I have pursued this topic with some attention because I think it is quite relevant to contemporary Virginia history. The politics of race is present in most places in our country, but it is especially important in Virginia for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the presence in our state of such a vibrant commitment to Confederate memorialization. It is of course possible, perhaps even likely, that I have misinterpreted Tom's intention. In crafting my posts here, I have tried to keep in mind the larger issues that I see being raised in recent conversation. My intended audience has been the list-serv as a whole, not any single individual. When I riff off of one individual's post, it is because the errors I think I see in it strike me as getting at something larger and worthy of public comment. If I have, in the process, done violence to Tom's arguments (as I hope I have not), then I offer my sincere apology. That was not and is not my intention in posting. There has been an effort by some Virginia politicians and public intellectuals in recent years to sweep the whole issue of racism away, as somehow being illegitimate to talk about, or irrelevant to our public life together. Some prominent Virginians have essentially wanted to argue "Well sure, things were bad in the past, but we have fixed them now, and we should just move on." Such an argument is tantamount to suggesting that Virginia's past--Virginia's recent past--is irrelevant to our public policies today. This is, needless to say, an odd argument coming from a state that has so powerfully and prominently committed itself to memorialization of its past, and in which tradition plays such a large role in its public life. There is a core of truth to the argument that things are a better today than they were in the past, by the way. Things are a whole lot better today, at least so far as racism goes, than they were 25 years ago. I can still remember the caravan of 5,000 cars, Confederate flags flying, driving up from Richmond in 1977 (I think) to protest the Court ordered desegregation of the Richmond school system. The court had just ruled that the pupil placement boards in Richmond were not an acceptable compliance with Brown v. Education. This was five years or so *after* the Republican governor of Virginia had courageously, and very publically, tried to set the example to end segregated education in Richmond. (That incident, by the way, is one you would think Republicans in Virginia would be proud to memorialize!) What I recall of the speeches made by the leaders of that caravan on the steps of the United States capitol and supreme court was that they were full of racist vitriol. No one today could organize such a caravan, and no one today that I am aware of is advocating that kind of racism. But the racism of the people who organized that caravan, and who spoke those hateful (and deeply un-American) speechs in our nation's capital, have left real consequences. You and I, as citizens, have to deal with those consequences. To deny them is to perpetuate them. That is, to my eye, complacent. If *any* of Virginia's history matters to the public life of the Old Dominion today, then it is *this* history. I believe that history matters a lot to our public life together, because it accounts for how we have arrived at the situations we currently inhabit. The effort to avoid the consequences of our past by just ignoring our history seems to me to be deeply misguided. History matters. Surely we on this list-serv, of all people, can agree on that. All best, Kevin Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D. Department of History James Madison University To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html