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Carrying The Banner

Mitchel Bamberger | July 23, 2020

Topics: black lives matter, black lives matter richmond, BLM, defund the police banner richmond, lee bridge, lee bridge banner, lee bridge defund the police banner, Lee Monument, politics, richmond climate justice, richmond politics, richmond va blm, richmond va environmental groups, robert e lee, sunrise movement richmond, the sunrise movement, Virginia politics

With the flag they dropped from the Robert E. Lee bridge last month, the Richmond branch of Sunrise Movement calls attention to the links between environmental activism and racial justice. 

On June 19, a banner was dropped from the Robert E. Lee bridge that read “Defund The Police” in large, red letters. The phrase, encompassing a circular emblem on a navy blue background, mimicked the Virginia State Flag. Its text read “Virginia – Sic Semper Tyrannis,” but instead of the flowery vines which embroider the state crest, the names of victims of police brutality circled its center. 

In this adaptation of the state’s flag, the usual white Roman character in a blue robe (known as Virtus) is replaced by an ambiguous Black protester standing on a fallen statue. This image, both powerful and controversial, evokes a poignant emotional response.

But who was behind this mysterious banner drop, and what is their message? 

The installation was created by none other than Sunrise Movement Richmond, the local chapter of a nationwide environmental organization that has spent years coupling climate activism with the fight for racial equality. In light of recent events, the increasingly-prevalent topic of racial equality has sparked a conversation about race relations in the environmental world. It’s a conversation the Sunrise Movement has had since the very beginning.

Fionnuala Fisk is a leading voice for the Sunrise Movement’s Richmond chapter. Fisk provided insight into the meaning behind the banner drop, what it aimed to accomplish, and what The Sunrise Movement is doing in Richmond and across the nation.

“Sunrise Richmond is one of the keystone hubs in the state,” Fisk said. “[It’s] a youth-led, nonviolent direct action movement around The Green New Deal. It includes the environmental piece, but also the economic and racial justice piece… We would like a transition away from fossil fuels, and we would like vulnerable communities to be supported as we deal with the enormous crisis coming our way that is climate change.”

Sunrise Richmond is dedicated to justice for people and the planet, and racial equality is a topic on everyone’s mind these days.

PHOTO: Sunrise Richmond on Twitter

While the imagery of their Defund The Police banner is clear at first glance, its symbolism is dense. The deeply-layered subtext is first noticed through the crest’s center, which features a Black Lives Matter protester in place of Virginia’s Virtus. 

“The protester is an androgynous, ambiguously-gendered person. That was intentional, because we want them to represent anybody,” Fisk said. The protester stands atop a fallen statue, like the many Confederate monuments being removed (sometimes forcibly by protesters) throughout Richmond.

“They have a Black power fist, and they’re carrying a camera. One of the big symbols in this particular movement has been cameras speaking louder,” Fisk said. Public documentation has become a symbol in the fight, and the weapon of choice for nonviolent protesters. “Cameras have been really important in capturing the truth.”

The camera-wielding protester on the banner could be interpreted, perhaps, as a direct reference to the events which kickstarted the resurgence of Black Lives Matter: the death of George Floyd. Floyd’s death in Minneapolis altered the course of history overnight, the video shot by a bystander resulting in one of the largest civil protests in human history. Fisk went on to explain the deeper elements of Sunrise Richmond’s flag. 

“There’s an old joke that was historically associated with the phrase ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ — which means ‘thus always to tyrants’ — but the joke said that it actually meant ‘Get your foot off my neck.’” 

The joke in Virginia dates back to the Civil War. These words bring to mind the killing of George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter movement gives new meaning to the flag itself. The Tyrant, played by officer Derek Chauvin, has prevailed with his knee upon Floyd’s neck. It signifies a moment in time when the Tyrant has won at the expense of the oppressed, and the virtue of Virtus is snuffed out by the brutality of the Tyrant. 

PHOTO: Sunrise Richmond

“The flowers around the rim were exchanged for broken chains and handcuffs,” Fisk said. “The names in the circle were a mix of victims of lynching, as well as victims of police brutality throughout Virginia’s history.” 

The image on Sunrise Richmond’s flag empowers the role of the protester. “We wanted to flip the narrative about protesters right now. There’s been a lot of bad messaging [from] certain groups about protesters being thugs, being violent, being rioters, et cetera,” Fisk said. Sunrise positioned the protester as the central figure, portraying them as the hero, just as Lady Virtus is depicted on the Virginia State Flag: poised, elegant, powerful. 

