October 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 41

The appearance of a statue of a solemn Confederate soldier, rifle in hand,
in front of most courthouses in the
South during this time, was more of a
political statement than a battle monument. Imagine the not-so-subtle message that was being sent to a person of
color walking into a local courthouse
under the gaze of a larger-than-life
statue of a Confederate soldier perched
in front of the courthouse steps. It is
interesting to note that during the first
couple of decades of the 20th century,
women had not yet been given the right
to vote, and poll taxes and literacy tests
suppressed both African-American and
poor voters of any race. In this light, it
is hard to look at local and state government decisions of that time, including the placement of monuments, as
being democratic.
What Should Happen to
These Monuments?
Each community should make its own
carefully considered decision about
these monuments, informed by an understanding of when and why they were
created. The Civil War was as important as the Revolutionary War in creating the nation we are today, and those
monuments that mark the battlefields
are important to keep.
The monuments created during and
supporting the Lost Cause and Jim
Crow era are more troubling. That time,
too, is part of our collective history, but
one that we need to acknowledge for
both its propaganda and cruelty. The
fact that there are groups today who are
promoting racial hatred and intolerance
using these monuments and symbols
makes one wonder how far we have really come? Dealing honestly with these
symbols is one way to address the injustices of the past.
One approach is to remove the monuments, and numerous communities
and institutions have begun to do this.
This approach raises questions about

where such moved monuments should
go. Many have been calling for them to
be moved to cemeteries, museums and/
or battlefields. I would urge caution on
this approach since each of those alternative sites would need to determine if
the monument in question had appropriate context to be placed at the new
location. With the high volume of statues that exist today, maybe they do not
all need to be saved?
Another approach might be to interpret the Jim Crow/Lost Cause era statue
for what it is. Alfred L. Brophy, a historian from the University of Alabama,
recently said, " When you remove a monument, it facilitates forgetting that there
were once people in charge who celebrated the Confederacy and supported
the ideas of white supremacy associated
with it. In my calculus, that is more dangerous than maintaining many of these
monuments. " An interpretive panel or
plaque added to monuments illuminating the time and political environment
of its placement would address Professor
Brophy's concern about forgetting the
unpleasant history.
To those who worry about a loss of
attention to Civil War history, the American Historical Association (AHA) recently said, " To remove a monument, or
to change the name of a school or street,
is not to erase history, but rather to alter
or call attention to a previous interpretation of history. " Every generation interprets history through the lens of its time.
The park and recreation professionals are
trusted community leaders with management over public spaces and expertise at
interpretation. We can work with historians and community leaders to help find
the right path for our communities to deal
with the Confederate monument(s) in our
community. We should study and interpret the Civil War and be honest about the
Jim Crow era for what it was.
Paul Gilbert is Executive Director of the Northern
Virginia Regional Park Authority (pgilbert@nvrpa.org).

Vilifying or
Glorifying
Historical Figures
In today's politically charged environment,
some see Confederate or Union soldiers
as heroes or villains. This divide makes it
difficult to deal with the issue of statues
in their image. I think it is healthier to see
these historical individuals, the ones who
fought in the war, as humans, like you or
me. They were people of their time, influenced by the societies they grew up in.
Patriotism to states is something present-day individuals can fully understand
about the mid-19th century. Before the
Civil War, people would say, " the United
States are " : only after the war did the
United States become a singular, where
we would say, " the United States is. "
Like people of any time in history, most
individuals of this time probably rationalized their actions. This perspective does
not change the evils of slavery, or the
fact that the Confederacy was primarily about preserving the slave economy.
What it does do is allow us to look at the
individuals who fought in the Civil War
as people, with all the inconsistent logics and good and bad decision making
that makes us all human. When we can
see them as messy, flawed humans, and
not as heroes or villains, we can think in
a clearer way about the statues in their
image, and the politics and time in which
those statues were erected.

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October 2017 - Parks & Recreation

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