Reconciling the Past

To much of the outside world, it often seems that Richmond is seen as a city mired in the Civil War.

As Richmonders, they must think, we spend our weekends dressed in grey, woolen clothing, reenacting battle scenes or sitting on the veranda, sipping mint juleps and tracing our granddaddy’s lineage back to someone who fought alongside Robert E. Lee.

For most Richmonders, though, nothing could further from the truth.

Sure, we’re home to some Civil War reenactors and a few folks who can claim ancestors who fought in the 1860s, but we’re also home to generations of people for whom that war is either an uncomfortable memory or an irrelevant historical footnote to be filed along side everything else they learned in grade school.

Of course, we’re also a city whose population is more than 50 percent African American, a group that also claims descendents of Richmonders from the 1860s, but few of whom are likely eager to reenact that era.

It seems what’s been easiest for many Richmonders, regardless of their ancestry, is just to ignore the Civil War entirely, but that’s exactly what the group involved in the Future of Richmond’s Past is trying to change.

Six of the community leaders involved in the Future of Richmond’s Past effort came together last Tuesday, June 22 as part of the “Evening at Morton’s: An Online Community Conversation” series to continue their ongoing conversation about the way Richmond interprets its past.

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the end of slavery beginning in 2011, the group is committed to ensuring that all Richmonders have a voice in the way their city commemorates this event.

“The Civil War is an American Story.” said Dr. Paul A. Levengood, President & CEO, Virginia Historical Society. “It is the defining American story in so many ways.”

But how do we tell that story?

Do we present a history of dates and battles? Show scenes from the home front? Expose conditions for soldiers? Delve into the economic and political ramifications of secession and war? And what about slavery and the lives, conditions, and treatment of the tens of thousand enslaved Richmonders?

For S. Waite Rawls III, President & CEO, The Museum Of The Confederacy, the challenge is using the commercially popular, which is the military part, specifically in the Confederacy, to get to the important, which includes slavery.

“If you say, ‘I've got the greatest slave museum in the world,’ is that going to draw people here?” Rawls asks.

He doesn’t necessarily think so, but The Hon. Delores L. McQuinn, Member of the House of Delegates and Chair, Slave Trail Commission, disagrees. She sees a shift in attitudes about telling the story of slavery.

“It's pain, embarrassment,” she said. “For a long time African American people thought their story wasn't being told. Now that's changing.”

Rawls mentioned a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch poll that showed that black people were more interested in history than previously thought, and white people seemed to be less interested because they were afraid that black people were not interested.

For Christy S. Coleman, President, American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, it’s important that the Civil War not be reduced to a simple conversation about states’ rights.

She related a story about a man who argued that, at the end of the day, soldiers were on the field of battle to defend their sense of liberty. Her response was that people have different ideas of liberty.

Is liberty the freedom to do what you like on your own land, or is the freedom not to be enslaved, Coleman said.

It’s clear that there’s not one, simple history of the Civil War.

“Americans are used to fast food, but we're getting ready to have a buffet, where people are going to have to come back for different bites,” said Dr. Edward L. Ayers, President, University of Richmond.

For Dr. Maureen G. Elgersman Lee, Executive Director, The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, it’s imperative that Richmond take this opportunity to look at the past.

“If not now, when?” she asked.

“People think that history is this series of canonical facts, but it's one of our responsibilities to do away with that model of how history gets presented. The end result of history isn't putting up a statue and moving on, but taking in new ways of looking at old and new evidence. History is as dynamic a process as our current lives,” Levengood said.

Whether we like it or not, the history of Richmond will always been connected to the Civil War and, along with it, slavery. It’s the defining event of this city and the shared past for all its residents.

The 150th anniversary commemoration kicks off with the biggest Civil War exhibit ever, according to Ayers, which opens in Richmond, at the Virginia Historical Society. There will also be exhibits and events at most of the other historical museums and cultural centers in the area. And the world will be watching to see how the former capital of the Confederacy honors, shares and views its past.

So how does Richmond reconcile this past, especially with the anniversary approaching and the world watching? And how does the city take advantage of the economic opportunities presented by such an occasion?

For all of the panelists, it starts with conversation. Visit futureofrichmondspast.org/ to find out how you can join in.