A Think Piece

For the most part, I gave up my habit of jotting down apparently wise or humorous things people say. One tidbit I held onto for a long time I wrote on an official Valentine Museum notepad. I captured museum director Frank Jewell's observation "race, class, gender: difficult stuff." That was the gist, anyway, and at 22 or so, I found it to be a profound observation that I knew should guide my look at life as well as my work in history. 

Raised in Chesterfield County by parents from the north, I did not think of myself as southern. When reflecting on my sense of identity now, I often recall the brief fad some of the alpha kids (boys?) in 4th grade pursued of asking all the kids questions to classify themselves: teams we rooted for; religion; north or south. I said "north" -- because I wanted to be different? Because I was born in Philadelphia, even though I don't remember those first nine months of living there? In high school, I had first a black teacher for world history who urged us into discussion of racial stereotyping, then a white one for US history who used terms like "War of Northern Aggression," and positioned states' rights as a leading cause of the Civil War. My chemistry teacher also taught driver's ed; he told us girls could neither do science nor drive. This was the early 1980s. And so I went to college in New England with a lot of private-school-educated women and felt very different. To emphasize that otherness, I'd layer on fake Southern -- by shouting to people being loud in the dorm hallway too late at night "y'all hush." I also bought a Confederate flag, because I thought it was merely a southern symbol, or a silly symbol of the losing side. It took taking  an actual southern history class at Mount Holyoke -- was it a whole class on the Civil Rights Movement? -- to learn about its use as a symbol of hate and hastily throw it in the trash. I don't think it was up long, but my stomach sours thinking about it. The focus of my history degree eventually became "gender and race in the modern south."

In the 90s, after those few years of work at the museum, I followed my love to Mississippi so he could get a master's degree in Southern Studies. As Virginians, we seemed Northern to most people. With public lectures and casual conversations with his classmates, we immersed ourselves in discussions of race and class. When the theme of a costume party was "come as your favorite dead Southerner," I made an "Indian" dress from cheap fake suede and went as Pocahontas. I wore it later in the 90s to portray the woman my camp is named for. I would never do it now; I feel embarrassed. I do hear myself rationalizing, "well, they were real people -- and it's not like I wore any kind of makeup." Rationalizing away privilege? Other experiences of living in Oxford in the 1990s included taking part in demonstrations against the playing of "Dixie" by the school band, seeing burly black young male athletes wearing ballcaps with that little Rebel logo on them, and watching white students sit on the grassy knoll outside the baseball diamond so they could wave the giant Rebel flags that weren't allowed in the park. I had to drive all the way to Jackson with other members of the NOW chapter for clinic defense and Roe day observances. 

By this point you are not surprised that this self-evaluation comes about thanks to contemporary leaders of Virginia's government. It's what makes me believe that people who build careers helping ALL others could have started in a different place. 

Additional reading:

"Yes Politicians Wore Blackface," Washington Post

Early Post item on the governor

MLK Day Field Trip

Housekeeping first: Blogger, in an attempt to look more like WordPress, I guess, dumps us into a new dashboard -- and it reveals that I have 23 unposted Drafts?! wtf. Wait - are they really drafts? It looks like the Mulch Heart one is live. So, 22 now that I've deleted one. I am not hunting them all down. I see that I typed DRAFT onto the post below this, but don't hold your breath that I will really edit it.

The impetus for this post is a trip to the Moton Museum in Farmville. I hoped it would be uplifting, I suppose. My uncanny ability to choose the wrong direction to go through galleries didn't help; and I missed that the banners in the darkened auditorium key the visitor into the major themes. The major themes do not include the final act of desegregation. I found that unsatisfying.

It certainly wasn't the scope of the museum to dissect whether integration failed us. The exhibits praise the well-educated African-American teachers and preachers and other leaders of Prince Edward County; there are oral history interviews of former students describing the expectation that they'd all go to college. These gave me that icky "gee it seems like things weren't so bad." Yet I know separated but equal never is. I also know schools full of kids with no expectation of or interest in college; schools that are predominantly black. When I substitute taught, I guarantee I met no Ivy League-educated teachers -- even in the wealthy school districts -- like the principal of Moton School was.

I was charmed to learn that Barbara Johns, a student leader of a 1951 student strike -- one that led the teens of Prince Edward County to be folded into Brown --  went on to become a librarian. I was interested to see she was something of an "outside agitator," a New Yorker staying with grandparents.

One moment of clear uplift and understanding came from my internal rebuttal to a quotation from a segregationist.

The second from the last was easy: I have been made better by attending integrated schools. There's that to be thankful for on the day we remember the life of Rev. King. There's that to be thankful of as we approach the swearing in of a horrific bigot as our president. I, at least, have been elevated.

