Epiphany at a Stop Light

My depiction (2007) of Fred Monihan's sculpture of J.E.B. Stuart fading into the mists.

Facing east on Monument Avenue I was waiting for the stoplight to change. It was about 35 years ago. The sights were as familiar as could be. Through the windshield I could see the J.E.B. Stuart monument. To the right was the hospital named for that place on the map -- Stuart Circle. I was born in that hospital and so was my daughter.

Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, a fresh thought struck me. It felt like an epiphany.

Background: Not too long before this moment, in 1984, I had run for a seat on Richmond's City Council. The task of campaigning had exposed me to some neighborhoods in my home town that had been mostly unfamiliar to me before I decided to run for office.

Why I took that plunge, with no chance to win, is another story, for another day. But the reason for mentioning it here is how eye-opening that experience was. For one thing, I don't think I had ever spent any time in Gilpin Court before the campaign trail took me there. It was part of the Fifth District, which also included the part of the Fan District that was behind the equestrian statue before me. As Richmonders know, Virginia Commonwealth University's academic campus is sprawled out in the blocks just beyond the statue.

Looking at that glorifying depiction of a man on a horse, resting on a plinth, a question exploded in my head: What would I have thought of that so-called "monument" if I had been born black, instead of white? What if I had grown up in Gilpin Court?

The thought that followed made me laugh. I said to myself: "By the time I was 16, I probably would have blown that damn thing up." Answering my own question had provided me with a momentary walk-in-the-other-man's-shoes.

That prompted me to be amazed that it hadn't already happened. Boom! For the first time, I wondered how it had survived in that public space since the early 1900s. 

Folks who remember the 16-year-old version of me should be laughing now. At least a few of them know there would have been some chance, indeed, that I would have really done it ... had I been a headstrong black teenager, who, like me, got thrown out of school regularly.

Before that flash of empathy, I don't think I had ever tried to imagine myself as a black Richmonder looking at those looming statues of Confederate generals, day after day. Ever since then, I've seen those memorials to the Lost Cause in a different light.

Now, in June of 2020, Monument Avenue is being subjected to a mind-boggling transformation at the hands of young people who have seen to it that the spell those damn Confederate memorials have had on Richmond is kaput.

Art and words by F.T. Rea

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