Truth v politics? 
Politics will almost always win.
JP Adams 
Texas 

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Corneliussen
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 7:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Skip Gates, self-emancipation, Ft Monroe, Juneteenth

It's possible that some forum members would want to see the message (below the dashed line) that I've circulated widely concerning Henry Louis Gate's new essay about Juneteenth, the June 19th commemoration of the end of slavery. His essay perpetuates the vaguely racist myth that emancipation came about only because powerful white men belatedly deigned to begin doing what America's own founding principles had been commanding for well more than four score years--when in fact, as Eric Foner and other historians stress, the first actual, active impetus to transform the Civil War into a struggle for freedom came entirely and solely from enslaved Black people. 
Acting bravely and on their own initiative, it was they who forced emancipation onto the nation's agenda. The persisting sesquicentennial obtuseness on this fundamental point facilitates Virginia's leaders' Fort Monroe dereliction. Thanks.
Steve Corneliussen
P.S. A national organization, the National Parks Conservation Association, has laudably if tardily joined the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot in calling for unification of the split national monument at Fort Monroe. Unification would save Fort Monroe's sense of place and end the developer-kowtowing politicians' dereliction. Please see https://secure.npca.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1087&autologin=true&AddInterest=1084&JServSessionIdr004=ewq939lmr3.app331b
(Unfortunately, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, picking its battles in a political realm dominated by Big Money, continues its eight years of living down from its name in the matter of Fort Monroe.)

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At The Root, the Washington Post’s online magazine for Black American culture, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has posted the essay “What is Juneteenth?” (www.theroot.com/views/what-juneteenth) In my view everyone who wants to save the sense of place at Fort Monroe should join the online discussion beneath his essay. Below in this message, I’ve posted a copy of my own comment. I hope people reply to it, and I hope people click “Like” 
for my comment and for others that might appear. Thanks.
Steven T. Corneliussen
[log in to unmask]
http://www.fortmonroenationalpark.org/

Online comment that I hope others will build on:

I find it astonishing that Henry Louis Gates Jr., of all the leading thinkers on this planet, could write this otherwise fine and informative essay without paying substantial respect to "How Slavery Really Ended in America," as it was termed in the headline on Adam Goodheart's April 2011 New York Times Sunday magazine article. 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html)

That is, I'm flabbergasted that Professor Gates implicitly perpetuates the vaguely racist myth that emancipation came about only because powerful white men belatedly deigned to begin doing what America's own founding principles had been commanding for well more than four score years. In fact, as Eric Foner and other historians stress, the first impetus to transform the Civil War into a struggle for freedom came entirely from Black people, who, acting bravely and on their own initiative, forced emancipation onto the nation's agenda.

The professor lists possible dates for civic memory of the ending of the filthy obscenity of slavery, but he never mentions the one cited to start Goodheart's opening paragraph, which said: "On May 23, 1861, little more than a month into the Civil War, three young black men rowed across the James River in Virginia and claimed asylum in a Union-held citadel. Fort Monroe, Va., a fishhook-shaped spit of land near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, had been a military post since the time of the first Jamestown settlers. This spot where the slaves took refuge was also, by remarkable coincidence, the spot where slavery first took root, one summer day in 1619, when a Dutch ship landed with some 20 African captives for the fledgling Virginia Colony."

Here's why I'm not just astonished: Thanks in large part to the gross civic irresponsibility and nonfeasance of, for example, President Bill Harvey of Hampton University--an institution that, ironically, grew directly from the events of that May 23 next door at Fort Monroe--the sense of place at the national treasure of Fort Monroe is being sacrificed to special interests. 
(It's billion-dollar waterfront; developers salivate at tsunami scale.) That means sacrifice of America's principal historic landscape when it comes to celebrating Blacks' pressing of history itself, beginning in 1861.

You can't properly or decently remember, commemorate or celebrate Juneteenth without paying decent, highlighted respect to this under-recognized history--under-recognized because we still, all of us, even in 2013, haven't fully understood how much we tend to legitimize and accept as routine the national crime of slavery.

This crucial history is _not_ just about powerful white men emancipating enslaved Americans. It is also--and in the view of many, it is primarily--about African Americans who self-emancipated.

It's all explained--and visually illustrated in a quick glance (see the area marked in red)--at the Web site http://www.fortmonroenationalpark.org/ . In particular I recommend that interested readers find the link to an op-ed I was privileged to co-author with the leader of Virginia's Juneteenth movement, Sheri Bailey. Look for the line that says "Read a Virginian-Pilot op-ed telling why May 23, 1861--not May 24--started 'the greatest moment in American history.'”

Fort Monroe, with its profound Juneteenth resonance, is the only political issue with thousand-year implications during the Civil War sesquicentennial. 
We are about to lose the sense of place at this precious historic landscape where Black Americans were not the mere victims of enslavement, but instead were primary agents of its destruction. Henry Louis Gates, of all the thinkers on this planet, should be paying close attention, and should be helping those of us who are seeking national focus on Virginia's shameful squandering of this treasure of civic memory--this treasure in the history of liberty itself.

Want to celebrate Juneteenth? Help Virginians--the ones who don't kowtow to Big Money--save Fort Monroe! Thanks.

Steven T. Corneliussen, [log in to unmask] 

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