Richmond Took Down The Confederacy. Now Dig Up The History It Buried.

Richmond has spent years arguing about Confederate monuments.

Maybe we have been arguing about the wrong thing.

The real question is not whether Richmond should remember slavery or the Confederacy.

It is whether Richmond has the courage to tell the whole damn story.

Because the uncomfortable truth is that slavery and the Confederacy do not merely coexist in Richmond's history.

They are inseparable from it.

Richmond was one of America's largest centers of the domestic slave trade.

Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy.

Richmond later erected enormous monuments honoring Confederate leaders.

Richmond maintained those monuments through generations of segregation and racial inequality.

And in 2020, Richmonders covered those monuments with protest messages before the statues were ultimately removed.

Every one of those things happened.

Every one of them matters.

And none should be erased.

The Confederate statues did not need to remain on pedestals.

But the history behind them absolutely does.

Richmond Was a Slave-Trading City Before It Was a Confederate Capital

Any serious discussion about Richmond and the Confederacy has to begin before 1861.

It has to begin in Shockoe Bottom.

Richmond was one of the most important centers of America's domestic slave trade.

The City itself has acknowledged that Richmond's trade in enslaved Africans was second only to New Orleans in volume and value.

From roughly 1830 through the end of the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of enslaved people were sold south from Virginia.

Shockoe Bottom contained auction houses, slave jails, brokers and businesses connected to the trade.

Human beings were bought and sold in Richmond.

Families were separated in Richmond.

People were imprisoned while waiting to be sold in Richmond.

Businesses made money from it.

Richmond's economy benefited from it.

That history is not an accusation.

It is a fact.

And then Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy.

Those two facts cannot be placed in separate historical boxes.

Stop Pretending Slavery and the Confederacy Are Unrelated

There remains a strange effort in some discussions of Confederate history to treat slavery almost as background scenery.

It wasn't.

The secession documents themselves make the centrality of slavery extraordinarily difficult to deny.

Mississippi famously declared:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery."

South Carolina's declaration repeatedly discussed slavery and Northern states' refusal to enforce obligations concerning fugitive slaves.

Virginia's ordinance of secession came after the escalating national conflict over slavery and after Lincoln called for troops following the attack on Fort Sumter.

Richmond subsequently became the political capital of the Confederate States of America.

So Richmond should absolutely preserve Confederate history.

But it should preserve the actual history, not the romanticized version.

That means explaining what the Confederacy was, why secession occurred, what Richmond's role was, what soldiers experienced, what civilians experienced and what happened to enslaved people during the war.

History becomes propaganda when inconvenient facts have to be removed to make the heroes work.

Taking Down a Statue Is Not Erasing History

This should not be complicated.

Robert E. Lee still exists in American history even though his Richmond statue is gone.

Jefferson Davis still exists.

Stonewall Jackson still exists.

J.E.B. Stuart still exists.

The Confederacy still exists in the historical record.

Richmond is still the former capital of the Confederacy.

Removing a monument does not erase history because a monument is not history.

A monument is an interpretation of history.

More importantly, a monument placed prominently in public space is usually an honor.

Cities don't put everyone on 40-foot pedestals.

They select people.

They elevate them.

They literally place them above everybody else.

That is why the argument that removing Confederate statues somehow erased Richmond's history has always been weak.

Nobody proposed bulldozing Civil War battlefields.

Nobody erased Confederate records from archives.

Nobody removed Jefferson Davis from history books.

Nobody pretended the Civil War never happened.

Richmond decided that Confederate leaders no longer deserved monumental positions of civic honor.

Those are very different things.

Monument Avenue Was Never Historically Neutral

There is another uncomfortable truth Richmond should acknowledge.

Monument Avenue was not simply an outdoor Civil War museum.

It was a statement about power.

The Robert E. Lee monument was unveiled in 1890, a quarter-century after the Civil War ended.

Other Confederate monuments followed.

That timing matters.

The monuments rose during the broader era in which the South was constructing Jim Crow segregation and restricting Black political power.

The "Lost Cause" interpretation of the Civil War transformed Confederate defeat into a romantic story of nobility, military valor and regional pride while minimizing slavery's central role.

And Richmond built one of America's grandest physical expressions of that mythology.

Drive down Monument Avenue and the message was impossible to miss.

Lee.

Davis.

Jackson.

Stuart.

Maury.

Enormous statues.

Massive pedestals.

Prime public space.

Generations of Richmond children grew up beneath them.

Meanwhile, some of the people whose bodies were bought and sold in Shockoe Bottom were barely visible in Richmond's public landscape.

That was not historical balance.

It was historical hierarchy.

The Problem Wasn't That Richmond Remembered the Confederacy

The problem was how Richmond remembered it.

Richmond remembered Confederate generals monumentally.

It remembered enslaved people archaeologically.

Think about that.

One history received towering bronze statues on one of Richmond's most prestigious avenues.

The other was buried beneath streets, parking lots and development.

That contrast tells its own story about whose history Richmond once considered worthy of grandeur.