Dedicated

Last spring, someone asked me to attend what I thought would be a committee meeting about an event at Camp as part of the local Girl Scout council's 100th anniversary celebrations. It turned out to be the whole 100th anniversary committee sitting around the conference table. I did not feel I had much to contribute, until someone said, What's going on with the highway markers? Some personnel had changed and some things were unclear. The project to nominate two state highway markers in honor of local Girl Scouting seemed likely to be let go, so I spoke up perhaps for the first time: Oh, that shouldn't be too hard; I can do that for you.

Well, collecting the appropriate 19-teens documents for troop 1, Highland Springs, Va., did not go well, but by the time a faculty member moved from Chicago to Richmond in the 1930s and asked to keep her daughter's Girl Scout experience going in their new town, bureaucracy existed. And that was a good thing: we could mark the first African American Girl Scout troop in the South. I found minutes and other useful things on file in the Council's archive at Virginia Commonwealth University, and so today at Virginia Union University, we unveiled a marker celebrating troop 34.

The celebration went like many a formal Girl Scout program: welcoming remarks, flag ceremony, the national anthem (sung beautifully by a young man in his first year at Virginia Union), Girl Scout promise, and various speakers. Two animated Ambassador Girl Scouts served as mistresses of ceremonies. A VUU vice president spoke not only of his Boy Scout and Girl Scout family members, but also noted the coincidence of troop 34 and a 1960s VUU group arrested for "disturbing the peace" at a sit-in downtown: they were the Richmond 34. The daughter-in-law of one of the adult founders of the troop remembered her mother-in-law, a tireless community activist. A surprise speaker was Gloria Scott, GSUSA's national president in the 1970s, the first African-American to hold that job. She talked about being a newly-appointed dean at a college in Texas and having someone -- from the local council? GSUSA? -- say, Look,we're starting this Campus Girl Scout thing and we need you to get that going on your campus. It echoed Juliette Gordon Low's oft-described tact of just telling people what they could do rather than asking "could you maybe help with this?" I appreciated seeing another pattern of history. Many of the phrases in the 1930s council minutes sounded familiar, such as wishing National would let the local council take care of things in its own way.  However tricky the road, we got there, and because of Girl Scouts, I have all kinds of women as my sisters.

I must also pause to remember my brother Girl Scout (as it were), the late Reggie Tupponce, who led me to my first marker project.

Where Do I Put Magazine Notes?

Among the things I like about Shelfari is the ability to note quotations that speak to me. But what of the good bits of The New Yorker? I guess I have moved beyond filling blank books with tidbits, so here I am circling back to the neglected blog.

The February 11 and 18 issue includes the beginning of a memoir Joseph Mitchell began. He jumps right into reflections on parts of the city he's haunted, experienced. A long paragraph lists things (old hotels, old markets) that draw him to them, including,

I am also strongly drawn to a dozen or so old buildings, most of them on lower Broadway or on Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Twenties and Thirties, that once were department-store buildings and then became loft buildings or warehouses when the stores, some famous and greatly respected and even loved in their time and now almost completely forgotten, either went out of business or moved into new buildings farther uptown.

Yes. Before we went to the Eastern Shore, I reviewed Lost Communities of Virginia (a book I just adore), and then I watched Capeville (the featured community) and similar places come and go up route 13. I keep describing it as a rhythm: isolation, railroad brings connection, cars rise, isolation settles as the main road skips the town, or simply makes a stopover unnecessary. Every town had a tiny, beloved (perhaps) store, car dealer, factory, bank -- and now they are completely forgotten in favor of the Dollar General, Food Lion, and Suntrust. When I poke around Richmond history, I wonder what made Miller & Rhoades, say, special. Perhaps the answer is nothing -- it's just the one that I saw fade in its downtown location, shiny in the suburbs, then go out of business. Someone two generations older than me knew other places that did this (even if she knew M&R, too).

Sunday

faux spring? it's full of leaves

 Reading Come August, Come Freedom... made me want to walk down the hill to the Young's Spring Park. I wish I had gone earlier: the map on this sign filled in some spatial gaps!

At the end of the 1700s, the site of the spring was more on this side of Lakeside Ave. (while the park is on the I-95 side)

Later in the afternoon, I baked. Yesterday, I did bits of yardwork, and brought in a few snips of daphne and camellia. That's the front yard camellia. It must have begun blooming on a 60 or 70 degree afternoon, then been frost-nipped brown on a 20-degree night. So, here's two days' worth of pink and red all together.

