CITIZENS TO HAVE INPUT AFTER FUROR OVER LEE
Saturday, June 5, 1999
By CARRIE JOHNSON
Times-Dispatch Staff WriterIt was taken out of context.
If there had been an opportunity for Richmonders to see the floodwall gallery as a whole, the controversy over whether a picture of Gen. Robert E. Lee should be featured might never have started, said Bill Martin, head of the Valentine Museum.
"Lee should not have gone up first," said Martin, a member of the historic interpretation committee who helped organize the gallery. "He was only a small piece in what is a much larger project."
James E. Rogers, president of the Richmond Historic Riverfront Foundation, one of the officials who made the decision to take the portrait of Lee down, announced yesterday that his organization will put together a committee of citizens who will assess the images used in the outdoor museum. The group is scheduled to meet early next week.
"We'll listen to all voices, all points of view. . . . We're striving for a speedy resolution," Rogers said.
It was the historic interpretation committee whose task was to select images for the gallery, which is part of an outdoor museum that lines the new Canal Walk along the Kanawha and Haxall canals.
Members of the committee include Martin; Dr. Edgar Toppin, professor of American and African-American history at Virginia State University; Dr. Thavolia Glymph, a history professor at Pennsylvania State University; Dr. Gregg Kimball of The Library of Virginia; and Jack Zehmer, former executive director of the Historic Richmond Foundation, among others.
Martin said he didn't anticipate the negative reaction the portrait of Lee would generate, but he's not entirely surprised by the turn of events.
"I can understand why people would have concerns about [the gallery] in its current form," he said. "It's unfinished."
There are 13 panels in the gallery, containing 29 images. The picture of Lee is on the 11th segment, which is devoted to war. It includes images of Chief Powhatan in 1607, Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1864, the Confederate evacuation and burning of Richmond in 1865 and World War I in 1917.
The Lee portrait was one of the first to be hung on the floodwall and not all of the panels were in place for yesterday's opening of the Canal Walk.
The historic interpretation committee, Martin said, was created to advise consultants Ralph Appelbaum and Associates of New York on which images would best represent Richmond's history.
Members of Appelbaum's company have not returned repeated telephone calls for comment.
Showing Richmond's diversity was one of the primary goals of the committee, Martin said.
"Absolutely. It was one of our principle concerns."
There was no specific reason that Lee's picture was one of the first to be hung, Martin said, adding that he wished there was some way the entire gallery could have been kept veiled until it was ready to be displayed in its entirety.
"If I were an African-American and the only thing I saw at the time was Robert E. Lee's picture and the evacuation of the Confederate soldiers then I would be upset, too."
A Richmond Times-Dispatch photographer took a picture of workers hanging Lee's portrait by the floodwall that ran on the front page of Wednesday's newspaper.
City Councilman Sa'ad El-Amin opposed the inclusion of Lee's portrait, saying the Confederate general is an offensive figure to African-Americans who view him as a symbol of slavery. He met with riverfront officials, and by the end of the day the portrait was removed.
That sparked an outcry from Lee supporters throughout the Richmond area and beyond. The Historic Richmond Riverfront Foundation was overwhelmed with telephone calls and the topic dominated local newscasts and radio talk shows.
The story hit the national airwaves Thursday when CNN aired a segment about the controversy and e-mail rings throughout the country picked the topic apart.
The opening ceremony for the Canal Walk attracted media from throughout the state, including Roanoke, Charlottesville and the Washington area.
On Friday, more than 900 people called the Times-Dispatch to voice their opinions about the portrait after the newspaper advertised a special call-in line devoted to the issue. Dozens of others e-mailed comments.
Most were from the Richmond area, but some were from other parts of the state and a few were from other parts of the country.
Larry Bryant, a retired firefighter from Carr Lane, Mo., heard about the removal of Lee's portrait on CNN.
"I think that was really going overboard," Bryant said. "This breeds racism more than it curbs it."
Bryant said he is a Civil War buff and has taken his family to Richmond several times to see the historical sites. But after this controversy, he's not so sure he's going to return.
"That was one of the things we really loved about the city," he said. "I don't think we'll be visiting anymore."
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