Category: Richmond

Words of Art

7/16/2020

A word is dead when it is said
Some say –
I say it just begins to live
That day.

~ Emily Dickinson

Pictures: Confederate monuments and plinths in Richmond, VA

Below: The plinth of Stonewall Jackson

Below: The plinth of Jefferson Davis

Below: The plinth of JEB Stuart

Below: The plinth of a generic Confederate soldier

Below left and right: The Lee plinth and monument (the Lee memorial is to be removed soon).

Below: The plinth of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury

Below: The AP Hill monument (not on Monument Avenue)

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Spoiler Alert: The Union Won

6/14/2020

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From Dorothy Dawe:

It’s funny how Trump, the GOP, and Civil War re-enactors always bark, “The Left is trying to re-write history” when Confederate monuments topple. Re-write history? Seems to me we’re trying to correct history.

Spoiler alert: The war is over. The union won.

Yes, the war is over, the Southern War to Preserve and Prolong Slavery, and it’s time for the monuments of the traitors who fought against the United States to come down. THE UNION WON for God's sake! Why are we glorifying these traitors? Oh, I know why – Southern Pride, am I right? Those southern Proud Boys who like to march through towns in bed sheets and hooded masks with rebel and Nazi flags.

I was in Richmond yesterday to witness and cheer on Virginia's 5,000 Man March, and I listened to various speakers at the Robert E. Lee monument in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the push to remove the racist statues all around the city. Lots of pictures are below.

In honor of BLM and the drive to remove confederate monuments, I have posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's "They put the awful Gen'ral up" (below on the left). Dickinson's poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "She laid her docile Crescent down" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

They put the awful Gen’ral up
In this confounding Stone
Still states the Dates they’ve not forgot
The News is that WE won –

So constant is this racist bust,
The Shaft our daily view –
It shames the Constancy that’s held
To mark their emblem flew –

By Emily Dickinson:

She laid her docile Crescent down
And this confiding Stone
Still states to Dates that have forgot
The News that she is gone –

So constant to its stolid trust,
The Shaft that never knew –
It shames the Constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew –

The rally at the monument for Robert E. Lee:

Miscellaneous signs around town:

The building below is the headquarters for the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). Ironically, almost every officer guarding the building was African-American:

"Rumors of War" by Kehinde Wiley. outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The photo of the protester from @RVAMag on Instagram was taken by @michael_simon.

Miscellaneous shots of Confederate monuments around town:

Where Jefferson Davis once stood -- and where he toppled:

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A Confederacy of Racists

6/4/2020

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From Dorothy Dawe:

For the most part, I am at a loss for words while our country falls further into the abyss of a dysTrumpian idiocracy.

One question is on my mind though. Has even ONE GOP member of Congress -- House or Senate -- said or tweeted, "Black Lives Matter." Has ONE? Just ONE? Even ONE? Any SINGLE ONE?!?! More than ONE?

Also, I was APPALLED when Trump recently turned active duty US Military into his secret police force to attack American citizens who had gathered to protest peacefully so that he could stroll across the street for a bizarre photo op with a Bible -- a book he does not read, a book he has never read. Later, photographs surfaced of he and the Third Lady in a church, and the church was as EMPTY as their faith.

Finally, I drove through Richmond, VA, today, and I took photos of repulsive monuments that have lined the city's Monument Avenue for years -- and just like Nikki Haley said about the Confederate flag in George, "it should have never been there," it is high time that these statues come down. Fortunately, the Governor has announced that the statue of Robert E. Lee will come down soon, and I suspect the others will come down soon after that.

Just FYI: In Richmond, I saw one person with a sign that read, "Bye FeLEEcia."

Robert E Lee:

Jefferson Davis:

Stonewall Jackson:

JEB Stuart:

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Words of Art

Spoiler Alert: The Union Won

A Confederacy of Racists

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