“[The figure] reminds people that these protesters are forcing America to live up to its ideals,” Fisk said. “These are the people fighting for equality, fighting for life and liberty. These are our national heroes.” 

We can see the effects and implications of structural racism in nearly every facet of American society — and environmentalism is no exception. The Sunrise Movement bridges that gap, noting how climate issues could hurt some communities more than others. 

“Whenever there are big transitions in society, it’s always marginalized groups that are screwed,” Fisk said, noting that minority groups could disproportionately feel the hardships of economic and environmental shifts. With less wealth and resources, these communities will naturally have a more difficult time adapting to major changes. “The most marginalized communities right now are the most important to listen to, and they’re the ones that can benefit most from a re-imagination.” 

Fisk emphasized the Sunrise Movement’s involvement with The Green New Deal, and discussed their part in the Green New Deal Virginia Coalition.

The Green New Deal is a resolution put forward in both the House and Senate, which lays out a broad vision to combat climate change. As a modern variation of the 1930s New Deal, it seeks to monumentally change U.S. environmental practices. “It is an attempt to go beyond that [New Deal],” Fisk said. “Broadly, it is a transition from fossil fuels to green fuel in the next ten years. It’s a social, vast reimagining of services that the government provides, and it’s also about transitioning from fossil fuels to a carbon-neutral economy.” 

As climate issues intersect with the fight for racial justice in America, an increasingly-prevalent term has entered the country’s vernacular: environmental racism. 

“The effects of climate change and environmental degradation are not felt by all people equally,” said Fisk, offering the example that “a lot of our waste goes to poorer countries.”

PHOTO: Sunrise Richmond

Right here in Virginia and the United States, marginalized, lower-income communities are at higher risk of being negatively impacted — or even destroyed — by the relentless reliance on fossil fuels. 

“Pipelines do not go through the wealthy communities. They go through the historically-Black and native communities,” Fisk said. “Those with less political power are more vulnerable to the detrimental results of vast environmental degradation.” 

To Fisk, making justice for these communities a fundamental goal of the environmental movement is a key step in moving the movement in a progressive direction.

“Environmentalism, in the past, has had a long history of being a very white movement. And it can’t be,” said Fisk. “Sunrise is not this white monolith that [other] organizations are.”

Sunrise Movement envisions a greater picture to encompass climate justice for all people, and the Lee Bridge banner drop sought to connect these dots locally. By using the fallen Confederate statue in place of the Tyrant, Sunrise utilizes a symbol that speaks heavily, and specifically, to Richmond. Its iconography is near and dear to Richmonders’ hearts, familiar to the political climate of this moment in history. 

Richmond is a moderately-small city, with a population of around 232,000. While the city may seem small on a national scale, Fisk noted that Richmond has a lot of skin in the game during the fight for racial equality. Few places are as relevant when it comes to Confederate monuments, oppressive iconography, and the public glorification of racists, rebels, tyrants, genociders, and slave traders. 

Fisk reminds us that Richmond is not only a keystone hub for Sunrise Movement’s operations but also a hub in America’s fight for justice, especially right now. 

“Richmond is a living symbol for the rest of the country,” Fisk said. “Every time the BBC writes an article on protests about Confederate statues, they [reference] the Lee Monument. We wanted to draw attention to the importance of Richmond, and Virginia, as national symbols.” 

We’re experiencing a time in history when the news is dominated by Black Lives Matter protests and a global pandemic. The Sunrise Movement encourages us to think about environmentalism right now, too, not forgetting the looming threat of climate crisis which continues inching closer. They urge us to remember, once again, that racial equality is not an island. 

The banner only lasted a few short hours on the Robert E. Lee bridge before it was removed and confiscated by Richmond Police. But thanks to a few photos, illuminating statements from Fisk, and the ongoing work of The Sunrise Movement in our city, the effects and impact of the banner — and those who dropped it — will be felt for quite some time. 

Top Photo via Sunrise Movement Richmond

NAACP Sues Hanover County Over Confederate School Names

Owen FitzGerald | August 29, 2019

Topics: Confederate generals, Hanover County NAACP, Hanover County schools, Jefferson Davis, Lee-Davis High School, Robert Barnette, robert e lee, stonewall jackson, Stonewall Jackson Middle School

The Hanover County chapter of the NAACP is suing the county and its school board over the names of two schools named after Confederate leaders. 

