Commemoration Delegation

Mr. dd set aside 24 hours of his life to interview people on Monument Ave regarding their feelings about the Robert E. Lee Monument. It also happened to be Confederate Commemoration Day which wound up being a gathering of all the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It was a warm day and I was concerned some of the octogenarian re-enactors would suffer from heat stroke in their gray wool uniforms.

When I was a child the Civil War always seemed to be part of another era for me - a time that didn't affect my life... well that was before I moved to Virginia. As a born and bred Southerner who has made my way in and out of many foreign lands throughout my life - usually alone - I consider myself as much a wanna-be expatriot as an American these days... a somewhat worldly person... until someone begins to make fun of these strange confederate re-enactors! Its a strange reaction... I don't understand it myself. Perhaps its just genetic. Many men in my family fought in that war and none of them had slaves... I have little or nothing in common with most of these people parading down the Avenue. I don't dig NASCAR or motorcycles or civil war romance novels.... and I am sure we probably vote very differently on most everything.... still... I believe they have the right to gather and commemorate their ancestors and I don't think its funny. I don't really get them, but I don't think its funny.
My husband believes that the great poet Robbie Burns inspired the southerners of Scotch-Irish Descendents to fight for states rights during the "great war." As long as it's been and as much water has passed under the bridge since that time our nation has really never come to terms with this part of our history... for me it's just one more clue as to why the conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere never really heal. Class, race and religion are the fuel of most political fires... and not topics most political parties support their platforms with.
One woman we know suggested that instead of interviewing people at Mr. Lee's Monument he interview people at the new tri-city International Slavery Reconciliation Monument in Shockoe Bottom. An excellent suggestion except he would have to approach people with windshield wiper tools at the intersections to get them to stop and talk. That Monument is placed in the middle of a very heavily trafficked piece of roadway.

My favorite response was from an older African American gentleman. He said "Its just a man on a horse."

Finally, as a big SUV circled the Monument - as it is in the middle of a European-style round- a-bout - the young black man inside yelled out "I'm Free, Free at Last!" I thought to myself well that's another blessing we can count. We're all free - for the time being, anyway.