred Scott, William Harvey Carney, John Mercer Langston, Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, Lucy F. Simms, Rosa Dixon Bowser and John Mitchell Jr. The General Assembly has earmarked $500,000 for that statue, with the remaining $300,000 coming from private donations.
Monument Avenue timeline
Robert E. Lee
The 61-foot monument was conceived after the general’s death in 1870, and erected May 29, 1890. The original location was to be Hollywood Cemetery, but Lee was moved to Monument Avenue to increase real estate value and tax revenue. The General Assembly passed legislation to combine funding efforts, totaling $52,000. The statue was erected by African-American laborers and dedicated in front of 100,000 to 150,000 people. The neighborhood was called the Lee District until 1907. It was the base for a pro-Confederate rally September 16.
General J.E.B. Stuart
A resolution by City Council kickstarted the monument after Stuart’s death. It was erected May 30, 1907, at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Lombardy Street. Its original planned location was Capitol Square, but it was moved after the Board of Aldermen donated $20,000 to put it “anywhere but Capitol Square,” according to information from the Monument Avenue Commission. The base was vandalized with pine tar in late August 2017.
Jefferson Davis
Conceived 10 days after the death of the president of the Confederacy on December 21, 1889, the monument was erected four days after Stuart. Its original location was slated to be Monroe Park, then Broad Street. It was erected on Monument Avenue at the former Civil War Star Fort site after remaining funding was raised by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The monument was spray painted with “Black Lives Matter” in 2015and is a gathering site for pro-monument supporters and counterprotesters.
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
The 37-foot-tall monument was erected right after World War I, with fundraising lead by Mary Anna Jackson, the general’s widow, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The 1919 unveiling was attended by high-profile faces such as then-Virginia governor Westmoreland Davis, the Jackson family and Robert E. Lee’s grandson. School children, Virginia Military Institute cadets and Virginia National Guardsmen also attended.
Matthew Fontaine Maury
The inspiration for the allegorical monument of the Confederate Naval officer came from a Richmonder who saw Maury memorialized in Hamburg, Germany, and suggested the city to do the same. Confederate sympathizer Katherine Stiles lobbied the public with pamphlets of her memories of the Civil War. The General Assembly contributed $10,000; the City of Richmond $10,000; Virginia school children $2,000 and the United Daughters of the Confederacy $5,000. It was completed and dedicated in 1929.
Arthur Ashe
The nationally acclaimed tennis star and Richmonder was memorialized in 1996. Spearheaded by the Arthur Ashe Monument Committee after his death in 1993, the sculpture by Paul DiPasquale was discussed with Ashe in 1992. Ashe is the only African-American honored on Monument Avenue, and this was not without controversy. Some welcomed the statue, and others questioned his presence among Confederate leadership, which is an ongoing discussion.
Information from the Monument Avenue Commission and the Virginia Historical Society
Our city eyes contextualization in the form of additional memorials, plaques
By Michelle Delgado
Although they are now shrouded, Charlottesville’s statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson remain at the center of a larger debate over the role monuments and memorials play in Charlottesville.
The events of August 12 added renewed urgency to conversations about how Charlottesville’s landscape commemorates its history and represents its values—and how the tension between old ways of life and new ways of thinking can be channeled into productive dialogue. As the legal battle over whether the Confederate statues can stay marches on, plans to bring new memorials to Charlottesville offer a glimpse of what the city’s landscape may increasingly look like in the future.
The two Confederate statues were donated to the community by Paul Goodloe McIntire, whose presence continues to permeate Charlottesville through an annual award given out by the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, as well as at both the business school and amphitheater, which bear his name, on the University of Virginia’s Grounds.
Despite these positive contributions, McIntire’s decision to commission statues of two Confederate generals who did not visit Charlottesville during the Civil War came during a time of racial terrorism waged against black communities in the South. Although he built parks intended for the city’s black community, McIntire also intended for the parks to remain segregated. Like Thomas Jefferson, he was a product of his time, complicating the current debate over the statues’ meaning.
Part of the legal battle over whether the statues can be removed hinges on whether they are considered war memorials or works of art.
Charles “Buddy” Weber arrived in Charlottesville as an undergraduate at UVA in 1964, and returned for law school in 1993. Twenty years later, he ran for City Council as a Republican and has been involved in public life ever since.
As a veteran of the Navy, Weber worries that removing statues of war figures could become a precedent for removing other statues commemorating unpopular wars such as Vietnam. The idea that Confederate statues are protected war memorials is at the heart of the Monument Fund’s lawsuit, led by Weber, against the city, regarding its February vote to move the Robert E. Lee statue.
