One thing we try to do at the magazine is provide context (sound familiar?), and I want to do just that today, in the hopes that Richmond residents and our elected officials come to a decision about the statues on Monument Avenue, before someone does it for us.
The city's Monument Avenue Commission had scheduled its next public hearing for Sept. 13; however, on Friday, when I asked the mayor’s office if that meeting was still on and whether it would change format, Press Secretary Jim Nolan, through email, said, “The Mayor is meeting with the Monument Avenue Commission chairs next week to discuss the next phase of the commission’s work.”
Giving constructive suggestions and making an informed decision in this "next phase" means knowing the story of Reconstruction in Virginia, and as I’ve talked with residents in the region over the years — especially transplants from other areas — it’s clear that many here and across the country don’t. I, too, was once among them.
What happened in Richmond and throughout the state, after the Civil War and through 1902, is one of the most misunderstood and overlooked periods of our nation’s history — a product, perhaps, of watered-down textbooks and tough discussions that should have taken place.
My family moved to Virginia in the 1980s from Ohio. I took American history at Monacan High School, but I can’t recall much in-depth discussion on Reconstruction or Jim Crow. I later attended the College William & Mary and just dabbled in the history department, not taking a cohesive sequence of classes.
Soon after accepting my first job with the Richmond Newspapers, I did two stories in a month about the Confederacy, for which I was woefully unprepared — one about a World War II Navy vet writing a book on the Confederate Navy and another about spending a weekend with reenactors in Hanover County. From that immersion and from stories shared by African-American coworkers who grew up here, I realized that I had a crater-size knowledge gap to fill, and I went to John Tyler’s weekend college with a shovel.
I tell you this because, as residents of this region right now, it's crucial that we dig deep and educate ourselves. Here are a few historical turning points our reporters have shared over the past couple of years, along with story links for more in-depth reading.
A trial jury pool for the May 1867 session of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Virginia (Photo courtesy Cook Photograph Collection, The Valentine)
Gaining the Vote (and Losing It Again)
In fall 1867, African-American men voted in Virginia for the first time. "Despite the potential hazards at the polls, 90 percent of eligible blacks voted. The results sent 24 blacks to the 105-member constitutional convention that met from December 1867 through April 1868. Between 1867 and 1891, the state also had interracial juries, an interracial third political party, black representatives in both houses of the General Assembly and a black man from Louisa County in Congress. But by 1902, these new political participants were stripped of many of their rights and wouldn’t regain them for almost 70 years."
Abandoning Reconstruction
In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden each claimed victory in the presidential election, and in a political deal, Republicans agreed to abandon Reconstruction policies in exchange for the presidency. While the nation had 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, the North withdrew from enforcing them in the South. Historian Eric Foner says that this withdrawal reflected changes in Northern society — "political, economic and intellectual" — and without that willingness to enforce the law, the economic power structure in the South filled the void. "Separate but equal" became law of the land by 1896.
Jackson Ward Alderman John Mitchell Jr. in a photo that ran in the Richmond Planet newspaper on Feb. 16, 1895. Mitchell became the Planet’s editor in 1884 and continued until 1929. (Photo courtesy Library of Congress)
“Emblems of the ‘Lost Cause’ ”
African-American newspaper editor John Mitchell was a Richmond City Council alderman in the 1880s when money was being raised for the Robert E. Lee Statue. The following are excerpts from passages on the Lee Monument in the book “Richmond's Monument Avenue”: “Richmond’s city council had several black members and they refused to vote funds for either the 1887 cornerstone ceremony or to support a city appropriation for the 1890 dedication of the monument. One of the black council members, John Mitchell, the editor of the Richmond Planet, observed: ‘The men who talk most about the valor of Lee and the blood of the brave Confederate dead are those who never smelt powder or engaged in battle. Most of them were at a table, either on top or under it when then war was going on. ... The capital of the late Confederacy has been decorated with emblems of the ‘Lost Cause,’ he editorialized, and the placement of the Lee statue handed down a ‘legacy of treason and blood’ to future generations. In another editorial Mitchell noted, “He [the African-American] put up the Lee Monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down.’ ”
The Virginia Constitution of 1902
The Virginia Constitution of 1902 codified Jim Crow with a poll tax and an “understanding” clause, which disqualified would-be voters if they were unable to interpret a section of the state constitution to the satisfaction of registrars. This constitution disenfranchised about 90 percent of the black men who still voted at the beginning of the 20th century and nearly half of the white men. This disenfranchisement of blacks and some whites hamstrung the democratic process in Virginia for most of the 20th century. The document did not receive an overhaul until 1970, despite the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Read more (scroll to screen four of the post to view a timeline of events from 1865-1902)
We don't know what this week will bring for Monument Avenue, but this timeline of events underscores some of the other issues the region wrestles with: concentrated poverty, a virtually segregated city school system and a vastly limited bus network that doesn't connect our region. This turn-of-the-century period was a violent time during which intimidation was king. May it never lord over us again.
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