News--Confederate Battle Flags Captured by US Colored Troops Exhibited in Richmond, Virginia

An African American leader brings a provocative take to expanded Civil War museum, Gregory Schneider, Washington Post, April 15, 2018

 

Caption:   Christy Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum, which is headquartered at the site of the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. 

 

  Christy Coleman spends a lot of time among artifacts of the Civil War, and two that touch her deeply are a pair of tattered Confederate battle flags. This seems odd for an African American woman, until she explains.

One banner has a single word stitched on it: Home. The white material of the flag, it turns out, was cut from a wedding dress. The other flag is a traditional Stars and Bars, like you’d see on a T-shirt or shot glass. But this one was captured at the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg by United States Colored Troops.

Both relics hint at deeper human stories, and that’s where Coleman finds meaning in her job as chief executive of the American Civil War Museum, an institution created from the ruins of this city’s Confederate ironworks.

As the nation wrestles with its heritage of racial discrimination, and as the symbols of the Civil War show fresh power to divide, no place has a deeper stake than Richmond — a majority-black city where Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson still cast long shadows. And no one is more on the spot to figure it all out than Coleman.“To have someone, a woman, who’s African American, at one of the most important museums in the former capital of the Confederacy — you can’t underestimate how important that is,” said Kevin Levin, a Civil War historian. “She really stands out.”

Coleman is using that position to look for a new way to tell the story of the Civil War, a conflict so easy to render in stereotypes. With a major expansion of the museum underway, her goal is to show the conflict from multiple points of view — not just North and South, but through the eyes of women, Native Americans, enslaved blacks, immigrants. If you can change perspectives, the thinking goes, issues begin to look different. Assumptions waver. 

That premise will be put to the test long before the expanded museum opens later this year. Coleman is helping lead a commission appointed by Richmond’s mayor to recommend what to do with five enormous statues of Confederate leaders along the city’s grandest residential boulevard, Monument Avenue.

Those statues are as fundamental to Richmond’s identity as Thomas Jefferson’s Capitol building. Coleman is conscious of the violence that has ripped other communities, such as nearby Charlottesville, over the same issue. But it’s not the first time she has confronted the nation’s most troubling legacy in a controversial and public way.“America’s reckoning with her sin and her trauma,” Coleman said, “is really what we’ve got to get to.” 

Coleman, 53, grew up in Williamsburg, in the workaday city behind Ye Olde Colonial Facade. Her neighborhood and church were filled with the tradespeople who groomed the gardens, sheared the sheep or ran the printing press in the historic area.  Most of the costumed interpreters didn’t look like Coleman, despite the fact that in Colonial times more than half the residents of Williamsburg were of African descent.

But she was captivated by them and won an audition for a reenactor role when she was only 17. The other historic interpreters worried about her. “They were preserving trades,” she said. “I was portraying an enslaved person.”

She saw something horrible overcome visitors who encountered her in that role. The modern veneer slipped aside and out came racial epithets or crude sexual comments. As a young woman, she struggled to process those situations. But she stuck with it, the thrill of giving voice to the voiceless more powerful than the revulsion. By the mid 1990s, after starting at William & Mary and graduating from Hampton University, Coleman became Colonial Williamsburg’s director for public history. She oversaw all of the historical interpreters.

One of her first big events was an annual market day, reenacting the way Colonial Virginians auctioned cattle and land. A staffer pointed out the obvious: The real market would have sold slaves, too.Coleman decided it was time to do something radical. She took a plan to upper management to stage a live slave auction. And she would be one of those on the sale block.The idea touched off a national debate. “Black and white folks thought that . . . it was going to stir up stuff that didn’t need to be stirred up in America,” Coleman said.

A massive crowd and international media showed up. Plainclothes police stood among the onlookers, just in case. And Coleman and three other African Americans let themselves be sold to the highest bidders.

Today, that event is viewed as a landmark success in the modern retelling of American history. After generations of avoiding the topic, other major institutions — such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and James Madison’s Montpelier — now confront enslavement as a major component of their interpretation.

But it exacted a heavy price on Coleman. The emotional stress brought on panic attacks that stuck with her through years of therapy.

She never repeated the auction. A few years later, she was wooed to Detroit to run the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Nearly a decade into that job, Coleman was married and had two small children and wanted to slow things down a bit. She got word of a small museum back home in Virginia that was looking for a shake-up. Richmond long portrayed its past in a one-sided way. After the Civil War, widows and wives of Confederate veterans gathered memorabilia and displayed it in the old Confederate White House. From that collection, arguably the most extensive of its kind anywhere, grew the Museum of the Confederacy.

The full text of the story is continued at----Full Text: Washington Post

New and Noteworthy---Richmond Virginia Before the War

The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion, Jack Trammell, History Press, 128 pp., 26 b/w illustration, 4 charts, 2 maps, references, 2012, $19.99. 

 Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond: The Raven In The River City, Christopher P. Semtner, History Press, 127 pp, 51 b/w photographs, bibliography, index, 2012, $19.99.  

From the publisher of The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion: Richmond's 15th Street was known as Wall Street in antebellum times, and like its New York counterpart, it was a center of commerce. But the business done here was unspeakable and the scene heart wrenching. With over sixty-nine slave dealers and auction houses, the Wall Street area saw tens of millions of dollars and countless human lives change hands, fueling the southern economy. 

Local historian and author Jack Trammell traces the history of the city's slave trade, from the origins of African slavery in Virginia to its destruction at the end of the Civil War. Stories of seedy slave speculators and corrupt traders are placed alongside detailed accounts of the economic, political and cultural impact of a system representing the most immense, concentrated human suffering in our nation s history.


From the publisher of Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond: The Raven In The River City:  Acclaimed as one of America's most innovative authors and the inventor of the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe and his works are celebrated around the world. Yet the true story of Poe's time in Richmond, Virginia, is every bit as strange and exciting as his fiction. Poe spent nearly a third of his life in Richmond. It was here that he matched wits with a chess-playing robot, set the record for swimming against the current in the James River, challenged a rival editor to a duel and first revealed his talent for practical jokes. 


Join Christopher P. Semtner, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, as he reveals previously unpublished photographs and little-known source material to shed new light on how the mystery, madness and tragedy that Poe encountered during his Richmond years forever shaped his renowned fiction.

News---Richmond's 1810 'A Burial Ground For Negroes' Value Set At $3 Million

Slaves' History Buried in Asphalt, Maria Glod, Washington Post, October 27, 2008.

Barely audible over the whirr of traffic, Duron Chavis offered a prayer as he poured water into the earth at the edge of a parking lot between a train trestle and Interstate 95. "We are here to honor our ancestors," Chavis told a group that encircled him one moonlit night this month. "Unfortunately, African Americans have been separated from our blood. We're disconnected from our languages, disconnected from our culture."

For the almost two dozen people gathered here, this nondescript slice of pavement represents a long-hidden heritage. Beneath the blacktop are the graves of slaves and free blacks from the 18th and 19th centuries. The city gallows once stood nearby, where a slave named Gabriel was hanged for planning a revolt. Everyone agrees that the cemetery will be commemorated. But exactly how to do that has led to debate in a city that was once the capital of the Confederacy and still struggles with those ghosts.

The state's largest school, Virginia Commonwealth University, bought the parking lot this year and has agreed to carve out a piece of it for a public memorial. But a prominent anthropologist at the College of William & Mary, along with many residents, contends that the graves probably extend beyond the strip that the university is donating. They are leading a movement to identify and reclaim the entire site. "We want all of it," said Dieyah Rasheed, who lives in nearby Henrico County. "It is sacred to me as a black woman. My ancestors were buried there. They were the ones who built Richmond. They were the nurses. They were the maids. They were the field croppers. They deserve some honor and respect."

The 250-year-old cemetery, used until about 1816, faded from public memory as the city grew up around it. But several years ago, a local historian stumbled on records of its existence. Gabriel was executed there after a failed 1800 rebellion, and some historians believe he could be buried there. Last year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) symbolically pardoned Gabriel and said his "quest for freedom was part of a great American legacy." In recent years, the city has made efforts to commemorate the trials and contributions of slaves. The Richmond Slave Trail Commission has created a walking tour from the James River port where slaves arrived, to a slave jail that is being excavated. The trail also includes a slavery reconciliation statue that was unveiled last year.

Still, some African Americans note the proliferation of memorials here to the Confederate past. Monument Avenue honors Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. One exception is a statue of black tennis great Arthur Ashe. The drive to preserve the cemetery gained momentum after VCU bought the three-acre downtown lot for $3 million in February. A few months later, as the university took steps to repave the lot and improve its lighting, a small grass-roots protest raised questions about the project's impact on a place of historical interest. Work was halted to allow the state to delve into the land's history.

In June, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources concluded that much of the old cemetery and the site of the gallows lay under the interstate and that old records don't define the burial ground's limits. It's unclear how large the cemetery was. But some graves are believed to extend past the highway and into the parking lot, under 10 to 15 feet of fill. The department, drawing on the work of a local historian, also considered the possibility that the graveyard's edges could be defined by a label on an 1810 map that notes "Burial Ground for Negroes." VCU, citing that interpretation, has agreed to turn over a 50- by 200-foot piece of the lot, worth about $350,000, to the city for a memorial.

