The U. S. Army will hold a public forum starting at 6 P.M. Thursday, Nov.
15, at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 2801 Kensington
Avenue, Richmond. The purpose is to gather central Virginians' opinions
about how best to ensure historic preservation at Fort Monroe, Virginia,
following the Army's departure in 2011.
Those are the bare facts. Here's why the forum matters.
Just after the Civil War began, three African-American Virginians -- Frank
Baker, Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend -- stood up, left enslavement,
and sought sanctuary with the Union Army at Fort Monroe on Old Point
Comfort, where Hampton Roads meets the Chesapeake Bay, and where the ship
carrying the first African-Americans had first landed nearly a quarter of a
millennium earlier, in 1619.
Thousands followed those first three men. Robert F. Engs at the University
of Pennsylvania, author of _Freedom's First Generation: Black Hampton,
Virginia, 1861-1890_, calls it the first mass freedom incident of the war.
He says that because of it, Fort Monroe figures not just prominently but
pre-eminently in the history of that war and of what some call
self-emancipation.
If you believe that Emancipation was not just that which condescending white
men deigned belatedly to confer on helpless victims, but that instead it was
a complex process involving self-emancipators' bravery, resourcefulness, and
initiative, you might find the information in this posting useful.
With the Army leaving Fort Monroe in 2011, and with a narrowly constituted,
politically and culturally parochial panel empowered to plan the post's
future, the Norfolk PBS station WHRO has produced a 27-minute Fort Monroe
documentary, available online at the WHRO.org home page (or directly via the
link http://wmstreaming.whro.org/whro/ftmonroe/ftmonroe.asf ). In that
documentary -- which I believe will move anyone who cares about Virginia's
history -- Robert Nieweg of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
declares that Fort Monroe ranks as a national treasure with Monticello and
Mount Vernon.
Yet both the Civil War Preservation Trust and APVA Preservation Virginia
have listed Fort Monroe as endangered by inappropriate development. In the
worst case, the threat is akin to those casinos that were planned to mar
Gettysburg.
That's why the Army's public forum matters. The idea is to gather central
Virginians' opinions concerning the devising of historic preservation
guidelines to be imposed on the Virginia panel planning Fort Monroe's
future. The effort stems from Section 106 of the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966, which requires federal agencies to take into
account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties. The
Section 106 process will lead to a "programmatic agreement" that will
substantially influence and guide the planning that Virginia's panel is
carrying out.
The Army's announcement appears at
http://www.monroe.army.mil/Monroe/uploadedFiles/Section_106_-_Public/RichmondNotice.pdf .
They are also gathering opinions in Tidewater, in Washington, and by e-mail.
The volunteer citizens' group that I represent, Citizens for a Fort Monroe
National Park (please see http://www.cfmnp.org/ , where an aerial photo on
the home page shows all of Fort Monroe plus its setting), includes two
retired chief historians of the Army's Fort Monroe-headquartered Training
and Doctrine Command and several longtime Tidewater historical
preservationists. We believe that Fort Monroe in its entirety should become
an innovatively structured, financially self-sustaining national park like
the one at San Francisco's less historically important version of Fort
Monroe, the Presidio.
Given that all of Fort Monroe at Old Point Comfort -- not just the moated
stone fortress -- is a national historic landmark, we also believe that
privatization of land is the greatest single threat to Fort Monroe's and Old
Point Comfort's historic character. We therefore also believe that the most
important opinions that anyone can express to the Army are:
* The programmatic agreement to be devised and imposed on Virginia's
planning panel must provide for positive, effective steps to ensure that the
entire national historic landmark, not just the moated fortress, is
respected and protected from any and all adverse effects, including
privatization.
* The adaptive reuse of properties, though highly constructive and
beneficial, must take place through leasing, not sales, because over the
coming decades and centuries, even privatization that comes with historic
easements and covenants can lead to erosion of protection.
Thanks very much.
Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia
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