In a recent posting in this forum, Teresa Roane of the Museum of the
Confederacy wrote on behalf of MOC President Waite Rawls: "We are now
planning a major expansion to include new museum sites at Appomattox,
Chancellorsville, and Fort Monroe." Randy Cabell's reply included a
suggestion for "more detail on the plans." Speaking for Citizens for a Fort
Monroe National Park, I'd like to comment on the context for the MOC at Fort
Monroe.
A substantial MOC presence at Fort Monroe does not _yet_ appear to us to be
a sure thing (though maybe it is), but we believe it's a sure thing that
everybody who cares about history should seek it. Here's why:
We see understanding growing concerning emancipation, with growing
realization that much of emancipation was self-emancipation that preceded,
and helped prompt, the proclamation.
We see understanding growing concerning the contributions of
self-emancipators to the Union victory and to the consequent chance -- to
this day still only imperfectly seized -- for the country's founding
principles to be realized.
We see understanding growing concerning Robert F. Engs's judgment that Fort
Monroe is the place where self-emancipation leading to the strengthening of
the Union cause began with the "Contrabands."
We see understanding growing concerning the significance of all of this not
just for American history, but for world history.
Inspired initially by Professor Engs, we have been talking like this for two
years. In early January, we saw these lines of constructive revisionism
validated and affirmed at a Fort Monroe symposium that included not only
Professor Engs but William Alexander, Ed Ayers, Ira Berlin, Tommy L. Bogger,
Jack Davis, Ervin L. Jordan, Cassandra Newby-Alexander, John Quarstein,
Joseph Reidy, Carol Sheriff, and Lauranett Lee.
At Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, we also see understanding
growing concerning Reconstruction. Eric Foner described it in today's
Washington Post Book World: "In the last generation, no part of the American
past has undergone a more complete scholarly reinterpretation than
Reconstruction. Once portrayed as a tragic era of rampant misgovernment
presided over by unscrupulous carpetbaggers and ignorant former slaves,
Reconstruction is today seen as a noble, if flawed, experiment in
interracial democracy, an effort to provide free blacks with land, education
and political rights. The tragedy is not that Reconstruction was attempted,
but that it failed."
Fort Monroe and the Reconstruction-era history of Hampton, with all its
special and even unique dimensions, are closely connected. So all in all, we
think that Fort Monroe has 19th century historical significance that has not
been understood -- certainly not by many of the powers-that-be who are now
presuming to let the city of Hampton, with its energetically asserted
interest in narrowly envisioned development, predominate in the planning for
post-Army Fort Monroe.
The Civil War Preservation Trust apparently agrees. Quite recently the CWPT
reaffirmed its declaration from last year that Fort Monroe is at risk of
inappropriate development. APVA Preservation Virginia lists Fort Monroe
similarly.
The MOC can't wade into all of that -- can't enter the controversy about
efforts to redefine the entire National Historic Landmark as really being
only the moated fortress at the NHL's center.
But the MOC can contribute constructively to pretty much any outcome for
Fort Monroe, even if we Virginians allow Hampton and the Kaine
administration to develop this national treasure inappropriately (and,
ironically, also economically inappropriately, but that's another dimension
of the story). Mind you, there are good reasons to hope that they won't --
but there are also the CWPT and APVA alarms.
MOC President Rawls has been faithfully representing the MOC at meetings of
the Fort Monroe Authority, the 18-member, Hampton-dominated state panel
charged with the planning for what Secretary of Natural Resources Preston
Bryant says -- we believe correctly -- is actually the property of all
Americans.
(Representing the governor, the secretary chairs the panel. Neither he nor
the governor has ever accepted anyone's request to explain why a national
treasure belonging to all Americans should be donated, in effect, to a
single city for narrowly envisioned development.)
In early January, President Rawls also attended and spoke at the Fort Monroe
history symposium.
In Fredericksburg, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the New York
Times, Governor Wilder's envisioned slavery museum is languishing. Maybe a
better plan would be to build it at Fort Monroe, which could anchor the new
fourth corner not in a Historic Triangle, but a Historic Quadrangle --
introducing a Civil War dimension, together with the nearby Monitor Center.
In Richmond, the MOC is hemmed in but doing fine, and is seeking to
contribute to, and participate in, a good outcome at Fort Monroe. At
Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, we think that's a big deal, an
important deal, and we have the highest hopes for what MOC President Rawls
is trying to do.
One last note: I'm mindful that many in this forum are careful to avoid
having the discussion stray from the subject of historical scholarship, and
again I apologize if I'm misjudging the flexibility in that criterion by
discussing these topics at length. My own view, obviously, is that the topic
of the MOC at Fort Monroe fits this forum quite well. But it's not my forum.
Thanks very much.
Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia
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