In a way, I agree with this letter.  We can't try to hide, or cover up,
or ignore, symbols of what has been wrong in our history.  Richmond does
not.   Its old slave auction block, among other things, is right there to be
viewed.   Displays of the "stars and bars," the battle flag of the
Confederacy, are sure to offend since they are all reproductions anyway and
found on pickup truck windows all across the land -- but the Bonnie Blue,
the "national flag" of the Confederacy, rarely incites controversy.

    It is hard to judge what the designers of this river walk historical
lesson had in mind.   Funds have been raised privately to finance this
"commercial" art consisting of 29 murals, only one of which shows General
Lee.  Now that the Lee mural has been removed, the Sons of the Confederate
Veterans have threatened to stage a protest during this weekend's dedication
festivities.

    It seems to me, at least, that here we are not dealing with "museum"
issues.  This is created art.  The city is full of monuments, museums,
shrines, etc. related to Confederate heroes -- and also to well-known people
unrelated to the Civil War (e.g., George Washington, Edgar Allen Poe, Ellen
Glasgow, Harry F. Byrd, Arthur Ashe, to name a few).  It has many
distinguished museums.

    The site is an historic one on an historic river.  The English
established their first permanent settlement in the New World downstream,
where they became acquainted with Pocahontas, found tobacco to be a
lucrative crop, where the first blacks were brought under indentures and as
slaves, where America's first representative government was
established...where inland waterway commerce began well before the Hudson
River was found...where the Monitor and Merrimac engaged in battle...where
exist some of America's finest plantation homes...a river, beginning in the
Blue Ridge Mountains, that from Richmond east was closed to fishing for
years because of man's misunderstanding of the effects of chemical
wastes...and so on.

    Serious study of the educational potential of this project may never
have been carried out.  The civic leaders involved decided to use an old
floodwall for murals that made an historical statement -- that might create
yet one more tourist attraction and help develop businesses along the river.
The issue raised in this case is one of "whose" historical statement is
being made.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Waldeck <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Lee in Virgina and other symbols


>I think what is often objected to in these cases is the glorification and
>legitimization of groups, persons or ideas who represent racial hatred,
>slavery and/or genocide.  Without having seen the river walk way, I can
only
>guess that given Richmond's history as the CSA's capital, community members
>may have felt that Lee was being glorified (as he often is in this country)
>by the city, despite the fact that he was in a section named 'Conflict.'
>The community may also feel that a slave revolt, even if violent, has some
>measure of legitimacy given the fact that the instigators are being held
>against their will by masters who use their labor for personal profit.
>As for the case of Oklahoma's capital, setting the Confederate flag amongst
>all of the others clearly equates this flag with them.  The display of
>Confederate symbols without contextual material could very easily be seen
as
>legitimization of the ideas of slavery.
>As an aspiring Holocaust curator, I believe that these issues are very
>important to the museum community.  Our job is to educate the public.
>Placing symbols of these types of movements and regimes on display without
>carefully thought out interpretive materials available represents a failure
>to carry out our basic mission of education.  Museums and other public
>history institutions should not avoid displaying these symbols of hate, but
>should clearly mark them as such and avoid giving any appearence of
>legitimacy to them.
>
>
>Rob Waldeck
>
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