Last week the Virginia Senate approved a bill that would remove the tax-exempt status of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.
Years ago admittedly, I knew a scholar who joined the UDC just to get in the archives. It worked until she slipped and mentioned that she was working on a dissertation. They threw her out.
From a Virginian: Thanks for this informative, important posting.
Re "the dramatic shift in the understanding of the history of the Civil War and the Confederacy among Black and white Virginians": Amen, and please have a look at the centerpiece for an illustrative story about that dramatic shift:
The UDC perped that obscene arch at Fort Monroe. It was finally removed in 2019. They perped it in the late 50s on what was then still Army property, during Virginia's Massive Resistance to school integration (when my elementary school, Granby in Norfolk, was closed for a time rather than integrate).
The slope in the photo leads to the top of the earthen-topped ramparts of the magnificent, moated stone citadel within Fort Monroe--the now-retired Army post that actually comprises all of Point Comfort, the 1619 arrival place of the first captive Africans. You can circumnavigate the entire stone citadel by walking that elevated lawn. Here's a photo of the retired post overall:
The slope in the first picture leads up to the citadel rampart shown at the 5 o'clock position on the stone citadel, as seen in the second. From there, straight ahead, you can see the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Nearby is the towering flagpole with Old Glory flying, visible to ships entering the bay from the ocean. To your right is the entrance to Hampton Roads harbor.
Old Point Comfort was first fortified in 1609 because it guards the lower Chesapeake. It's inherently historic because it's inherently strategic as the Chesapeake Bay's flat Gibraltar.
But here's why the UDC's placement of that arch was obscene. Those first captive Africans arrived at Point Comfort in 1619, the start of slavery in British North America. The first successful self-emancipators arrived at Fort Monroe in May 1861--the start of the crumbling of U.S. slavery once Union soldiers began sacrificing and making freedom possible. Aside from that little piece of elevated lawn, no place in America affords a better view of so many dimensions of Fort Monroe's quarter-millennium-long arc of freedom. That arc was long, but it bent toward abolition of the Confederacy's cornerstone abomination.
The dramatic shift was slow in this case, as in many others. A few months before the 1619-2019 quadricentennial, somebody belatedly realized that the obscenity of the UDC's Jefferson Davis arch would draw international attention during the August commemoration at Fort Monroe. It was out of place enormously--and obscenely. (Have I overused that word? No.)
Politicians scrambled to get permission to remove the arch, and they got it removed in time.
There's actually a lot more to this story. I'll eventually do a posting on it.
Thanks for bringing up the UDC and the dramatic shift, and thanks for indulging this.
Thanks. Yes indeed, and in my view the National Park Service does a good job of historical interpretation there--and for that matter, so does the Commonwealth of Virginia, which actually controls Fort Monroe.
But it's important to be clear about the degree of national stewardship of this international treasure, now recognized that way by the U.N.
It's only token national stewardship. Referring to the cited photo of the retired Army post overall, Fort Monroe National Monument actually comprises only the top of the thin part in the upper right, plus--with a huge asterisk--the moated stone citadel that Civil War self-emancipators called Freedom's Fortress.
A story illustrates the size of that asterisk.
When worries about the obscene Jefferson Davis arch came up shortly before the quadricentennial, the governor wrote an official letter calling for removal. Although the moated stone citadel is nominally shared between the commonwealth and the NPS, that's only something meant to marginalize voices that called from the beginning for substantial national stewardship--not of a split, token national monument, but of a substantial Freedom's Fortress National Park. It would stretch--or anyway, would have stretched--from the northern tip in the upper right, down the righthand coastline, and would have enveloped the moated citadel, with Hampton retaining the parts of the former base on the left side in the photo.
Here's how you know that the co-ownership of the citadel is only token: The governor's 2019 letter didn't even so much as cc the NPS. Virginia had already won its battle for overdevelopment, and no longer even had to act like the public voices for substantial national stewardship mattered.
And here's how you know that overdevelopment is the same goal now as it was in 2005 when, alarmed by Virginia's stated plans for after Fort Monroe's 2011 retirement, I started publishing op-eds in the Washington Post and the major Virginia dailies:
Here's Virginia's official vision for this bayfront real estate treasure that, to the state, is only incidentally an international treasure in the history of liberty: "To redevelop this historic property into a vibrant, mixed-use community that creates social, cultural, and economic successes."
That proclamation's web page, "Reimagine the Future of Fort Monroe," never even mentions the National Park Service or the limited, split, token national monument.
But yes, though the NPS doesn't even have a visitors center--Virginia commandeered that too, and does a nice job of it--the NPS's historical interpretation, though confined to the web, does a nice job.
In the 2011 White House ceremony when President Obama created the national monument, at one point he mentioned and thanked the citizen activists who started the whole thing. But not even the president of our group, Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, got invited to be among the two dozen politicians arrayed behind the president at his desk in the Oval Office. Most of them had opposed us.
Just as well, because in our five-year political struggle, we got outmaneuvered, thanks mostly to public support that although it was miles wide, was only inches deep.
For years afterwards, as a CFMNP founder and its public voice, I got thanked occasionally by well-intentioned people who assumed that "Fort Monroe National Monument" meant that Fort Monroe was under substantial national stewardship. It's not.
Spirit of place contributes to historical interpretation. That's why people oppose a bridge across the James at Jamestown. At Fort Monroe, spirit of place is permanently hobbled.
Years ago admittedly, I knew a scholar who joined the UDC just to get in the archives. It worked until she slipped and mentioned that she was working on a dissertation. They threw her out.
I am surprised to hear that a UDC member understands what dissertation involves. Sorry. That's mean.
