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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 some 35 years ago. Looking through the windshield the sights before me were as familiar as could
be. At a 45-degree angle to my left 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. For lack of a better word I'll call it "epiphany."
Background: Not
too long before this moment 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
in the world I took that plunge, with only the slimmest of chances to win, is another story, for another day. Nonetheless, the reason for
mentioning it here is how eye-opening that experience in 1984 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 of Stuart.
Looking at that semi-deifying depiction of a man
on a spirited horse, resting on a plinth, a question exploded in my head: What would a 21-year-old Black version of me have thought of that glorification of the Lost Cause -- that so-called "monument." If I had grown up in Gilpin
Court, what would I have thought of Richmond's row of Confederate memorials?
The thought that followed amused me. Essentially, I said to myself: "I might have blown that damn thing up." Maybe, as I pressed the accelerator down, I said that line out loud ... but I don't remember.
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 started wondering how it and the others on Monument Avenue had survived in those public spaces since
the turn of the century. The other century.
Before that flash
of empathy, I doubt 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 relics of the Lost Cause in a
different light.
In the last year Monument Avenue has been undergoing a mind-boggling transformation with the removal of Confederate sculptures. Some of it done by City Hall, some of it by the hands of young people who
saw to it last year to break the spell all that propaganda in bronze had
cast over Richmond.
Last summer (2020) the statue of Stuart was removed by authority of the City of Richmond. At this writing, its pedestal remains in place. Tomorrow (Sept. 8, 2021), by authority of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the last of Monument Avenue's statues of Confederate heroes -- Robert E. Lee -- will be removed from its pedestal.
What was largely unthinkable, only a generation ago, now seems quite overdue.
*
Update: On Dec. 6, 2021, on orders from Virginia's Gov. Ralph Northam, workers began the process of removing the towering pedestal on which the statue of Lee rested for 131 years. The job is expected to be done before the end of the year.
Boom!
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