It's possible that some in this forum will be interested in the letter 
(below) that I distributed this morning to the e-mail list of Citizens for a 
Fort Monroe National Park, CFMNP.org, the grassroots civic organization that 
advocates a revenue-generating, self-sustaining, innovatively structured 
national park at Fort Monroe. Also, I note that the news article referred to 
below, easily accessible online, shows a good example of something we've 
discussed before: the present-day use of residual slavery-era language that 
inherently involves unconscious acceptance of odious assumptions. Thanks 
very much.
Steve Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Above the fold on today's Daily Press front page appears a story headlined 
"Slavery had beginning, end at Fort Monroe." It's easily available at 
DailyPress.com. In my personal view it's important in several ways, as 
discussed below for any friends of Fort Monroe who might be interested. 
Thanks very much.
Steven T. Corneliussen
Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park (CFMNP.org)
(I love to get reply comments by reply e-mail, though I can't always 
guarantee that I can answer each message.)

- - - - - - - -

Thanks, Daily Press and Lara Chapman, for highlighting the Fort Monroe 
freedom story. (Please note, though, that the Web site of Citizens for a 
Fort Monroe National Park, CFMNP.org, was unaccountably omitted from the 
"Learn More" list at the end.)

It seems to me that with the Fort Monroe Authority planning Fort Monroe's 
future on behalf of a powerful handful of Hamptonians plus Governor Kaine's 
administration -- but not on behalf of Fort Monroe's true owners, all 
Americans -- the Fort Monroe freedom story is all the more vital to discuss.

It's important to recall that in January 2008, when leading historians --  
both black and white -- came to town to discuss Fort Monroe's history during 
planning for Fort Monroe's future, they declared the freedom story not an 
African American story, but an American one.

In fact it seems to me that the freedom story confers international 
significance on our national treasure of Fort Monroe. Here's why.

No doubt Gen. Butler was not only "bold" in a sense, as the article says, 
but clever and constructive too. It seems to me, though, that the most 
important bravery in this story is that of the self-emancipating Americans 
who had been enslaved not by any "rightful" owner -- to use the article's 
word -- but by fellow human beings who in fact operated against what was 
known to be right.

The only thing "rightful" about owning fellow humans was that legally but 
illegitimately, the grotesque, perverted laws of that day gave some humans 
property rights in other humans. But the self-emancipating Americans knew 
deep in their hearts, just naturally, that it was time for America finally 
to live out the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence.

It seems obvious that the self-emancipators knew in their own way what 
President Lincoln came later to know in his own way, as he showed in the 
Gettysburg Address when he spoke of a nation "conceived in Liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" and when he 
spoke of "a new birth of freedom."

Long before the Emancipation Proclamation, self-emancipators like Frank 
Baker, James Townsend and Sheppard Mallory stood up bravely. They risked the 
wrath of not-rightful fellow humans. They claimed the freedom and human 
dignity that are the human rights of all human beings under what the 
Declaration of Independence called the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.

It was originally, in the very first place, these Americans, and not some 
Union general, who started the cascade of self-emancipation that spread 
across the South and contributed enormously to the Civil War's outcome --  
and to the basic meaning of American history itself.

And when you see some young woman in some chaotic country stand up to oppose 
the vicious sex slavery that formerly enslaved her, you're seeing 
fundamentally the same assertion of human dignity and freedom.

America did not invent all of that. But America tried first and has tried 
longest to make a nation out of such ideas.

It seems to me that that's an important part of why we must not allow Fort 
Monroe to be disrespected and misused by people who think of it as a 
narrowly envisioned, short-term economic windfall for one city, Hampton.

Which leads back to the topic of the present danger to Fort Monroe itself.

A half-century ago, all of Fort Monroe -- not just the moated fortress --  
was designated a national historic landmark. When those eminent historians 
came to town in January of 2008, I was in the audience. After they made 
clear that they saw the Fort Monroe freedom story as central to Fort 
Monroe's history, I asked them to discuss something.

The Fort Monroe Authority -- which, as I say, does not represent Fort 
Monroe's actual owners -- had convened the symposium, and had steered the 
historians' discussion to center only on the moated fortress. So I asked the 
historians to discuss the relationship of the freedom story to the national 
historic landmark in its entirety.

Of course, the national landmark in its entirety -- the land outside the 
moated fortress -- is central to any narrow vision of Fort Monroe as a 
short-term economic windfall for one city. If you can confine "history" to 
the moated fortress, maybe you can build upscale condos -- or whatever -- on 
the rest of the land.

So the Fort Monroe Authority official in charge of the symposium ruled my 
question out of the scope of the discussion. The eminent historians never 
discussed the relationship of the land -- the "viewshed" -- to Fort Monroe's 
history, and to American history, and to the history of human liberty 
itself.

Today this national treasure with international significance is slated for 
some unspecified amount of development. That's not just development to make 
the place economically self-sustaining for its owners, who are the American 
people. Instead, Fort Monroe is slated for some unspecified amount of 
development just for the sake of development, and for the wishes of that 
powerful handful.

In Virginia, that too is a fundamental question that our leaders have never 
discussed with citizens. They still could, if they chose to. 

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html