But last month, Michael L. Blakey, director of William and Mary's Institute for Historical Biology, said there was no reason to assume the mapmaker's label encompassed the entire cemetery. Blakey called the estimation of the boundary "implausibly small." He estimated that there could be graves under most, even all, of the parking lot, and recommended digging archaeological trenches, which would not disturb the remains, to determine the cemetery's scope. "If it is important to the community," Blakey said, "there is a way to know the truth about the extent of the burials."

VCU officials said they recognize the site's historical and spiritual importance, and that is why they are ceding land for a memorial. But the only practical option is to use the remainder of the lot for student and staff parking because the university is relying on parking fees to pay for the purchase, said Don Gehring, VCU's vice president for government relations and health policy. "We have reached a consensus that this is the most reasonable way to memorialize the site and recognize its significance and at the same time go forward with our purpose for parking," Gehring said. He said VCU would sell the property -- for the $3 million it is paying -- to anyone who wants to preserve the entire site.

Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the historic resources department, said her staff reviewed available records and research to study the cemetery. "Nothing short of archaeology will determine the actual boundaries," she said. "But I don't want to lose sight of the larger goal, which is how best to memorialize the site. The issue is where we go from here to get it right, to honor the people there and to educate the public." She said the department has agreed to work with the Slave Trail Commission to raise money to buy the land.

To some in the community, ownership of the land is a much deeper question than who holds the deed. "That land does not belong to Virginia Commonwealth University. It belongs to the black community of this city and this country," Phil Wilayto, a member of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, a community group pushing for preservation, said this month at a community meeting. "If this was George Washington's mother buried here, it wouldn't be a parking lot. It would be a nice grassy area," said Chavis, of Richmond. "Though we have moved forward, with Obama running for president, there are still these issues that are with us."

Richmond's is not the first such cemetery to be rediscovered. Freedmen's Cemetery in Alexandria, which opened in 1864 to bury former slaves, was forgotten for years but is now commemorated with a park. At the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, uncovered in the early 1990s in a construction project, more than 400 skeletons were examined and then reburied at a site that has become a memorial.

Blakey, who was scientific director of the excavation and preservation for the New York burial ground, said the decision to excavate and study the Richmond remains should be the community's. Much of the recorded history of slaves was written by owners who considered them property, not people. But the New York graves, Blakey said, offered a glimpse of humanity. "A story is written in things that were placed in the ground," Blakey said. "There is real reverence. Small things matter: the choice that was made to leave a silver earbob in a child's coffin rather than to keep it and use it for the living. That small act has great meaning."

Doug Egerton, a Le Moyne College history professor and author of a book about Gabriel, said the slave was 24 when he plotted to win freedom for slaves by seizing the capital and taking Governor James Monroe hostage. A furious storm disrupted his plan and the plot was uncovered. Gabriel stood more than six feet, unusually tall for the time, Egerton said, and his remains could be under the lot.

"I think in many ways finding the bodies, learning what we can and placing them back with some kind of dignity and honor would be a real signal that Richmond can come together," Egerton said. He noted that there is a statue of George Washington not far from the graveyard. "There's no reason we can't honor Washington on his pedestal, and a mile away honor these people who also fought for freedom."

Text Source: Slaves History Buried In Asphalt, Washington Post, October 27, 2008

Photo: Michael L. Blakey, a College of William & Mary professor, discusses the site of the burial ground at a community meeting this month in Richmond. Photo by Lisa Billings For The Washington Post.

CWL asks, "Who owned the cemetery in 1810?" and can the chain of ownership be documented to 2008? Also, can't a parking lot at a downtown institution of higher education, where parking with limited/controlled access is nearly non-existent, be viewed as equal access to education for descendants of slaves who are enrolled students?

CWL recommends: African American Cemeteries online

CWL---Moving the Target Closer to the Archer: From Montgomery to Richmond

Richmond Becomes the Capital, William C. Davis, in Virginia at War, 1861, William C. Davis and James I. Robertson, editors, University of Kentucky, 2005, pp. 113-130.

The secession movement was, for the most part, an uncoordinated event. If the 'Slave Power Conspiracy' existed, then the winter of 1860-1861 is the most apparent manifestation of the conspiracy. Outside interference in the matters of the states, both real and alleged, was the primary cause of the political actions taken in December 1860 and the early months of 1861. Secession leaders din not plan or coordinate the withdrawal from the Union and had not held "any serious discussion on whether or not to unify themselves afterward." (pp. 113-114)

On February 4, 1861, acting upon a invitation from South Carolina, the seceding states met at Montgomery, Alabama. Six states attended and within a week created a provisional constitution and chose Jefferson Davis as provisional president. Politicians and newspaper editors speculated for the next sixty days on the secession of Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky. If Maryland and Virginia removed themselves from the Union, then would Washington, D.C. become the capital of the confederated states?

