On May 23, 2011, the local Confederate monument in Reidsville, North Carolina was smashed to pieces when a sleepy van driver plowed into its base, knocking the statue to the ground. This was not a deliberate act of iconoclasm, not a political call to arms. But after the statue was destroyed, the city government and the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy decided not to restore it to its location at the center of town.

Until recently few of us may have been aware that we live in an era of heightened interest in commemoration. During the past three decades Americans unknowingly have done their best to match the efforts of the diligent monument builders between 1880 and 1930. 

Malcolm Gladwell once argued that monuments—all monuments— represent something that people take seriously. For well over a century, Americans have imagined and reimagined Confederate monuments—they have been, and continue to be, celebrated by some and detested by others. It is difficult to separate the current debates surrounding Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia from the racial animus of the last several years. 

As communities grapple with the place of Confederate monuments in our society, looking at the people and groups who protested these monuments provides insight into how our ideas about these monuments developed. People spoke out in southern communities and on the national stage, when the monuments were first proposed and through the twentieth century.  Sometimes only an individual or small group spoke out and their actions were seemingly forgotten. Few protests gained any traction. However, protests can help us understand the environment in which we debate these monuments today. 

We have attempted, on this blog, to explore the origins and meanings of the statues on Monument Avenue. In the process, we have seen the complexity of their original contexts and the transformation of their meanings over time.

In 1966, a group of prominent Richmonders turned thumbs down on a proposed statue by artist Salvador Dali that featured an allegorical depiction of hospital administrator Sally L. Tompkins resting on a 20-foot high model of the artist’s little finger. “The shocking and surreal Monument Avenue monument that got away,” as architectural historian Edwin Slipek described it, is a strange and entertaining footnote to an otherwise lost chapter in Richmond history.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney created the Monument Avenue Commission in June 2017 to provide context for the Confederate statues that he believes offer a distorted picture of Richmond’s history. Stoney asked the Commission to explain “the monuments that currently exist,” and “to look into and solicit public opinion on changing the face of Monument Avenue by adding new monuments that would reflect a broader, more inclusive story of our city.”

The Lost Cause narratives ensconced onto the commemorative fabric of Monument Avenue have been the focus of much commentary. Less attention however, has been devoted to the cultural ambitions of the avenue’s patrons.

“Richmond is known as a city of monuments. And the marquee street for monuments is Monument Avenue,” declared Richmond sportswriter Paul Woody in a 1995 column. “But the unfortunate impression left on some by the statues is that the street is reserved for Confederate leaders and Matthew Fontaine Maury. This impression should be changed. What better way to bring about change than by having a statue of [Arthur] Ashe on the city’s grandest boulevard?”