(light music)
- [Dr. Zucker] We're at the intersection of North Davis
and Monument Avenue in the city of Richmond, Virginia.
We're standing in front of an Arkin Colonnade.
At its center is a large column and just before that,
a pedestal that once supported a bronze sculpture
of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy.
- [Dr. Beetham] We are here in late July of 2021
at this transitional moment where we're left wondering
what is going to happen in Richmond.
The Robert E. Lee statue still stands,
but the other Confederate statues on Monument Avenue
have all been removed and carted away.
- [Dr. Zucker] And so we have a series of pedestals
with no sculptures on top of them
and the pedestals are the architectural forms
that remain bare traces of the public uprising
of last summer.
- [Dr. Beetham] Last summer was the summer of 2020.
We're in the midst of a global pandemic
and uprising took place over another pandemic,
which was the state violence directed at people of color
and especially African-Americans,
which started with the murder of George Floyd
in Minneapolis.
- [Dr. Zucker] Let's begin with an older history.
The history of this city as the state capital of Virginia,
a state that was central to the American Revolution.
In fact, many of the founding fathers hailed
from this state, this city became the state Capitol
and then became the capital of the Confederacy.
- [Dr. Beetham] This is where Jefferson Davis lived
as President of the Confederacy,
and it was also one of the prizes
over which the Eastern theater of the Civil War was fought.
- [Dr. Zucker] We're standing in a leafy Boulevard
of a residential neighborhood,
surrounded by prosperous homes.
And other than the monuments at the center of this avenue,
there was no overt expression of the Civil War.
- [Dr. Beetham] And in fact, this Monument Avenue
did not even exist during the Civil War.
The very first statute placed on Monument Avenue,
which was the statue to Robert E. Lee
didn't go up until 1890 and was placed in an area
that was largely uninhabited as something
of a real estate speculation,
hoping that it could be the beginning
of a grand new Boulevard and expansion of the city westward.
- [Dr. Zucker] And the notion of having a broad Boulevard
with a central green island is part of what is referred to
as the City Beautiful Movement.
This notion of city planning came out of ideas
that had been developed during the Colombian exposition
in Chicago and a temporary architecture there
that was referred to as the white city.
- [Dr. Beetham] And in some ways,
the Richmond's Monument Avenue, at least until recently,
was one of the most complete examples
of the City Beautiful Movement.
When the first monuments were placed,
they weren't cutting a Boulevard into an existing city,
but planning an entire new city around it.
And this whole area is created
in order to honor these Confederate heroes.
- [Dr. Zucker] And I think for many people,
that may be the confusing issue.
These were generals who had lost the Civil War.
They were defeated.
There was a great sense of humiliation in the south.
And yet here they are being placed up on pedestals
as if they had been the victors.
- [Dr. Beetham] In the years immediately following
the Civil War, there was a time of real rebirth
and excitement for African-Americans in the United States.
The passing of the 13th Amendment ending slavery,
the 14th Amendment, allowing for all men to become citizens
and the 15th Amendment, allowing for the right to vote
for all men were a real revolution.
But what happened in the decades following
was a chipping away of all of those rights
and protections through white supremacist violence.
And it was only after that process
had been largely completed
and that wonderful second revolution of Reconstruction
had been fully defeated in itself
that these monuments began to appear.
And so the facts that these look like victory monuments
actually makes a lot of sense.
- [Dr. Zucker] This period when the United States
enforced equality in the south is known as Reconstruction.
And the period following when these protections
are dismantled is often referred to as the Jim Crow era.
And these monuments are then a Testament
to the resurgent power of Southern whites
during this Jim Crow era.
- [Dr. Beetham] And I think everyone knew exactly
what they meant.
The editor of The Richmond Planet, John Mitchell,
wrote editorial after editorial decrying the fact
that this was happening, that he couldn't believe
that he was seeing Confederate flags flying
on the streets of Richmond again,
vowing that while a black man is here
putting these monuments up,
someday he's gonna be here to take them down.
- [Dr. Zucker] And that's what we witnessed
just this past year.
But I think perhaps it's too easy to exonerate the north
in this narrative.
The north allowed for the dismantling of Reconstruction.
It turned a blind eye to the resurgence of white supremacy.
- [Dr. Beetham] This street, Monument Avenue,
is the epicenter of Confederate memory
and of the great historical lie
that's known as the Lost Cause,
which was an attempt that began almost immediately
after the war to try to hide the fact
that slavery was really the issue that caused the war
and to try to recast the Confederate cause
as a simple attempt to defend the southern homeland.
- [Dr. Zucker] And faith in the Lost Cause
is still with us and was on public display
as recently as the 1990s,
when there was an effort to add one new sculpture
to the avenue, the sculpture of Arthur Ash,
an extraordinarily accomplished tennis player,
civil rights leader and native of the city.
- [Dr. Beetham] Arthur Ash is the final statue
on Monument Avenue and now one of the only ones remaining.
His statue faces away from the other monuments,
looking north while the rest of them are looking south.
And at the time of this statue was put up in the 1990s,
there was debate on both sides
of whether or not he should be here.
There were many people who felt that this avenue
belongs to the Confederacy
and that the presence of an African-American man there
was an affront to all of these white supremacists leaders.
But at the same time,
there were also members of the black community
who did not want to see Arthur Ash here,
who didn't feel that someone who was a civil rights activist
and who had also been oppressed growing up in Richmond
would want to be on the street
with these Confederate leaders.
There are hundreds of Confederate monuments remaining
in Southern cities.
Certainly, many of them have come down
in the last few years, but in a lot of ways,
the fact that Monument Avenue is falling
is a symbolic, final crumbling of this Lost Cause narrative.
It's hard to even state how significant it is
to see these particular statues removed
from their pedestals.