UNTIL his death in 1953, Douglas Southall Freeman, a historian and writer who venerated the Old South, would tip his hat to Robert E. Lee when driving past the towering statue of the Confederate general on Richmond’s Monument Avenue.
Douglas Wilder, America's first elected black governor and a Richmond native, said it was understood among the city’s African-Americans that Monument Avenue, a gracious boulevard flanked by mansions, was a white shrine, a place to be avoided—and not just because of segregation.
Such are the contradictory customs of Richmond, capital of the Confederacy for most of the American civil war. Today, the city is engaged in a surprisingly civil city-wide argument over whether to take down the statues of Lee and four other prominent rebels on Monument Avenue.
For some, this would amount to sacrilege. Others say it would be a white-wash of history. Still others want the statues removed as hurtful symbols of white supremacy. And there is a legal complexity: state laws recently affirmed by the...Continue reading
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