The Monument Avenue Commission's report identifies the 1907 Jefferson Davis monument as the one that would be most appropriate for removal.
A little more than a year since Mayor Levar Stoney convened the Monument Avenue Commission to consider the future of Richmond's Confederate statutes, the commission has released a 115-page report.
In addition to suggesting the placement of new signs at Confederate monuments, the report recommends commissioning contemporary works that add meaning to Monument Avenue. The commission also suggests that the Jefferson Davis statue be removed, pending litigation or changes in state law that the city "may choose to initiate or support."
"Of all the statues," the report notes, "this one is the most unabashedly Lost Cause in its design and sentiment," adding, "Davis was not from Richmond or Virginia."
As temperatures climbed into the upper ‘90s Monday afternoon, few people were hanging around the Davis monument. One neighborhood resident, Ashton Birdsong, who walked by with a friend, said she'd be disappointed if Monument Avenue statues were taken down.
"I think they are here for a reason, I think they need to stay," Birdsong said. “I think taking them down takes away from Richmond and its history.”
Down the street near the Robert E. Lee monument, Steve Nuckolls expressed a similar view, pointing out that Monument Avenue is a national historic landmark.
“When you see the thousands of people that come here every year, the buses bring people here every day," said Nuckolls, president of the Historic Monument Avenue and Fan District Foundation. "I’ve been an ambassador who has talked to people from China, Japan, Chile, Canada, India and people who didn’t even know what it is; but, it’s beautiful and they heard about Monument Avenue. We don’t want to lose that.”
However, Nuckolls said he supports "telling the whole story, however we do it." He said he wouldn't have an issue with removing the Davis statute. "But that is one of the most beautiful statues we have. Why not keep the beauty, knock off the top and put someone else up there?”
Art Burton, a community activist and director of the Kinfolks Community Empowerment Center, was among the residents who advocated removing the Confederate monuments at a meeting with commission members at Fifth Baptist Church in late March.
"I’m still of the opinion that the statues no longer represent the city, and so I think ultimately we should be moving to take all of those statues down," he said Monday. "In some ways, I’m really disappointed that we’re not being a little bit bolder and having a stronger conversation about removing the statues."
Burton said he didn't think getting rid of just the Davis statue would satisfy either those calling for removal or those who want all the statues to remain. "I think it’s going to be a difficult fight" even to remove that one statue, he said, adding that he hopes he's wrong. "Prayerfully, we can take Davis down and contextualize Robert E. Lee and Jackson and the city can move forward."
Levar Stoney
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (photo by Jay Paul)
In a statement, Stoney said the statues "do not reflect the qualities of inclusivity, tolerance and equality we celebrate as values in our city today. The commission’s report is unequivocal in its affirmation that there is an overwhelming desire and belief they should not remain as they currently are. Something needs to change, and I could not agree more.”
A commission recommendation about creating contemporary works to “reflect a broader, more inclusive story of our history” mentions Virginia Commonwealth University's MoB Studio (for "Middle of Broad"), which received a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to “reimagine Monument Avenue.”
“After doing a project with our students on Monument Avenue in the fall of 2015 -- right after the Charleston [South Carolina] murders -- we had a show of the students’ work, we had a panel discussion that was really productive, and we came out of that saying 'We can’t just let this stop here,' ” says Camden Whitehead, an MoB faculty member and associate professor at the VCU School of the Arts.
So the studio applied for the NEA grant and is raising matching funds to conduct a competition this year to “reimagine Monument Avenue in its entire 5.4-mile range.” The competition is open to planners, landscape architects, architects, artists in groups or individually and “individuals not in those categories are also invited to apply to enter,” Whitehead says.
“Our feeling -- and what proved to be true -- when we conducted the project with our students, is that what happens when people have proposals in front of them [is] they tend to talk about the proposals rather than retreat to their camp,” Whitehead says, “and we find that a much healthier way to talk about the future of the physical environment.”
Registration to compete in the competition -- dubbed Monument Avenue General Demotion, General Devotion -- is open until Sept. 15. The submission deadline is Dec. 1, and judges will select 20 finalists in January to be printed and displayed at the Valentine museum, for an exhibition opening Feb. 14, 2019. In November 2019, a jury will convene in Richmond to make final award selections, followed by another panel discussion at the Valentine, where the jury will discuss their selections and a “People’s Choice” award will also be named.
There will also be a high school student competition in tandem with the larger competition, only this one will be asking students what the next monument installation should be.
“We’re going to ask high schools in the region to address what should be the next monument on Monument Avenue, and they’re going to produce models and drawings and writing about what the next monument should be,” Whitehead says.
The high school competition will be exhibited at the Branch Museum on Monument Avenue, also in February 2019, and follows roughly the same submission deadlines with minor tweaks to coordinate with the public school calendar.
The Monument Avenue Commission report also recommends that the city partner with the nonprofit Initiatives of Change to pursue funding for some of the options presented in the report through the Kellogg Foundation's Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation program, in which Richmond is one of 10 participating cities.
Jake Hershman, executive director of Initiatives of Change USA, says the organization is grateful to the commission for its report and looks forward "to participating in a thoughtful, respectful and constructive discussion of its findings and recommendations."
"We think that the stories we tell ourselves in a region like Richmond have been incompletely told at best," he says. "[There are] stories that lie beneath the surface of our community that deserve to be given platform."
Commission co-chairs Christy Coleman and Gregg Kimball are expected to make a presentation to City Council later this summer. Included in the report's 10 recommendations and options:
-- Add signs in public rights-of-way at the Maury, Jackson, Stuart and Davis monuments "that reflect the historic, biographical, artistic and changing meaning over time for each."
-- Place similar signage in the city's right-of-way near the Robert E. Lee monument.
-- Work with local museums "to create a permanent exhibit that takes a far deeper dive into the history of the monuments and the people depicted."
-- Collaborate with tourism and economic development officials to produce a video for the city's website that can also run in hotel rooms, providing a showcase of all monuments (including those under development recognizing women, slavery emancipation and Native Americans), and ensuring the narrative about Monument Avenue is historically accurate.
-- Produce a mobile app with information from the new signs.
-- Engage artists locally and internationally to create contemporary works "that bring new and expanded meaning to Monument Avenue."
-- Commission a monument dedicated to the United States Colored Troops.
-- A "robust and thorough telling of Richmond's key role in the domestic slave trade" through memorials and historical interpretation of Shockoe Bottom should be a priority.
-- Pending litigation or changes in state law, remove the Jefferson Davis monument.