The lawsuit states that the names of the schools — Lee-Davis High School and Stonewall Jackson Middle School — violate African American students’ protection under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The NAACP believes the names also violate students’ First Amendment protection from “compelled speech.” For example, the lawsuit suggests that wearing uniforms donning the schools’ names and mascots forces students to engage in speech they do not approve of or agree with. Lee-Davis’ mascot is the “Confederates,” and Stonewall Jackson’s mascot is the “Rebels.”

Lee-Davis is named after General Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The school did not fully integrate until 1969, a full decade after it first opened. The NAACP claims that naming both schools after Confederate figures “told every African American student that s/he was not welcome in Hanover County.”

In 2018, Hanover’s school board members voted 5-2 against changing the names of the schools. In June, Marla Coleman — one of the two members who voted in favor of changing the schools’ names — was removed from her position on the board. The supervisor who refrained from renewing Coleman’s role on the school board told the Richmond Times Dispatch that Coleman’s vote on the name changes had no bearing on the decision to name someone else to the position.

Robert Barnette, President of Hanover NAACP (Photo via Facebook)

The NAACP’s suit comes at a time when numerous schools in Virginia are making decisions to leave Confederate-named schools in the past. At the beginning of 2018, 31 schools in Virginia were named after Confederate figures. By the end of the year, 18 of those schools had changed their names.

Richmond is no stranger to these changes. Last year, the Richmond Public School Board voted to change the name of J.E.B Stuart Elementary School to Barack Obama Elementary School by an 8-1 vote.  

The NAACP first urged Hanover County to change the names of the schools in 1970. The request was made again in 2017. The county’s response was to conduct a survey, which showed a large majority of residents did not want to see the names or mascots of the schools changed.

Robert Barnette, Hanover NAACP president, said the lawsuit was not the desired approach to seeing the proposed changes brought about.

“We felt like they made their decision and they’re just not going to take us seriously,” Barnette told the Washington Post. “We wanted to make sure we had exhausted all options before we went the legal route.”

Of the nearly 2,600 students that attend the two schools, almost 10 percent are African American. Representatives from Hanover County have refused to comment on the impending lawsuit.

Top Photo: Lee-Davis High School, via Facebook

Landrieu Urges Reflection On Monuments In Meeting With Stoney

Madelyne Ashworth | March 22, 2019

Topics: Confederate monuments, Jefferson Davis Monument, Mayor Levar Stoney, Mitch Landrieu, New Orleans, racial reconciliation, robert e lee, Virginia Museum Of History & Culture

In his meeting with Mayor Levar Stoney this week, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu challenged Richmonders to consider the continued impact of Confederate monuments on our city’s image and reputation.

It was a meeting of the Mayoral minds on Tuesday, as Richmond’s Mayor Levar Stoney and New Orleans’ former mayor Mitch Landrieu engaged in thoughtful discussion at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.

About 100 people listened as Mayor Stoney recounted Richmond’s struggle with Confederate iconography and race relations in Richmond, while Landrieu recalled his experience presiding over the removal of his city’s Confederate monuments.

“We created things with regard to race, and we can’t fix things without regard to race,” Landrieu said. “Our public spaces speak to who you are. It’s intended to say something, especially monuments and statues.”

At the crux of this discussion, Landrieu asked of Richmond: What do we want to be known for?

Overhead view of New Orleans’ Battle Of Liberty Place Monument in 2006. The monument was erected in 1891 to commemorate an 1874 riot against New Orleans’ Reconstruction-era government by the White League, a white supremacist group. It was taken down by Landrieu’s administration in 2017. Photo by Infrogmation, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia

In 2015, Landrieu called for the removal from prominent public display of four monuments in New Orleans, three of Confederate generals and one memorializing a violent coup of the state government by the Crescent City White League. All the monuments in question were removed by May 2017, although not without two years of legal battles, public criticism, and even threats against Landrieu’s life. His opponents criticized him for a lack of transparency during the process.

In a discussion moderated by Julian Hayter, an associate professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond and member of Stoney’s Monument Avenue Commission, Stoney and Landrieu discussed racism in the South, and how to reconcile its history with its people.

“We can’t ignore the fact that we’ve had an ugly history,” Stoney said.

Last year, Stoney’s Monument Avenue Commission recommended removing the Jefferson Davis monument, while adding context to the other four Confederate statues.