But with scars from August 12 still fresh, the legality of that decision is still being debated. In 1998, the General Assembly passed a law restricting the movement of war memorials. That statute, along with the original law against removing war memorials passed in 1904, is currently under scrutiny, with Attorney General Mark Herring recently advising that the 1998 statute cannot be applied retroactively.
But some are not convinced that the Confederate statues can be considered war memorials. Jalane Schmidt, a religious studies professor and historian at University of Virginia, says McIntire originally described his donation as “works of art.”
Like many opponents of removing the statues, Weber is also concerned that the rule of law is being eroded in favor of “interest groups.”
“If our elected officials exercise their political will in violation of that law, we are in danger of losing America,” he says.
Nonetheless, Weber says that his current position is dictated by his interpretation of the current laws. If the law changed, his opinion might, too.
“There are deeper grievances,” he said. “A statue is just a symbol, not where the real grievances lie. It’s a diversion now.”
History lessons
Charlottesville’s culture of placing importance on history creates both common ground and significant differences of opinion. For some, the statues themselves represent history that should be respected. For others, the statues represent a crucial opportunity to discuss where historic narratives have been incomplete.
As executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Andrea Douglas is dedicated to sparking conversations about the history of Charlottesville. Unlike Weber, she believes that the statues should be placed in a museum, both to signify their value as tools for understanding history and to remove them from public spaces where they serve as symbols that no longer appropriately convey Charlottesville’s values.
“What I find difficult about the conversation here is that people believe that history is not ongoing,” Douglas says. “If we believed that we could not change history, then we would be all sitting around here drinking tea under British rule.”
Margaret O’Bryant is the librarian and head of reference resources at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society. Although the violent events of August 12 are still rippling through the community, O’Bryant feels that the statues were not directly responsible.
“I don’t think that the decisions made without our community [and] beyond our community should control what our community [decides],” she says.
One solution she has considered takes inspiration from the now-defunct Piedmont Council for the Arts’ Art in Place campaign, with temporary installations honoring notable community members, including those who have been historically overlooked. Controversial statues would only be on display for a short time, while popular statues could potentially become permanent fixtures, she says.
In 2016, City Council convened a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, which met for six months and ultimately recommended the city move both Confederate statues of Lee and Jackson or keep them in place and provide context (both Douglas and O’Bryant served on the commission). Schmidt provided historical context and background to the group.
In her research from the digital archives maintained by the Virginia Foundation for Humanities, she learned that the narrative of Confederate defeat known by most Charlottesville residents—that unlike the Virginia Military Institute or the University of Mississippi, the University of Virginia was spared in a gentlemanly and peaceful agreement—was missing some crucial elements. As she delved deeper, she says a different image of that time began to emerge.
Talk of creating a memorial to the enslaved laborers at UVA began in 2011, when a student group proposed a tribute to those who were forced to work at UVA for the first four decades of the university’s history. After winning support from the administration, the memorial is slated for completion in time for UVA’s bicentennial in 2019. Rendering courtesy Howeller + Yoon
When the Union Army reclaimed Charlottesville and Albemarle County in 1865, more than 50 percent of the population was African-American, the vast majority still enslaved. The 1860 Census showed that 13,916 enslaved African-Americans, as well as 606 free African-Americans, lived in Albemarle County, and those numbers held true throughout the Civil War. By comparison, just more than 12,000 members of the county’s population were white.
As the Civil War ravaged the United States, racial tensions flared in Charlottesville. Between 1862 and 1864, nearly 1,000 enslaved African-Americans were forced into the Confederate effort, and in the days leading up to the Confederate surrender on March 3, 1865, Schmidt found primary sources in which university faculty paternalistically complained that their “misguided, wretched” slaves were escaping to freedom and taking livestock for the United States forces.
“When you rearticulate these conversations, you create multiple ways of entering a dialogue about America and how Charlottesville was founded,” says Douglas, who points out that the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in 1863, two years before Charlottesville was retaken by the United States Army.
“Did it free enslaved people?” asks Douglas. “No, they freed themselves. If you give people agency, it’s not the same narrative.”
Adding to the narrative
Frank Dukes is a professor of urban and environmental planning at UVA, as well as an active member of University and Community Action for Racial Equity, made up of university students and faculty and community members who discuss ways in which UVA’s history with slavery and segregation can be addressed and repair harms associated with that legacy. In recent years, he has seen change sparked by President Teresa Sullivan’s four-year-old Commission on Slavery and the University, which has recently renewed research into UVA’s history of slavery and eugenics.
