By the time it was over, both Browns and Mitchells had escaped Richmond. In 1859, a man known to Julia Mitchell as her slave, Stepney, ran away. Mitchell, a widow of jeweler William Mitchell, Jr., likely lived on Franklin Street, across from where Greenleaf’s Pool Room is now in that year. William had died in … More Escaping Richmond
John Mitchell, Jr. didn’t directly denounce the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Memorial when white Richmond unveiled the granite shaft on Libby Hill in 1894. The editor of the Richmond Planet had greeted the Lee Memorial on Monument Avenue four years before with a broadside of sarcasm and deadpan so pungent that his quips are frequently … More “Statements Which Do the South No Good”
Blackface replaces actual black lives with a grotesque white fantasy of blackness. But shoe polish is not necessary. It can be done with the invention of history and a profession of love. _____ In 1925, a streetcar struck and killed 70-year-old Robert Damell. Mr. Damell, a black man, had been the sexton at St. Paul’s … More Erasing history with love
This started as a long essay, but I worked it down to some remarks I offered at the recent Southeastern Museums Conference, and now it’s a blog post. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a text app called Send Me SFMOMA. Text “send me [fill in your blank]” to a number and the … More Blurred boundaries and the audience of the future
Thanks to the intervention of my now-dear friend Beth O’Leary, I joined St. Paul’s in Richmond when I moved here a year ago. Beth also drew me into St. Paul’s then-developing process of research and reflection about the church’s particularly close association with the Confederacy, manifested in a series of memorial windows and tablets, and … More The church where Mary-Cooke Munford worshipped
The Rev. William Sachs, of Richmond’s St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church recently reviewed R. David Cox’s new religious biography of Robert E. Lee in the RTD. The book traces the development of Lee’s religious beliefs and explores how those beliefs shaped his courses of action in the secession crisis, war, and post-war world. I haven’t actually … More Southern white Christians were not confused about slavery
This is called “Rethinking Moral and Religious Education in Reconstruction Richmond”—which is a terrible title for a public talk—and I delivered it today as part of the American Civil War Museum’s Civil War and Emancipation Day program. This represents some preliminary thoughts I’m trying to bring together for a side project, and I’m aware that … More Southern white Christians and Race in Reconstruction Richmond
Robert E. Lee is laid to rest in Richmond’s East End Cemetery. The Veterans Administration headstone marks his military service in the 155th Depot Brigade in World War I. Lee died in 1964 and very little more can be found about him. His name alone is muted irony—Richmond’s Real Robert E. Lee; a man likely … More East End Cemetery and “What Can and Can’t Be Said”
I’ve been working with my new church in Richmond on a project to critically examine its history with respect to race in this city. Everyone involved is keenly aware that research, acknowledgement, reflection, and memorialization are not enough. What we learn about the past needs to shape how we think about the world and how … More Race, erasure, and current events: notes from a Richmond congregation
Things are going well at the new museum. Turns out that all the hot air advocacy I’ve articulated on this blog over the last year actually is viable inside an institution, and even better, shared by others. This place is in transition–I’m excited about the direction it is heading, and glad to be able to be a … More Follow my work on GreenbackAmerica