My first job after graduating from college was at Richmond's Valentine Museum, where I served as assistant curator for the photograph collection for a couple of years. At about the same time, my brother worked part time at A & N, but not, I think under this sign:

In recent years, the Val has also added this sign, below, from the Mill End Shop to its fine neon collection. The fabric store remained in business on Cary Street through the early years of its gentrification -- or as I saw it, the transformation from a street full of useful shops to a street full of Boutiques. The former being much more useful to an actual Fan / Museum district resident than the later. Thank goodness for the staying power of Mongrel (ne Cards, Cards, Cards) and Bygones.

But, I digress. Phil and I went to the Museum for a special Henrico County 400 open house. We enjoyed a small photo exhibition, curator talks, a quick Wickham House tour, and a behind-the-scenes tour. A new collection included the workers' newsletter for a factory at Seven Pines; there was a handbill from the opening of Byrd Field, and a booklet from the 1930s(?) touting Sandston as a lovely suburb. 

Confession: my favorite part of behind-the-scenes tours there is finding photo storage boxes with my handwriting on them.

Geography

I was a little embarrassed to learn the other day that Callao is not just a crossroads town on the Northern Neck, it's also an important Peruvian city. I'm pretty sure I learned this from Jeopardy, and I'm certain it wasn't pronounced like the Virginia town of the same name.

I'd always wondered about the town name, and figured it was a family name, or maybe an Indian word. According to The Heritage of Virginia: The Story of Place Names in the Old Dominion, by James Hagemann (Norfolk, Va. : the Donning Company, 1986), the first instinct was closer. A new postmaster, Jacob H. Callaway, wanted to name the place for himself, but Franklin County already had a Callaway, so Callao was his second pick. The brief entry doesn't suggest that he knew the Peruvian city. Mystery therefore only half-solved.

Plus ca Change

While home sick recently, I read an article in the VHS's journal about outcries against modern art Virginians made at mid-century. Ross Valentine, art critic for the Times-Dispatch, led much of the complaining -- yet he did note that "the furor sparked an interest in art, but it also 'has given some of us something to talk about besides atom bombs, hidden treason, deficit embezzlement and other historical obscenities in an age that has, I am afraid, become hardened to obscenities.' "

Aiello, Thomas, "The Champion and the Corpse: Art and Identity in Richmond, 1950." (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 117 : 1)

Northside History

Cool blog about tourist homes on Chamberlayne! I don't think of this area as "in town" at all, but one card (part way down on this post) describes the house as "four minutes from the business section" and touts the fresh air and whatnot of being out of town.

This Day in Virginia History

Daily dose of Virginia history, thanks to the Library of Virginia.

400 Years Ago this weekend some dudes from England sailed up the Powhatan River (now the James), said this is out of the sight of those dangerous Spaniards: let's set up here. James Fort saw some terrible times, sprouted New Town to the west, and faded as the capital of the royal colony moved to Williamsburg.

Today, Phiance and I scurried east on I-64 bright and early -- well, overcast and early -- and stepped out of all the PBS specials and books into live-action history.

Curiously, the satellite parking lot we chose ("Yellow") turned out in fact to be Eastern State. But our timing was great and there was no wait to pay or to board a school bus for a ride to Jamestown Settlement. As dedicated history nerds, from there we got ourselves on the next school bus to "The Island" -- i.e., Historic Jamestowne. At the site of the 1607 fort, we heard archaeologists speak on the ongoing work uncovering the fort than generations of us learned was lost to the River. "I loved your book," Phiance said to Dr. Kelso himself slipped out of the current dig after a quick look at an area that might be the site of a 1609 well. We saw a bits of a sword and bones from a meal sticking out of the ground. By the River workers doing inital sifting showed us a faceted green bead and brass(?) aglets. Awesome.

The new Archaearium, a striking copper-clad building that floats above the ground, houses the infamous ear picker, a replica of the skeleton found with a bullet in the leg, a bit of a shoe, buttons, ceramics, beads brought for trade, and all the other wonderful finds. We also some cool interactive viewers, where Phiance befriended a couple from Gloucester, with whom we later shared a river-side picnic table. Visitors point the view camera out the window and are offered choices of videos on the thing in the viewfinder.

Noon found the sun fully out and us in the shade of a holly tree to listen to Martin Gallivan, the archaeologist on the Werowocomoco project. I've been following the story of the work to uncover Powhatan's town since my friend was asked to join the Indian Advisory Board. With his back to the James, Dr. Gallivan outlined the project clearly and with enthusiasm. His computer slides appeared on a jumbotron kind of thing to his left. We had a great view of him, as nearly no one sat in the sun-warmed seats in front of us, and I enjoyed gazing off towards the River or into the trees as he spoke. I started to feel badly that so few people came to hear him, but as I gazed round behind me, I could see dozens more people in the shade.

Dr. Gallivan was followed by the Indian drum Four Rivers. Voices joined the beat as I was again looking to the River, and that was the most moving moment of the day.