Jefferson Davis monument on Monument Avenue. Public Domain, via Wikimedia

Landrieu’s charismatic, animated oration offered blunt, third-party observations about Richmond’s race relations and Confederate iconography. Ultimately, he posited Richmond must find a solution that is right for Richmond, regardless of any other city’s actions.

“There is a difference between remembrance and reverence,” Landrieu said. “Remembrance is what you always want to do, so you don’t let it happen again. Reverence is honoring something, so you might be able to do it again.”

Stoney stated that if it were in his legal power to remove them, the statues would be gone. He also said that while removing the statues were important to many Richmonders, his real concern was providing reparations to deprived communities negatively affected by past racial injustices.

In this context, reparations are not about putting cash directly in the hands of disenfranchised people; they are about funding schools that never get funded, putting money in parks and community spaces, and reforming previously exclusive places into safe, inclusive space. They are about allowing a city’s architecture, aesthetic, art, and monuments to reflect the citizens it houses.

“Does that man standing on top of that thing send a message that you are welcome here, and that we want you to be here?” Landrieu said. “I was the mayor of a majority African American city, and I was the mayor of a city that has a monument that doesn’t represent our city. We decided in our specific circumstance, it was the best thing to do. What you cannot do is forget who put it up and why they put it up.”

Landrieu urged Richmonders to consider that a single plaque is not contextualization. To provide an adequate frame of reference would require the statue of a “lynched man” to reside next to Jackson and Lee.

Hayter, Stoney, and Landrieu. Photo by John Donegan

It may be prudent to point out that by erecting those statues, we are actually disobeying the wishes of a dead man, one who is at the epicenter of this entire debate: Robert E. Lee.

“I think it wiser,” the retired Lee once wrote of a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

After the Civil War, Lee swore allegiance to the Union, publicly denounced any sentiment toward Southern separatism, affirmed the need to move on, and believed that by keeping those images alive, so would the sentiments of division live on and thrive.

Mayor Landrieu asserted similar sentiments in asking us to question that reverence associated with Confederate iconography. We have an entire avenue on which we all but worship the leaders of a failed nation, then act as if this is a presentation of historical events rather than a deep respect and longing for that failed nation.

“People are watching y’all,” Landrieu said. “I want to ask, do y’all want to be known for that?”

America has a history of building grandiose, reverent monuments to what Lee described as “civil strife,” and compared to those left by other countries throughout the 20th century after their own national conflicts, it calls us to examine how Americans display memorials to bloodshed.

The American cemetery at Normandy. Photo by Leon Petrosyan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia

Our memorial to the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks has turned into a multibillion dollar shopping mall, the Westfield World Trade Center. The American cemetery in Normandy, France, honoring those soldiers lost to WWII, boasts a $30 million welcome center, a chapel, and a 22-foot statue. Compared to the somber, understated French, German, and Canadian cemeteries in the same area, America’s message is clear: We are dominant, we are proud, we are strong, we are to be seen.

And while direct, this isn’t entirely inappropriate. Our culture differs from European countries in that we are opportunistic, and have a free-market capitalist economy. We honor our tragedies, but we simultaneously find a way to make money from them. We are clever, competitive, and fierce. Albeit occasionally sporting a tone-deaf quality, it is true to our nature. For better or worse, it is what we are known for. And, ultimately, even the aforementioned monuments honor soldiers and innocent lives lost to tragedy and terror, rather than the lost cause for continued human oppression that the figures on Monument Avenue commemorate.

And so, Mayor Landrieu’s challenge to Richmond resonates. In the wake of his visit, we must ask ourselves the same question he asked of us: What do you want to be known for? And how will you display it?

Top photo by John Donegan

Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee Vandalized in Richmond

Landon Shroder | August 4, 2018

Topics: Confederacy, confederate statues, monument ave, richmond, robert e lee, RVA, virginia

*This story has been updated

The statue glorifying Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which sits on Monument Ave. in Richmond, was vandalized in the early hours of the morning. Dark red paint was splashed all over the plinth of the statue with the letters BLM written on the base – seemingly an acronym for the group Black Lives Matter.

Two capitol police officers were present at the statue, but declined to comment on when they arrived on the scene. However, RVA Mag spoke to Joe Macenka, the public information officer for the Capitol Police – who patrol and manage the security of state property, including the statue of Lee.  Macenka said the department was notified shortly after 6 a.m., and the incident likely took place in-between one of their patrols. While not commenting on the particulars of the investigation, he said they were following a “number of angles.”

