Sigh, statues........
Rick Smith
Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance-Star
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Confederate monuments face new scrutiny across Fredericksburg area
By Taft Coghill
As Tracy Rollins, Diane Shoultz and other protesters marched through the town of Orange in June in support of Black Lives Matter, they noticed counter-protesters in front of the county courthouse.
It was a little more than a week after George Floyd died during an arrest by Minneapolis police officers, and along the way, the protesters said they encountered at least one person who yelled profanity and waved a stick as another held up a Confederate flag.
But what jolted Shoultz the most was the location where some stood as the protesters made their way from the Food Lion at the Orange Village Shopping Center to the courthouse on Main Street.
Shoultz had never paid much attention to the Confederate memorial—a generic solider standing with rifle in hand in front of the courthouse—in her 10 years living in Orange, until that moment.
“The people that were in opposition, that is where they stood with their rebel flags and their American flags and their guns,” Shoultz said. “They stood right next to that statue.”
The symbolism startled Shoultz. It prompted her to become involved in a movement to have the statue relocated. An online petition demanding the statue be removed has garnered more than 11,000 signatures.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors is one of several governing bodies in the Fredericksburg area that have fielded complaints about Confederate courthouse monuments since the General Assembly’s new law that allows local governments to decide the fate of such memorials went into effect July 1.
While the issue has yet to be added to the agenda in Orange, Caroline County will hold a public hearing on its monument Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Caroline County Community Services Center. A vote is expected to immediately follow.
Essex County is seeking to determine if it owns the Confederate monument that stands in front of its courthouse and the Tappahannock Police Department. Residents in King George and Culpeper have also sought to have Confederate monuments removed from their courthouse lawns.
Lecia Brooks, the chief of staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., said the death of Floyd was a turning point in urban and rural America as citizens began to pay closer attention to Confederate iconography erected after the Civil War.
“People began to think broadly and question how we venerate and who we venerate in the United States across public space,” said Brooks, who testified before Congress in January about combating white nationalism. “White folks in particular began to question things they have been taught. This is easily a symbol of white supremacy. Why do these monuments continue to exist and tower over communities?”
QUESTIONING THE INTENT
The Caroline Board of Supervisors earlier this month rejected a motion to put the Confederate memorial on the November ballot with a nonbinding referendum by a 4–2 vote.
Resident William Smith spoke in favor of the referendum during the Aug. 11 meeting. He wanted to allow all citizens an additional say in the outcome.
Smith said when examining Confederate monuments one must look at the intent when they were erected. Smith said, in his opinion, the Caroline monument doesn’t glorify the Confederacy, but honors those from the county who died fighting for it.
The monument was erected by the Bowling Green Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for approximately $1,700 in 1906.
Leaders of the UDC did not respond to an email requesting comment for this story. The organization was founded in 1894 and according to a Washington Post report in July, it receives annual payments from several states for maintenance of Confederate graves.
Brooks and the SPLC believe courthouse grounds were intentionally selected by the UDC and other similar organizations to discourage Blacks. Brooks noted that Confederate memorials first began to appear shortly after the end of the Civil War, but their presence spiked during two specific periods.
She said the first spike was in the early 1900s, when Southern states began to rewrite their constitutions, and Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise Blacks took effect.
“These monuments and statues—especially those that are on courthouse lawns—were meant to intimidate Black Americans as reconstruction sought to provide constitutional rights,” Brooks said. “It was to remind people—and this is not hyperbolic—that white supremacy was the law of the land.”
Brooks said the second spike in Confederate symbolism came in the 1950s and ’60s, and it coincided with the civil rights movement and a push to end segregation, particularly in school systems. Many schools and government buildings were named in honor of Confederate generals around that time. There are more than 1,800 Confederate symbols in the U.S., according to the SPLC.
“It was in service of creating this false narrative around the lost cause, or what the Civil War was about,” Brooks said of the post-war Confederate movement. “It was to frame these folks that were on the losing side against the United States as heroic figures.”
PANDEMIC PAUSE IN ORANGE
Rollins and Shoultz said they’re concerned about gaining traction in Orange because of a lack of diversity on the board of supervisors. All five representatives are white men.
Rollins said Orange has an ideal home for the memorial at Wilderness Battlefield, which is located in the county and offers walking trails, markers and monuments dedicated to the Civil War. The battlefield is National Park Service property and the federal government would have to agree to take the monument.
The courthouse statue has an inscription that reads: “They fought for the right. They died for their country. Cherish their memory. Imitate their example.”
“I don’t have the option to not see the statue every single time I leave my home,” said Rollins, who is white and married to a Black man. “If it’s placed at the Battlefield site, those who want to see it can, and those who don’t will not have to. That seems like a win–win situation to me.”
Shoultz and Rollins emailed the board Monday formally requesting it to add the issue to its agenda as quickly as possible.
Orange Supervisor Jim White said because of the coronavirus pandemic and with board meetings being held virtually, there hasn’t been any public comment.
“I expect at a meeting in the very near future we’ll have it on the agenda and take public input,” White said.