And that is precisely why the removal of the Confederate statues was defensible.

The public landscape needed correction.

But correction must not become another form of historical amnesia.

Richmond Should Preserve the Removed Confederate Monuments

This is where some people on both sides may become uncomfortable.

Richmond should preserve the Confederate statues.

Not on Monument Avenue.

And, not as objects of civic worship.

But as historical artifacts.

Put them somewhere they can be interpreted.

Explain when they were erected.

Explain who paid for them.

Explain what was happening politically when they went up.

Explain the Lost Cause.

Explain Jim Crow.

Explain how Black Richmonders experienced those monuments.

Explain why some Richmonders revered them.

Explain why others despised them.

Then explain what happened in 2020.

Show photographs of the demonstrations.

Preserve examples of the graffiti.

Show the Lee monument covered with political messages.

Explain why then Governor Ralph Northam ordered the Lee statue removed.

Explain why Richmond removed the others.

Now the Confederate monument itself becomes something much more useful than a statue on a pedestal.

It becomes evidence.

And Don't Clean Up the Story of 2020 Either

Richmond should resist the temptation to sanitize the monument-removal era.

The graffiti-covered Lee pedestal was ugly to some people.

To others, it was extraordinary.

Either way, it was historic.

Those images traveled around the world.

The monument had accumulated layers of meaning.

In 1890, Lee represented one thing.

During Jim Crow, the monument carried another meaning.

During the civil-rights era, another.

By 2020, the same physical object had become the site of protests over George Floyd, policing, race and historical memory.

That transformation is fascinating.

Richmond should preserve it.

Because the story is no longer simply:

"Here stood Robert E. Lee."

The story is:

"Here is what Richmond once honored, here is why it honored it, here is who objected to it, and here is why the city eventually changed."

That is far richer history.

But Here Is Where Richmond's Priorities Should Be Challenged

Richmond spent enormous political energy arguing about Confederate monuments.

Fine.

Now show the same urgency toward Shockoe Bottom.

Because if Richmond removes Confederate monuments in the name of historical justice but fails to properly preserve and interpret one of America's most important landscapes of slavery, then Richmond has accomplished only half the job.

Shockoe Bottom should not be treated as another neighborhood development issue.

It is national historical ground.

Lumpkin's Slave Jail should not be a historical afterthought.

The African Burial Ground should not be an afterthought.

The Richmond Slave Trail should not feel disconnected from the rest of downtown's historical experience.

These places tell a story of national importance.

Richmond should act like it.

Imagine What Richmond Could Build

Richmond has an opportunity sitting directly beneath its feet.

Not another generic tourist attraction.

Not another slogan.

Not another branding campaign dreamed up by consultants.

Something authentic.

Imagine a comprehensive Richmond historical corridor telling America's story from slavery through the monument removals.

Begin in Shockoe Bottom.

Tell the story of the slave trade.

Show visitors where people were imprisoned.

Tell the stories of individual enslaved men, women and children whenever records permit.

Explain the economics of slavery.

Follow the Richmond Slave Trail.

Then move into the Civil War.

Explain why Virginia seceded.

Explain why Richmond became the Confederate capital.

Visit the White House of the Confederacy.

Explore Tredegar.

Explain Richmond's industrial role in the war.

Tell the stories of Confederate soldiers.

Tell the stories of Black Richmonders.

Tell the stories of Union troops.

Tell the story of April 1865.

Then continue.

Emancipation.

Reconstruction.

Black political participation.

Jackson Ward.

Maggie Walker.

Jim Crow.

The Lost Cause.

Monument Avenue.

Massive Resistance.

The civil-rights movement.

And finally:

2020.

The protests.

The graffiti.

The removal of the monuments.

One city.

One continuous American story.

That Could Make Richmond a National Destination

Richmond sometimes talks about tourism as though economic development requires inventing something new.

It doesn't always.

Sometimes your most valuable asset is the thing nobody else can reproduce.

Charlotte cannot manufacture Richmond's Civil War history.

Nashville cannot duplicate Shockoe Bottom.

Atlanta cannot recreate Monument Avenue.

Baltimore cannot recreate Richmond's role as the Confederate capital.

Richmond possesses an extraordinary concentration of sites connected to slavery, the Civil War, Black history, industrial history, Reconstruction and the modern debate over Confederate memory.

Instead of being embarrassed by that complicated history, Richmond should become America's classroom for understanding it.

There is economic value in that too.

Historic tourism means visitors.

Visitors mean hotel stays.

Restaurant spending.

Museum admissions.

Transportation spending.

Retail spending.

Jobs.

Tax revenue.

Richmond's painful history could become part of its future without exploiting that history or glorifying its ugliest chapters.

But that requires vision.

Preservation Does Not Mean Celebration

This distinction should guide everything Richmond does.

Preserve the Confederacy historically.

Do not celebrate it uncritically.

Preserve the monuments.

Preserve Confederate sites.

Preserve records.

Preserve artifacts.

Preserve battlefields.