Capitol Police Inspecting the Damage

RVA Mag also spoke with an employee for the Department of General Services who was present at the scene to oversee the cleaning crew, who said he was called at 7:30 a.m. alerting him to what happened. At 9:30 a.m. the cleaning crew had not started power washing the statue, saying they were still waiting for the investigators to arrive.

Richmond’s Confederate statues are vandalized frequently, with Jefferson Davis being spray painted twice in the past year. This comes at a time of contentious conversation surrounding the role of Confederate statues in public spaces and the finalization of a report by Richmond’s Monument Ave Commission, which recommended that Davis’ statue be removed.

The Capitol Police reached out to RVA Mag at 1:30 p.m. to suggest that the paint used to vandalize the statue came from a “high pressured sprayer” or a refillable fire extinguisher. 

White Nationalist Richard Spencer Leads Torchlit Rally at Emancipation Park in Charlottesville

RVA Staff | October 8, 2017

Topics: Charlottesville, Confederate monuments, richard spencer, robert e lee, White Nationalist, white supremacy

*This is a developing story. 

White nationalist Richard Spencer just led another torchlit rally at Emancipation Park in Charlottesville. Spencer, who is one of the most recognizable faces of the alt-right and white nationalist movement held a similar rally in May to protest the removal of a statue glorifying Confederate General Robert E. Lee. According to posts being circulated on Twitter and Facebook, around two dozen young white men gathered at the feet of the statue which remains shrouded due to events surrounding Unite the Right in August. Unite the Right was the largest gathering of white nationalists and supremacists in decades, which left one counter-protestor dead in a domestic terror attack.

Spencer’s group was recorded chanting, “You will not replace us”. This was the same chant used by white nationalists and supremacist who stormed University of Virginia’s campus in another torchlit procession the Friday before Unite the Right this past August. Torchlit rallies have become a signature hallmark of these groups, and is a visible symbol meant to intimidate and threaten those who do not support their supremacist ideology.

Richard Spencer Twitter Feed

In another video of the incident retweeted by Spencer, he can be seen speaking to the crowd saying, “We are here to represent white America’s interests.” He eventually finishing by saying, “The left wing establishment is built around anti-white policies and anti-white rhetoric…we are a people with interests and we are a people who will not be replaced.” The group of white supremacists was also apparently recorded chanting, “the south will rise again” and “Russia is our friend”. According to information circulating on social media, Spencer and his cohort left about 45 minutes after showing up on the scene. No arrests or injuries have been reported.

*Cover photo by CBS19 News – Charlottesville Newsplex

Black Lives Matter New York Headed to Richmond for Saturday’s Rally at Lee Monument

David Streever | September 14, 2017

Topics: black lives matter, Confederate monuments, executive order, Monument Avenue, Neo-Confederates, richmond, robert e lee, virginia

*This is a developing story. 

Saturday’s neo-Confederate rally is shaping into a larger event, with an announcement from Black Lives Matter of Greater New York (BLM NY) that they’ll be attending. The group is seeking donations via GoFundMe to purchase protective gear for the rally.

Screenshot of the GoFundMe page

They’ve posted the following brief statement on Facebook and GoFundMe:

We’re going to Richmond, Va to counter-protest the continuous terrorism, hate, and bigotry in America. There’s a rally taking place September 16, 2017 to defend the Robert E. Lee statue and to promote the Confederacy. In the name of freedom, liberation for Black people/POC, and Heather Heyer (the brave soul that was murdered by a white supremacist) we will continue to fight!

Although CSA II: The New Confederate States of America, the group behind the rally has explicitly disinvited the violent protesters that appeared in Charlottesville, they are planning to open carry, and local residents have expressed concern about the rally leading to violence, unintentional or not. “We are going to Richmond Virginia tomorrow night to protest white supremacists on Saturday morning. This is another protests around the statue similar to Charlottesville,” wrote Hawk Newsome, BLM NY President, in a Facebook post from earlier today. The group announced their plans to attend last night, marking one of the first significant national counter-protest group coming.

This announcement comes as the Richmond Police Department have expanded the no-parking zones previously announced and issued a statement asking citizens to report any suspicious activity to 911 and sign up for the municipal codeRED alert system. They also advised locals to stay clear of Lee monument this Saturday owing to the potential for violence. The RPD is holding a press conference at the police training academy at 3:30 PM today and a community meeting at the First Baptist Church on Monument Avenue tonight at 6 PM.

*Cover Photo by Black Lives Matter of Greater New York

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