In September, Dukes (who also served on the Blue Ribbon Commission) presented City Council with the idea of a lynching memorial, and points out that the lynching occurred at a demographic tipping point in Albemarle history.
“After 1890, blacks were no longer the majority here,” says Dukes, in part due to the rash of lynchings and other forms of racial terror that erupted across the South.
On July 12, 1898, John Henry James, an African-American Charlottesville resident, was accused of rape and arrested. While he was being transported to the Charlottesville jail, a mob of approximately 150 people seized him from the train that was carrying him.
The scene quickly escalated into violence. Without a trial to determine his guilt or innocence, James was hanged to death from a tree near the Ivy Depot. As was customary at the time, his body was also mutilated by more than 40 gunshots and his clothing and body parts were distributed among the crowd as souvenirs.
In 2018, the Equal Justice Initiative plans to open a Memorial to Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. The memorial will feature individual floating concrete columns commemorating each victim of more than 4,000 lynchings in America between 1877 and 1950. A duplicate column will be prepared for placement in the county where the lynching occurred, and Albermarle is one of those 800 counties. Courtesy Equal Justice Initiative
In 2015, the Equal Justice Initiative released a landmark report on the national history of lynching. The study uncovered more than 4,000 lynchings that occurred between 1877 and 1950, adding several hundred events to the existing historical record.
In 2018, EJI plans to open a museum and memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, to create a space for the public to interact with their findings. The Memorial to Peace and Justice will be constructed on six acres, with individual floating concrete columns commemorating each lynching victim.
For each column within the memorial, a duplicate column will be prepared for placement in the county where the lynching occurred. Albemarle is among 800 counties that were the sites of violent lynchings during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras.
A petition on Change.org is nearing 50 percent support for a lynching memorial to be placed near the courthouse, which currently hosts the Stonewall Jackson statue, providing additional historical context as a counter narrative to Lost Cause mythology. An additional marker could be placed near Ivy Depot, where the lynching occurred.
In September, Dukes (who also served on the Blue Ribbon Commission) presented City Council with the idea of a lynching memorial, and points out that the lynching occurred at a demographic tipping point in Albemarle history. Photo by Dan Addison
There are other plans to add context to Charlottesville’s landscape. Charlottesville’s Historic Resources Committee has been preparing a new series of nine markers that will offer a more complete narrative about Court Square.
One of the proposed markers will provide an overview of its history, with eight additional markers adding context to specific locations including taverns, hotels and commercial buildings. The text that will be on display is currently being finalized, with the goal of installing the new markers as early in 2018 as possible.
Additionally, the committee is working to create a new marker for Court Square that will identify the location of the auction block where enslaved men and women were once sold. The marker currently on display was previously built into the side of a building that once housed a 19th-century auction house, until the building’s owners had it relocated to an inconspicuous spot in the sidewalk.
“People have objected that it’s not prominent enough,” says O’Bryant. “Even people looking for it don’t always find it.”
Although there is no official date for the auction block marker’s installation, the new marker will provide more information than the current plaque. The Historic Resources Committee also plans to install the new marker vertically and closer to eye level to increase its visibility.
Rewriting history
Beyond signs and statues, Charlottesville has other options for sparking conversations about the city’s history. This spring marked the first celebration of Liberation and Emancipation Day, commemorating March 3, 1865, when the city was surrendered to the United States Union Army.
Following the surrender, as the United States army razed a textile mill (in the neighborhood that would later be named Woolen Mills) and destroyed a nearby bridge, Albemarle County was awash with jubilation as formerly enslaved African-Americans celebrated their freedom.
“They said things like, ‘I prayed and prayed that you would arrive, and now you’re here. Glory to god!’” says Schmidt, recalling primary sources from the VFH archive.
Schmidt’s academic work has focused on the importance of festivals and celebrations in culture.
“Festivals are a way to remember history, celebrate it and mark our values,” she says. “What better way to mark our values than to celebrate with these 14,000 people?”
The celebration was especially striking given that in 2015, the city moved to end Lee-Jackson Day, an annual state holiday celebrating the two Confederate generals whose statues are at the heart of the debate in Charlottesville.
“Take that to its logical conclusion,” Schmidt says. “You’ve already said that they’re not worthy of being celebrated.”
As executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Andrea Douglas is dedicated to sparking conversations about the history of Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos
The festivities were centered around a church service at the University Chapel, which was the site where the surrender took place, and continued with a parade to the Jefferson School.
Douglas remembers approximately 150 to 200 members of the community arriving at the Jefferson School. She was struck by the mood, which she says set an appropriate tone for community conversations about history and race.
“It was celebratory as much as it was an informative moment,” Douglas says.
Moving forward, the holiday, which arose from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, is expected to become part of the annual calendar.
Echoing Liberation and Emancipation Day’s ability to engage the community, Charlottesville will soon gain two new memorials that will be interactive and designed to drive conversations about race and history forward, rather than serving as venerations of specific historic figures.
In 2011, a student group called for a new memorial to commemorate enslaved laborers who were forced to work at UVA for the first four decades of its history. After winning support from the administration and a long search for an appropriate design, a plan for the Freedom Ring memorial has been chosen and it is slated for completion in time for UVA’s bicentennial in 2019.
The design features a circular granite structure designed to echo broken shackles. Stretching 80 feet in diameter, it will create a natural gathering place on the grassy stretch between the Corner and the Rotunda alongside University Avenue.
The structure will be inscribed with all known names of enslaved university workers, as well as marks to signify those who are unnamed in public record, with a rough-hewn exterior that will recall the physical and psychological scars left by slavery.
The landscaping has also been given careful thought and symbolism. A water feature will echo the Middle Passage (referring to the transportation of Africans on densely packed ships across the Atlantic), while also suggesting liberation. Finally, the landscaping will feature plants set to bloom during significant times, with blue snowdrops that will flower during Black History Month and potentially flowers that will bloom in time for Liberation and Emancipation Day on March 3.
In addition to the memorial for enslaved laborers, the Jefferson School is currently working to fund a new sculpture to commemorate Vinegar Hill, a historic African-American neighborhood that the city razed in 1965.
“The Jefferson School [can be viewed] as a monument itself, and the two [will] stand together as a true conversation about the community that was Vinegar Hill,” Douglas says.
The effort to commemorate Vinegar Hill began in 2011. A jury of historians, artists and writers, including Carmenita Higginbotham, Sarah Tanguy and Frank Walker, searched for a sculptor who could bring both a keen historic sensibility and an understanding of Charlottesville to the project.
Eventually, the jury selected Melvin Edwards, an award-winning artist known for both his installations at internationally known institutions including the Whitney and the Venice Biennale, as well as his public art projects, which have previously been featured at public housing and university sites.
For Douglas, Edwards’ iconic statue ensures that Charlottesville’s African-American community will be included in national conversations for years to come.
After a series of meetings with the area’s black community, Edwards designed a sculpture specifically for the site near the Jefferson School. The proposed sculpture will be made of welded steel featuring both geometric shapes and more recognizable symbols including chains. Its modern, abstract form is designed to resist easy explanation.
“You can actually stand inside of it,” Douglas says. “There’s a relationship to your body; you can be surrounded by the metaphor of this object.”
This represents a radical departure from the design of the Confederate statues, which can be only be approached from a point of view of veneration, she says.
These new memorials offer hope to members of the Charlottesville community who would like to see conversations about the city’s history expand.
“The arc is definitely moving strongly toward more honesty, more complete histories, and more understanding the need to overcome white supremacy,” says Dukes. “To be pessimistic is to be cynical, and to be cynical is to be complicit. I choose to look to ways many people are changing, so it’s not too hard to be optimistic.”
As the Vinegar Hill statue awaits complete funding, it raises broader questions about how statues and memorials are funded in Charlottesville. Part of the debate over whether the city has the legal right to remove the Confederate statues hinges on the fact that they were originally the result of a private donation, rather than public funding.
Although the Blue Ribbon Commission directed some funding to the Vinegar Hill sculpture, its position on private property and the fact that the jury process was not held publicly through City Council suppressed the amount of funding.
“If we got the money in 2012 or 2013 it may have been able to change the conversation,” Douglas says. “Had it begun and been more robust earlier, would the community be more prepared for the conversations we are engaged in now?”
Despite Edwards’ dialogue with Charlottesville’s African-American community, Douglas was clear that not everyone agrees about the final design. Nonetheless, these interactive memorials will provide new entry points into discussions of race, history and culture, offering Charlottesville new opportunities to debate and define its story.
“The only good thing of the events this summer is people are paying much more attention to our history,” says Dukes.