Thank you for the great write up. Much appreciated.
You bet.
From a Virginian: Thanks for this informative, important posting.
Re "the dramatic shift in the understanding of the history of the Civil War and the Confederacy among Black and white Virginians": Amen, and please have a look at the centerpiece for an illustrative story about that dramatic shift:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Jefferson_Davis_archway_Fort_Monroe_VA1.jpg
The UDC perped that obscene arch at Fort Monroe. It was finally removed in 2019. They perped it in the late 50s on what was then still Army property, during Virginia's Massive Resistance to school integration (when my elementary school, Granby in Norfolk, was closed for a time rather than integrate).
The slope in the photo leads to the top of the earthen-topped ramparts of the magnificent, moated stone citadel within Fort Monroe--the now-retired Army post that actually comprises all of Point Comfort, the 1619 arrival place of the first captive Africans. You can circumnavigate the entire stone citadel by walking that elevated lawn. Here's a photo of the retired post overall:
https://norfolkhistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/resources/Pictures/Aerial.jpg
The slope in the first picture leads up to the citadel rampart shown at the 5 o'clock position on the stone citadel, as seen in the second. From there, straight ahead, you can see the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Nearby is the towering flagpole with Old Glory flying, visible to ships entering the bay from the ocean. To your right is the entrance to Hampton Roads harbor.
Old Point Comfort was first fortified in 1609 because it guards the lower Chesapeake. It's inherently historic because it's inherently strategic as the Chesapeake Bay's flat Gibraltar.
But here's why the UDC's placement of that arch was obscene. Those first captive Africans arrived at Point Comfort in 1619, the start of slavery in British North America. The first successful self-emancipators arrived at Fort Monroe in May 1861--the start of the crumbling of U.S. slavery once Union soldiers began sacrificing and making freedom possible. Aside from that little piece of elevated lawn, no place in America affords a better view of so many dimensions of Fort Monroe's quarter-millennium-long arc of freedom. That arc was long, but it bent toward abolition of the Confederacy's cornerstone abomination.
The dramatic shift was slow in this case, as in many others. A few months before the 1619-2019 quadricentennial, somebody belatedly realized that the obscenity of the UDC's Jefferson Davis arch would draw international attention during the August commemoration at Fort Monroe. It was out of place enormously--and obscenely. (Have I overused that word? No.)
Politicians scrambled to get permission to remove the arch, and they got it removed in time.
There's actually a lot more to this story. I'll eventually do a posting on it.
Thanks for bringing up the UDC and the dramatic shift, and thanks for indulging this.
It's good to see that this history is now being interpreted and commemorated at Fortress Monroe since the NPS established a park. https://www.nps.gov/fomr/planyourvisit/first-african-landing.htm
Thanks. Yes indeed, and in my view the National Park Service does a good job of historical interpretation there--and for that matter, so does the Commonwealth of Virginia, which actually controls Fort Monroe.
But it's important to be clear about the degree of national stewardship of this international treasure, now recognized that way by the U.N.
It's only token national stewardship. Referring to the cited photo of the retired Army post overall, Fort Monroe National Monument actually comprises only the top of the thin part in the upper right, plus--with a huge asterisk--the moated stone citadel that Civil War self-emancipators called Freedom's Fortress.
A story illustrates the size of that asterisk.
When worries about the obscene Jefferson Davis arch came up shortly before the quadricentennial, the governor wrote an official letter calling for removal. Although the moated stone citadel is nominally shared between the commonwealth and the NPS, that's only something meant to marginalize voices that called from the beginning for substantial national stewardship--not of a split, token national monument, but of a substantial Freedom's Fortress National Park. It would stretch--or anyway, would have stretched--from the northern tip in the upper right, down the righthand coastline, and would have enveloped the moated citadel, with Hampton retaining the parts of the former base on the left side in the photo.
Here's how you know that the co-ownership of the citadel is only token: The governor's 2019 letter didn't even so much as cc the NPS. Virginia had already won its battle for overdevelopment, and no longer even had to act like the public voices for substantial national stewardship mattered.
And here's how you know that overdevelopment is the same goal now as it was in 2005 when, alarmed by Virginia's stated plans for after Fort Monroe's 2011 retirement, I started publishing op-eds in the Washington Post and the major Virginia dailies:
Here's Virginia's official vision for this bayfront real estate treasure that, to the state, is only incidentally an international treasure in the history of liberty: "To redevelop this historic property into a vibrant, mixed-use community that creates social, cultural, and economic successes."
That proclamation's web page, "Reimagine the Future of Fort Monroe," never even mentions the National Park Service or the limited, split, token national monument.
https://reimagine.fortmonroe.org/
But yes, though the NPS doesn't even have a visitors center--Virginia commandeered that too, and does a nice job of it--the NPS's historical interpretation, though confined to the web, does a nice job.
In the 2011 White House ceremony when President Obama created the national monument, at one point he mentioned and thanked the citizen activists who started the whole thing. But not even the president of our group, Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, got invited to be among the two dozen politicians arrayed behind the president at his desk in the Oval Office. Most of them had opposed us.
Just as well, because in our five-year political struggle, we got outmaneuvered, thanks mostly to public support that although it was miles wide, was only inches deep.
For years afterwards, as a CFMNP founder and its public voice, I got thanked occasionally by well-intentioned people who assumed that "Fort Monroe National Monument" meant that Fort Monroe was under substantial national stewardship. It's not.
Spirit of place contributes to historical interpretation. That's why people oppose a bridge across the James at Jamestown. At Fort Monroe, spirit of place is permanently hobbled.
Thanks for the additional information.