The day after the first day of the confederation convention, February 5, a South Carolinian wrote to a Virginia senator that if Virginia secedes then the state will "have all things exactly as she wants them, including the capital." On April 17, was President Davis and Vice President Stephens were meeting, they were interrupted by the news that Virginia had seceded; basing his opinion on this news Davis told Stephens that the war was over before it had begun (pp. 115-117).

Promptly, Davis dispatched Stephens to Richmond. Reaching the Virginia state capital on April 22, Stephens met with Governor Letcher and the next day Stephens met, behind closed doors, with the state's secession convention. Stephens strongly encouraged the Virginia secession convention to adopt a treaty with the new Confederacy, adopted the Confederacy's provisional constitution and apply for statehood in the Confederacy. Stephens suggested the possibility that "if such an alliance is made . . . the seat of our government will, within a few weeks, be moved to this place." Stephens reiterated the remarks on April 23. His rationale, with which he hoped the Virginians agreed, was that the Yankee army would soon be knocking on Richmond doors and Virginians would be better off to have Confederate Army troops to help the Virginia militia greet the mudsill horde. (pp. 117-118)

Confederate strategy, at this point required a defensible border, and the Potomac River would make a fine one if Maryland chose to stay in the Union. By moving the Confederate capital to Richmond, Davis and the provisional Confederate congress understood that they were moving the target closer to the archer, but, there were advantages to be gained: Richmond and Petersburg were communication hubs for the railroad and the telegraph, and centers for manufacturing. It was taken for granted by Confederate strategists that the region east of the Appalachians and the Mississippi River provided the best pathways for Yankee invasions of Dixie. On the 25th the Virginia secession convention adopted the treaty and within a few minutes a Virginia delegate put forth a resolution that Virginia request the Confederation government move to Richmond. (pp. 118-119)

The Virginia secession convention did not readily endorse the resolution. A southwestern delegate attempted to have the resolution tabled. Another southwestern delegate declared it unseemly that Virginia would rush from secession, into the Confederacy and become its capital; it appeared to be a rush for political spoils and sullied the reputation and honor of the delegates. Other delegates spoke in favor of the resolution. Hadn't Stephens offered, in so many words, the capital to Virginia? Didn't Virginia need the resources of the Confederacy to withstand the expected military assaults that would soon come?

Objections to the resolution continued: Virginians had not ratified the Ordinance of secession; yes that was expected but not until May. But if it failed and the Confederate capital was already in Richmond? A vote was taken and the resolution passed 63 to 13; but there were enough absent members that the total number of voters did not constitute a quorum. Another vote was taken the next day; it was 76 to 16 in favor of the resolution. All of this was done behind closed doors and when the resolution was announced, the citizens of Richmond gave it mixed reviews as did many hard-core secessionists who were making their quarters that month in Montgomery Alabama. (pp. 119-121)

Alabama secessionists did not want to give up the capital and told Davis that he was elected the president of the Confederacy and not of Virginia. Georgian secessionists viewed Virginian secessionists as coming late to the party and bringing a lot of make-peace moderates to the government. The treaty between Virginia and the provisional Confederate Congress was ratified on May 6 and the next day Virginia was admitted to the Confederate States of America. Virginia's Governor Letcher had the reputation, among provisional Confederate congressman, as being an obstructionist and a drunk. In May, the new Confederate Virginia senators and representatives arrived in Montgomery and joined Davis, Stephens and their cabinet in lobbying for the removal of the government offices to Richmond. On May 11, a resolution was placed before the Confederate congress to adjourned on May 23 and reconvene on July 20 in Richmond, or wherever else provisional president designated. This resolution passed May 13; the resolution was sent to the Judiciary Committee which passed it on May 15 and placed it on Davis' desk for a signature.

Hardcore secessionists newspaper editors stated that the move to Richmond was only a partial step, that the real goal was to take the CSA to Washington and then seek a compromise and readmission into the Union. Davis surprised all when he returned the bill unsigned to the committee. The bill moved the President and the Congress to Richmond and left the judiciary and all else in Montgomery. (pp. 123-124)

A debate continued as Arkansas seceded from the Union and sent delegates to Montgomery. A vote came on May 20. Arkansas, Georgia, Texas and Virginia voted in favor of removing the government to Richmond; Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina voted against it. Louisiana's delegation split on the issue. Congress adjourned at 2:00pm and set a time in the evening to reconvene. Many delegates began to travel to Atlanta for trains to their home states. That evening with the absence of two of the three Florida delegates, and a one vote change from Louisiana and second vote was taken and the resolution passed 6 states to 3 states with the actual count of the delegates 24 to 20. By the thinnest of margins the Confederate capital was moved from Alabama to Virginia on May 20th 1861. Jefferson Davis was on a train heading north on May 26 and arrived in Richmond on May 29.