> An even better use is the proposed Museum of the Confederacy
> branch museum proposed for Ft. Monroe.
Amen! (Except I myself wouldn't say "better.") Waite Rawls, who directs the
MOC, is a regular at Fort Monroe planning events, and he has a big cheering
section (with me among the most vocal). I've said this before in this forum,
though not in the context of the slavery museum at Fort Monroe, but when you
think about it, Virginia's present Historic Triangle's Jamestown,
Williamsburg, and Yorktown encompass the earliest settlement, the colonial
years, and the Revolution -- but that combination leaves out the profoundly
formative Civil War. With the Monitor Center nearby, a Fort Monroe involving
both a slavery museum and a branch of the Museum of the Confederacy could
anchor not a Historic Triangle but a Historic Quadrangle. (Anyone interested
in that idea might want to see a June 2007 Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed in
which I proposed it: http://www.cfmnp.org/JuneteenthAsSubmitted.htm .) This
fall, the new Ken Burns series on America's national parks will air. Maybe
by then Governor Kaine and the others who seek to perpetrate the
mediocritization of Fort Monroe will wake up. If they could argue financial
necessity, they'd at least have a case. But they can't. Even if you don't
care about historical, cultural, recreational, architectural and
environmental enrichment -- that is, even if you only care about financial
enrichment for Hampton and the region -- a Fort Monroe with national stature
is a better plan.
Steve Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia
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