Downriver USA: Thinking about Charlottesville …

By Gary R. Baker

Site, monument, marker, place: Ask questions. Make connections. Find out.

This summer we have been debating about monuments in public spaces – most recently in Charlottesville, Virginia. In doing so, we are thinking about the landscape of our public lives. We are also thinking about how we should live our public lives. Essential to our thinking and reflection is asking questions. Then we will have a growing sense of understanding and a deepening insight.

Gen. Robert E. Lee, Emancipation Park, Charlottesville, Va,

Along with large monuments and sculptures, we can also ask questions about and reflect on markers, plaques, and open spaces such as cemeteries and campuses. In thinking about these markers and places, we make connections between them and then establish or discover a general context. Over time, we may also wonder why a particular monument or marker or site is not present. (For example, you might consider why there is only one monument of Southern Civil War hero, Lt. General William Mahone, trusted by Robert E. Lee, and leader of the Post-Civil War Readjuster Movement. "Mahone organized and led the most successful interracial political alliance in the post-emancipation South.")

First the individual should visit the site, walk in its territory, touch it, and read it or study it. Ask questions. What is the story of this site? What does the site mean? Reflect. Be open for insight and the beginning of understanding. Search out other sites nearby. Look for connections between sites as you ask questions and reflect. More and more people are using the expression “establish context” (or “discover context”) as they discuss a monument. To establish context, the observer or visitor must ask questions. What happened here? What is the story of this site? What is the historical neighborhood – in both physical space and time? The observer needs to do some detective work.

In the next section I list questions that can help in this detective work. Visitors to Charlottesville, a city of 47,000, may want to test these questions at various sites and look for connections between sites. Following the questions, I suggest a few places (of many) in and near Charlottesville that will produce insights when reflected on and compared.

Questions to consider when visiting a site:

Where is the monument?
Why is it in this location?
When was it placed here?
What is the story behind the monument? Has the story changed since the monument was erected?
What was the purpose of the monument? What is the purpose today?
Who designed it?
Who paid for it?
Has it been moved?
Has it been changed?
Has it been forgotten or ignored?
What is its physical condition? (Should it be repaired or cleaned?)
Do most people know it is here?
Does it continue to be part of public life?
What did it mean when it was first set up?
What does it mean now?
Should it be moved? Where?
Should it be redesignated or rededicated?
What have I discovered by visiting this site?
How significant is the monument to me personally? Why? (Personal reflection.)

Several Sample Sites: Charlottesville, Virginia, Summer 2017

Erected in 1924, an equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee stands in Lee Park (now called Emancipation Park) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Immediately after the Civil War, Lee was asked about the building of a monument to Stonewall Jackson. Lee opposed it because of the expense. Only markers and stones on individual graves would be appropriate, Lee believed.

Furthermore, constructing Confederate monuments would slow down the reunification of the country. Lee was convinced that it was time to rebuild and reunify the county – not build monuments. He even declined to meet with other Confederate and Union officers at Gettysburg to discuss a memorial there. Lee became President of Washington College (now Washington and Lee) shortly after the war in October, 1865, and died in 1870. He is buried in the college chapel.

Slave Auction Block, Court Square, Charlottesville, VA.

Not far from the Lee monument, visitors to Court Square can see the Slave Auction Block plaque pointing out the location of the slave market – the place on the streets of Charlottesville where slaves were bought and sold. Nearby is the campus of the University of Virginia with the Rotunda – the great library – the heart of the university with a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the founder and designer of “Virginia’s first truly public university” (“Timeline” see below.), standing in front, holding a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Fingerprints...see NBC Dateline video below.

A few miles away on “The Little Mountain” – Monticello – where Thomas Jefferson owned over 600 slaves during his lifetime, some changes are being made to reveal the full story of all of the people who lived on the 5,000 acre plantation. Place your own fingers in the fingerprints that slaves left in the bricks when they built the outside wall of the house. Visit the Sally Hemings display, and remember the only slaves that Jefferson freed were the children of Sally Hemings (and himself?). (Monticello is a World Heritage Site.)

In your own hometown – or in the town or city where you live or work today – what are the monuments, markers, places, and sites of memory, meaning, or consequence? What are the connections between them? What are the questions that come to mind when you visit them? What are the stories? What are the contradictions? What are the puzzles? What markers should be added? What insights come to you? In your detective work, what do you find out? What does it all mean?

Background

Actually, Robert E. Lee Was Against Erecting Confederate Memorials - CNN - 17 Aug 2017