The new law allows local governments to either hold a public hearing or offer a referendum prior to deciding what to do with Confederate memorials.
White said because the discussion is “relatively new” to Orange, the board is in flux. He said there are large groups on both sides of the issue and that puts the board in a tough spot. He said the board will do the best job it can “in terms of reflecting the views of the community.”
“I think generally it should be a local matter. I think it’s OK to have done that,” White said of the new law. “But to have done it without guidance and without any consultation, that sort of leaves us hanging because we were no more prepared to deal with this as anybody was.”
CAROLINE FORGING AHEAD
Nine Caroline residents spoke out against the Confederate monument in front of their courthouse at a July 14 Board of Supervisors meeting.
A protest was held at the site of the memorial on Aug. 3. Eight days later, there was a silent protest with demonstrators carrying signs opposing the statue during the board meeting.
Later that same meeting, 17 residents spoke regarding the monument, with 13 opposing a proposed referendum and urging the board to immediately take action to remove it.
“I propose if you want to keep that statue up, let’s be fair,” Caroline resident Michael Carter Jr. said. “If you’re going to put someone up to terrorize and was a terrorist to this nation, let’s put up another statue of Osama Bin Laden. Let’s put up another statue of the Japanese Imperial Army. Let’s put up another statue of the Vietcong. So we can all feel terror, not just one [group] of us.”
Those in favor of keeping the monument strongly disagree with Carter’s opinion of the local Confederate soldiers. They note they had little choice in fighting, they received pardons from President Andrew Johnson in 1868 and 462 are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
More than 800 county residents signed a petition to keep the monument in place. Local historian Herbert Collins wrote a letter to the board stating that Confederate soldiers were faced with two options at that time: fight for the South or leave their roots and move to Canada.
“We cannot change history by tearing down statues,” Collins wrote.
Kay Brooks wrote that she often sees tourists studying the monument when she drives past.
Roger Brooks said he’s never heard anyone speak negatively about the statue while attending events in Bowling Green for more than 40 years.
“The monument should not only remain for educational purposes, but to honor those who left home to defend their state, locality and families,” Roger Brooks wrote. “Many of these brave never returned; their efforts and sacrifices should not be forgotten.”
Bowling Green Vice Mayor Mark Gaines, who is running for Mayor in November, said if the monument is going to “bring a big divide” it needs to come down. But Gaines added he’s concerned about a snowball effect.
Bowling Green resident Ed Simmons signed the petition to keep the monument where it is. He said he feels an attachment to the statue because he appreciates history. Simmons, a freelance writer, said he doesn’t view the memorial as a racist symbol, “but I realize that’s just me, and not taking into consideration the times in which the statues went up.”
“I can’t really intellectually defend having signed the petition,” Simmons added. “But it was more emotional on my part. I love that old statue. … It breaks my heart to see it come down.”
ESSEX IN LIMBO
In neighboring Essex County, there were 19 speakers at the July 14 Board of Supervisors meeting. Two spoke in favor of the monument remaining while 17 others implored the board to remove it.
The speakers were encouraged to attend that meeting by the board’s lone Black representative, Sidney Johnson. Johnson, 74, spoke with residents about the monument at a rally to support Black Lives Matter on June 10.
“We’re just struggling to get it on the record for them to vote,” said Reggie Carter, who has spearheaded the effort.
Johnson said because of the pandemic, no one is allowed in the courthouse to research the monument’s title for more than one hour at a time.
He said there is confusion as to whether the monument belongs to the county or the town of Tappahannock. Carter presented recent emails showing Tappahannock Freedom of Information Act officer Jamie Ashworth stating “the town does not claim ownership of the monument at this time.”
Still, Johnson said the county and its five representatives are exploring having a joint meeting with the seven-member town council to decide on the monument.
“We’re hopeful,” Carter said. “Right now, what we’re doing is just raising awareness.”
Carter said lessons in school didn’t give him a clear understanding of the Civil War and Confederate history. He’s launched a website, essexmonument.com, to provide a thorough background of the monument to include that it was erected in 1909 by the Ladies’ Memorial Association.
Johnson, who attended school during segregation, said the website brought back painful memories as it recalled song lyrics with racial slurs performed at fundraising concerts in that period.
“It just took me back to the Jim Crow era and I stopped reading it,” Johnson said. “It was reminding me of what I actually experienced.”
Johnson said Confederate monuments in public spaces “do not represent any locality that has a future of inclusiveness.” But he said there has been a strong push from those who want it to remain.
Brooks of the SPLC said such resistance is to be expected. She noted there was momentum in 2016 to remove Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof massacred nine church-goers at a Bible Study in Charleston, S.C., and again following a white nationalist march in Charlottesville in 2017 that left one dead. But that momentum eventually stalled.
Since Floyd’s death in late May, 59 Confederate symbols have been renamed or relocated, including 38 monuments, some that were in front of courthouses.
“All citizens of these counties are expected to access the courthouse,” Brooks said. “This reminder of these soldiers that fought to continue to enslave their ancestors is disrespectful. Public space should be open to all citizens, not just some.”
Rick Smith
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