Zyahna Bryant wrote a petition in March of 2016 setting in motion the events that would lead to the removal of Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee monument. Source: The Washington Post / Getty
A new PBS documentary explores the origin story of Charlottesville’s confederate monuments. Produced by The Memory Project, a program of the University of Virginia’s Democracy Initiative, “Unveiling: The Origins of Charlottesville’s Monuments” offers a nuanced conversation about the city’s confederate monuments.
Running a little under 30 minutes, the documentary explores the period between 1902 and 1924 and features commentary from key figures in the movement to place this period in its proper context. “Unveiling: The Origins of Charlottesville’s Monuments” features a mixture of images and newspaper clips interpersed through the conversation providing a broader context for the white supremacist narrative enveloping Charlottesville in the early 1900s.
Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Culture Center, recounted the decimation of a diverse community to make way for the Stonewall Jackson statue and surrounding park.
“What had been a Black and mixed race neighborhood, becomes a park that is anchored by a confederate statue,” Douglas said. “The discussion that begins to ensue about McKee Row is very similar to a discussion that will be used to displace Black people in this community on more than one occasion.”
https://embeds.go.ione.nyc/protected-iframe/cc8a14ecd0b01462a194a5991e24d808
These statues became a personification for the rise of the New South becoming a rallying point for a new iteration of the Klu Klux Klan and other groups like the Anglo Saxon Club. Those who decry monument removal often never address the historical context for the placements, often without any concern for local Black communities only one generation removed from slavery.
Led by Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jalane Schmidt, The Memory Project seeks to provide an objective examination of the past to provide a public accounting for the Charlottesville community and a path forward.
“It is not just simply about statues but is a way that we are also constructing the ideology of whiteness, and that ideology also includes, just like any other ideology, includes ritual and includes pageantry and includes public demonstration of the rightness and goodness of all of that space as well,” Schmidt said during the documentary.
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