[VAcourier] Emporia council tone-deaf on Civil War marker

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Thu Jan 28 09:58:35 EST 2010 

 
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Michael Paul Williams: Emporia council tone-deaf on Civil War marker

By Michael  <mailto:mwilliams at timesdispatch.com> Paul Williams 
Published: January 28, 2010 
 
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EMPORIA Commemorating the Civil War remains a complicated business, nearly
150 years after the fact. 


On Dec. 1, the City Council in this Southside Virginia hub unanimously
approved a Sons of Confederate Veterans marker in a municipal park as part
of the 150th anniversary commemoration of the war.

"It is to these men, both Confederate and Union, who fought and died for
their beliefs, that we dedicate this field of battle," its inscription would
read. The marker is to be placed near a railroad bridge over the Meherrin
River, the site of a battle on Dec. 9, 1864.

But the city park at issue has become a field of battle between the City
Council and the Greensville-Emporia NAACP.

The marker is planned for Veterans Memorial Park, dedicated to U.S. service
members killed in battle. Debra Brown, president of the local NAACP, opposes
that.

Her husband is a retired Army veteran, and her father founded a local
American Legion Post. "He would turn over in his grave," she said.

The local Sons of Confederate Veterans unit sees it differently.

"I think the park should be open to all veterans," said Fred Bare, a past
commander of the unit. "After all, the union veterans are included on the
bronze plaque. So how can you object?"

The local NAACP does. Its members asked John R. White, one of three black
council members, to revisit the marker issue on Dec. 15. But the council
declined to do so on a 4-3 vote along racial lines.

"There's no more appropriate place for a memorial to veterans than Veterans
Park," Councilman F. Woodrow Harris said during an interview Tuesday.

As for Brown's argument that the site is inappropriate to honor Confederate
soldiers, "They were all Americans involved in" that battle, he said.

Well, that certainly wasn't the Confederate take on matters from 1861 to
1865.

Brown wonders why another marker site can't be found along Main Street, the
home of numerous historical signs.

"If that park has already been dedicated to the veterans who protect the
United States of America, then I don't think we should have anything
referring to the Confederacy, period," Brown said.

As for White, my brief phone call to him Tuesday ended with a dial tone
buzzing in my ear. He didn't return a call before deadline yesterday.

That phone call is a metaphor for the council's handling of this matter --
tone-deaf.

NAACP members complained about lack of opportunity for input. Indeed, the
council places "public comment" at the end of its meeting agendas.

As the Civil War's sesquicentennial approaches, the council should take a
more open and less dogmatic approach to matters as sensitive as the
cohabitation of Confederate and black heritage.

The hilltop at Veterans Memorial Park is the former site of Shiloh Baptist
Church, which was founded in 1866 by newly freed African-Americans. When the
church moved a mile across town in 1968, it sold the property to the city. A
modest brick memorial to the old church sits atop the hill.

Residents such as Brown view this site as sacred ground, no less hallowed
than the battlefield the Sons of Confederate Veterans unit plans to
memorialize.

With its tin-eared handling of this situation, the Emporia City Council
missed an opportunity to cultivate common ground. 

  _____  



Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .


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Posted by Jeb Stuart on January 28, 2010 at 9:41 am 
Mr. Williams is right!
"As the Civil War's sesquicentennial approaches, the council should take a
more open and less dogmatic approach to matters as sensitive as the
cohabitation of Confederate and black heritage."

This is the language of celebrating Virgnia history in the future.  The
story of black heritage and the Confederacy really do go hand in hand.  They
are inextricably bound and we should truthfully and honestly commerate this.
Only in this way can Virginians come to grips with a complex social and
political history.  It is the true tonic to racial understanding and racial
harmony.

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