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