The Island has been transformed since we visited two years ago, so as we ascended to the obelisk erected in 1907, I paused once more to take in the look of 2007. It remains bizarrely park-like, but the layers of history felt clear to me. The crowds were modest.

At "Jamestown Settlement" visitors find a Powhatan village, a reconstruction of Jamestown, and some replica ships. Oh, and a huge new visitor center, and a cool International-style brick tower from celebrations in 1957. And very large crowds, whether for our timing, or for other reasons. We breezed through, traipsing aboard the stuffy Susan Constant and then climbing back uphill.

We crossed the road to what I am rather sure is a campground, known to a generation or so of CK biking unit alumnae from their big trip. Today, it was covered with the sort of stages and demonstrations and food that I know from the Smithsonian's Folklife Festival, the Atlanta Olympics, or the Folk Festival. At this point, I was getting hot and cranky, then we missed the performance of fellow Richmonders the Indigenous Gourd Orchestra, so we called it a day. Phiance did schmooze with the Gourd's CD-sellers about getting them on WRIR, so I guess that's good.

To make it home, a fast food milkshake seemed in order, and then as long as we were on Route 60, we took it most of the way home.

Bibliography

Sources
Carbone, Elisa. Blood on the River: James Town 1607. Viking, 2006.

Custalow, Linwood. The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History, From the Sacred History of the Mattaponi Reservation People. Golden, CO. : Fulcrum Publising, 2007.

Dean, Catherine. Historic Jamestowne: America's Birthplace: Commemorating 400 Years, 1697-2007. Lawrenceburg, IN : Creative Company, 2006.

www.jamestown2007.org

Lange, Karen. "What Would You Take to the New World?" National Geographic 211, no 5 (May 2007): 56-67.

Mann, Charles C. "America, Found & Lost." National Geographic 211, no 5 (May 2007): 32-55.

Additionally
Webliography by a colleage; print sources are those PDFs at the top, one for adults, one for kids.

Kelso, William M. Jamestown, the Buried Truth. Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2006.

Go to Henricus this coming weekend, or participate in events in Capital City.

Today
“So what’s going on here? What’s Shaw accusing the other white dude of doing?” -- “Stealin’ stuff. He’s blackmailing him.” -“Right!” [release pause button]

Despite having “World History” printed at the top of the roll sheets, Mr. G asked that all of his high school history classes finish watching the 1989 movie Glory. Using General Shaw’s letters as the primary source, it tells of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, a unit of black men led by a couple of white dudes. Mr. G. left questions for the students to answer and show that they paid attention. They had trouble wading through some of the dialog. I paused it often to repeat lines and ask direct questions to get them to the questions the teacher posed.

I began class by checking to see what they remembered from Friday: What war is this? Approximately when was it? Like a predictable Jay Leno bit, I heard “World War II,” 1812, 17-something, 16-something. The later classes all got the war right, and all but the first class got the century right.

Most students gave themselves this snow day replacement day off, so I had classes of between three and eight people. I’m not sure if they seemed manageable because they are more mature than middle schoolers or because there weren’t many of them; so my questions about race, class, age and behavior continue to have only sketchy answers.

On my break, I started reading The Hours. Lovely prose. For lunch, the secretary invited me to join the faculty for a “picnic” lunch in the library. It’s the same library as at Moody Middle, just not renovated as aggressively. A nice, airy space with little mezzanine or balcony rooms.

Yesterday
Many members of the Upper Mattaponi Tribe, county officials, friends, and family gathered at Sharon Indian School on Sunday to dedicate the new highway marker that I researched. After speechifying in the school, we repaired to the roadside, in the dumping rain, and Ms. S. from the Department of Historic Resources, Chief Adams, and I whipped off the cover. My research, condensed to about 100 words, captured in metal to sit by the roadside for years to come. Pretty damn cool.

For the record, sign OC-28 reads:

Sharon Indian School served as a center of education for the Upper Mattaponi Tribe. In 1919, the King William County School Board built a one-room frame building and the students' families provided the furniture. The county replaced the original school with this brick structure in 1952. Before the integration of Virginia schools in the 1960s, Sharon provided a primary and limited secondary education. The students at Sharon Indian School had to attend other Native American, private, or public institutions, usually outside the commonwealth, to obtain high school diplomas. Upper Mattaponi students - and the Rappahannocks in the 1960s - attended school here until June 1965. It was one of last Indian schools to operate in Virginia.

Capital City weather: Let's see, it started raining again Thursday afternoon, while I helped set up the powwow; it rained Friday; it misted on Saturday, then cleared; it poured most of Sunday. This morning, I drove to Highland Springs through a rain-drenched, but clearing, deep-green and growing late spring morning.