Preserve the stories of Confederate soldiers and civilians.

But place those things within the full historical context of slavery, secession, war, emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Lost Cause.

At the same time:

Preserve Black Richmond with equal intensity.

Preserve Shockoe.

Preserve burial grounds.

Preserve Jackson Ward.

Preserve churches.

Preserve schools.

Preserve archaeological sites.

Preserve oral histories.

Preserve the stories of enslaved people whose names historians can recover.

For too long, Richmond's physical landscape suggested one history was monumental while the other was supplemental.

That imbalance should never return.

The Confederate Monuments Should Not Go Back Up

Richmond does not need to recreate the old Monument Avenue.

The statues had their era.

That era is over.

The Confederate leaders depicted on those monuments can be studied without being restored to positions of civic honor.

That isn't erasing history.

It is adding another chapter to it.

The empty pedestal became history.

The graffiti became history.

The removal became history.

And someday the political debate we are having right now will itself be history.

That is how cities work.

They change.

But Don't Replace One Sanitized History With Another

This is the warning Richmond should hear.

For decades, Richmond tolerated a sanitized Confederate narrative that minimized slavery.

We should not correct that mistake by creating a sanitized modern narrative that minimizes the Confederacy.

Both would be intellectually dishonest.

You cannot adequately explain Richmond's slave trade without explaining what happened when slavery came under political threat.

You cannot adequately explain the Confederacy without explaining slavery.

You cannot adequately explain Monument Avenue without explaining the Lost Cause and Jim Crow.

And you cannot adequately explain the monument removals without explaining everything that came before them.

The pieces belong together.

Richmond Doesn't Need to Choose a History

Richmond's history is ugly.

It is inspiring.

It is cruel.

It is courageous.

It is contradictory.

Good.

That means it is real.

Cities are not public-relations brochures.

Richmond does not need to pretend its past was prettier than it was.

Nor should Richmond be afraid that preserving Confederate history somehow endorses the Confederacy.

Museums preserve concentration-camp artifacts without endorsing Nazism.

Civil-rights museums preserve segregation signs without endorsing segregation.

Slave shackles are preserved precisely because society condemns what they represent.

Preservation and celebration are different acts.

Richmond should be sophisticated enough to understand the distinction.

The Real Choice Isn't Slavery or the Confederacy

That framing was always too small.

The real choice is between history and mythology.

Mythology requires heroes and villains uncomplicated by facts.

History doesn't.

History can explain why Confederate soldiers fought while also explaining what the Confederate government fought to preserve.

History can recognize Robert E. Lee's military significance while rejecting his elevation as an eternal civic hero.

History can acknowledge the emotional attachment some Richmonders had to Confederate monuments while acknowledging why generations of Black Richmonders experienced those same monuments very differently.

History can preserve a statue without putting it back on a pedestal.

And history can acknowledge that the protesters who covered that pedestal with graffiti became part of the object's story too.

Richmond should choose history.

All of it.

Richmond Should Stop Running From the Thing That Makes It Historically Unique

Richmond will never escape being the former capital of the Confederacy.

It shouldn't try.

It will never escape its history as a center of the slave trade.

It shouldn't try to escape that either.

Instead, Richmond should connect those histories.

Shockoe Bottom.

Lumpkin's Jail.

The African Burial Ground.

The Slave Trail.

Tredegar.

The Confederate White House.

Civil War battlefields.

Jackson Ward.

Maggie Walker.

Monument Avenue.

The removed Confederate statues.

The 2020 protests.

Put them into one historical conversation.

Tell visitors:

This is what happened here.

This is what Richmond celebrated.

This is what Richmond ignored.

This is what Richmond fought about.

And this is how Richmond changed.

That would be more powerful than another monument.

The Statues Came Down. The Truth Should Go Up.

Richmond was right to reconsider whether Confederate leaders should continue towering over its citizens from positions of civic honor.

But removing those statues cannot be the conclusion of Richmond's historical reckoning.

It should be the beginning.

Now comes the harder work.

Preserve Shockoe Bottom.

Invest seriously in interpreting slavery.

Preserve the Confederate monuments as historical artifacts.

Explain why they were built.

Explain why they were removed.

Tell the story of the Confederacy without romanticizing it.

Tell the story of slavery without reducing enslaved people to anonymous victims.

Tell the story of Black Richmond after emancipation.

Tell the story of Monument Avenue.

Tell the story of 2020.

And resist the temptation to make any of it comfortable.

Because Richmond's greatest historical asset isn't the Confederacy.

It isn't slavery.

It isn't Monument Avenue.

It isn't even the removal of the monuments.

It is the fact that all of those stories collided in the same city.

Richmond has spent more than a century arguing about which version of its past should occupy the pedestal.

Maybe the answer is:

None of them.

Take history off the pedestal.

Put it under the microscope.

And tell the whole story.

Brian K. Telfair
Publisher & Editor | The Richmond Chronicle

Independent commentary and investigative analysis on Richmond government, public spending, economic development, and the decisions shaping the city’s future.

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