Saying it’s time to “set the historical record straight,” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced Thursday that he has appointed a 10-member commission to study ways to add context to the city’s public memorials to the Confederacy on Monument Avenue, likely with new historical signage.
“Equal parts myth and deception, (the statues) were the ‘alternative facts’ of their time — a false narrative etched in stone and bronze more than 100 years ago — not only to lionize the architects and defenders of slavery, but to perpetuate the tyranny and terror of Jim Crow and reassert a new era of white supremacy,” Stoney said.
“It is my belief that without telling the whole story, these monuments have become a default endorsement of that shameful period — one that does a disservice to the principles of racial equality, tolerance and unity we celebrate.”
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Cities throughout the South have been grappling with how to handle the memorials in recent years — and indeed, Stoney’s idea was quickly condemned by people on both sides of the issue.
New Orleans removed a statue of Robert E. Lee last month. Closer to home, Charlottesville has voted to remove a statue of Lee, prompting a white supremacist rally last month and a legal challenge filed by Confederate heritage groups.
Stoney said he does not support removing the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, which include three Civil War generals — Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson — along with the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and Confederate navy commander Matthew Fontaine Maury.
“I wish these monuments had never been built, but like it or not they are part of our history in this city, and removal will never wash away that stain,” he said.
Stoney dubbed the new group the “Monument Avenue Commission” and appointed Christy Coleman, the CEO of the American Civil War Museum, and Gregg Kimball, the director of education and outreach for the Library of Virginia, to serve as co-chairs.
The commission is tasked with seeking public input to “make recommendations to the mayor’s office on how to best tell the real story of our monuments,” something he said could potentially include the addition of informational signs similar to ones commonly found at national parks around the country.
Stoney also asked the group to study whether new monuments should be added to the street.
“I think we should consider what Monument Avenue would look like with a little more diversity,” Stoney said.
The city has set up a website to get public comments, www.monumentavenue commission.org. The commission also will hold two public meetings within the next 90 days, Stoney said, with a November deadline to present him with final recommendations.
By ruling out removing the statues, Stoney laid out a distinctly moderate approach to the issue, compared with the paths taken by Charlottesville and New Orleans, where tense protests have occurred. His plan nonetheless drew immediate condemnation from activists on both sides.
A spokesman from the Virginia chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, B. Frank Earnest Sr., took issue with Stoney’s characterization of the monuments’ significance and said the group will oppose any plans to erect contextual signage.
“All you have to do is go back and look and you’ll see they were dedicated for exactly the reason one would think: commemorations of people who sacrificed in the war,” Earnest said. “Not some silliness about Jim Crow and trying to bring back slavery or whatever silliness they think it is.
“So absolutely we oppose it on the basis that it’s opinion, not historical fact.”
Others expressed disappointment Stoney is not considering removing the monuments.
“I think Mayor Stoney nailed it when he described the significance and meaning of the statues,” said Phil Wilayto, an organizer with the Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality, which has been advocating for a slavery memorial park in Shockoe Bottom. “They’re not only to honor Confederate officers, but they were to announce the return of white supremacy decades after the Civil War. And that’s exactly why they need to come down.
“The concept of contextualization, I’m sorry, that’s nothing short of cowardly. That’s not what other cities are doing. In New Orleans, they went up against armed opposition to take down the statue of Robert E. Lee, but here, city officials are afraid to take on this issue.”
Coleman, the co-chair of the commission, said the decision not to consider removal was Stoney’s, but if that’s the overwhelming consensus that comes out of the commission’s public engagement process, that’s what the group will relay to Stoney, she said.
“There are individuals who would love to blow them up right now,” Coleman said. “But as a public historian, I think there is an opportunity to talk about them more deeply. That’s already happening on bus tours and walking tours, but for the casual visitor, that doesn’t happen. Hopefully we’ll be able to come up with the language that is respectful.”
This is not the first time the city has grappled with its Confederate statues. In the early 1990s, the city decided to broaden Monument Avenue with the erection of a statue of African-American tennis great and Richmond native Arthur Ashe.
Since then, other city leaders, including former Mayor Dwight C. Jones, have spoken in favor of adding additional statues to the street, but there has been little serious discussion.
Two statues celebrating Richmond’s black history are in the works: The city is planning to unveil a statue of pioneering Richmond banker Maggie L. Walker in July. And the state is working to erect an emancipation statue by fall 2019.
The state commission planning the emancipation statue considered Monument Avenue but ruled it out after deciding it would need to be located west of the Ashe statue, where there is considerably less pedestrian and vehicular traffic and the grassy median narrows.
The city never publicly discussed putting the Walker statue on Monument Avenue, opting instead to locate the memorial on Broad Street near the entrance of Jackson Ward, a historic African-American business district where Walker operated her bank and several other businesses.
Stoney said that right now, “Arthur Ashe stands alone, and he is the only true champion on that street.”
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Other Virginia cities that have attempted to take down Confederate memorials have run into legal challenges, and it’s unclear if a state law aimed at preserving war monuments would limit Stoney’s ability to add any new signage recommended by his commission.
The law, passed in 1998, makes it illegal for cities and counties to “disturb or interfere with” any war memorial, including removing, damaging or “defacing” monuments. The law explicitly forbids the addition of Union “markings or monuments” to Confederate memorials and vice versa.
However, a wrinkle in the way the law was written has created legal ambiguity over whether the protection applies retroactively to all war memorials ever built in Virginia, or only those erected after the law was passed.
After a Danville judge hearing a case involving a Confederate flag ruled in 2015 that the law did not apply to memorials built before 1998, the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a bill to specify that the law protects every memorial regardless of when it was erected.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed the bill, saying there is “legitimate discussion going on in localities across the commonwealth regarding whether to retain, remove or alter certain symbols of the Confederacy.”
The question could be settled by a pending legal case in Charlottesville, where the City Council has voted to remove a statue of Lee from a prominent downtown park. Groups opposed to the decision filed a lawsuit that seeks to invoke the statutory protection for war memorials. In early May, a judge temporarily blocked the city from moving forward with plans to sell the statue, which was built in 1924, and said the statue appears to qualify as a protected war memorial.
Charlottesville’s legal insurance carrier, the Virginia Municipal League, initially denied coverage to the city, noting in a letter that the city’s potential liability couldn’t be covered in an “alleged intentional violation of a Virginia statute.”
In a letter challenging the denial, Charlottesville City Attorney Craig Brown pointed to the Danville case, saying that both lawsuits have the same legal basis while noting that the Danville decision is “not binding precedent” in Charlottesville. Miriam Dickler, a Charlottesville spokeswoman, said VML has since agreed to cover the city in the case.
Another potential issue Stoney may face: The Lee statue at the intersection of Monument and Allen avenues — the city’s largest Confederate monument — is owned by the state, potentially limiting the city’s ability to add signage.