American Review | Global Perspectives on US Affairs

Deep down in the dirty (South to be exact)

By Jonathan Bradley in Washington DC
2 February 2010

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The third Monday in January marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and so it seemed kind of appropriate that I was to mark this occasion with a trip down to the little corner of America that necessitated Dr. King's resistance and subsequent martyrdom: the South.

If slavery was, as the nation's current President put it, America's original sin, the Civil War was the beginning of its long, slow purgatory. And while central Virginia may not be the most Southern part of the South (my home here in Northern Virginia, a mere two hours away, is as Yankee as any settlement north of the Mason-Dixon), but as the one time capital of the Confederate States of America, it seems nonetheless a crucial part of one of America's most fascinating corners.

Jefferson Davis memorial (via Flickrer rvaphotodude)

The South today is, of course, not the South of the Confederacy, or of Jim Crow, or even of Dukes of Hazzard. The D.C. suburbs are creeping ever outward, and with Virginia having turned Democrat for the first time in a generation in 2008 and endorsing Obama for President, I wondered if the city would be yet another American town, with no trace of its history lingering.

But, no; stepping out of the Greyhound station on the morning of the Saturday before MLK Day, I saw a city that felt different. There was something country about this place, true, but also something genteel. My USSC co-blogger, Erin Riley, after a separate trip reported a plethora of bow-ties throughout the city, and though I saw none myself, the image fit in with the town. Walking into Richmond from the Greyhound means a rapid transition from grim old warehouses to stately Southern houses positioned neatly along sweeping avenues. The most sweeping of these is particularly surreal; Monument Ave is a grand thoroughfare leading straight into downtown Richmond. The avenue is interrupted by a series of massive roundabouts, which has at the centre of each, a glorious and triumphant statue honouring the Confederate's heroes: Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. I was not surprised to see a Southern city honouring a history that had such bloody results for its population, but the majesty of these monuments was startling; this modern American city delights in these men who tried to tear apart their nation for the sake of their home states' rights to keep segments of its population enslaved.

Yet Monument Avenue, as I would later find out, honours Arthur Ashe too. Ashe, a Richmond native, and the only African-American to win the Wimbledon, Australian and US Tennis Opens, has a statue standing in the same avenue as the men who fought to keep his ancestors in servitude. And while Confederate figures dominate Monument Ave, if you head all the way into the city, to the state Capitol, it's not a Confederate figure immortalised with a monument on the grounds; it's another Virginian, the first President of the United States, George Washington.

But Richmond is more than awkwardly memorialised history. Wandering half-lost through its streets, I came across a neighbourhood known as Carytown; a quaint collection of boutique shops and more of those grand old homes. Yet in Carytown, which feels like a University town, with its independent record stores and cozy second hand book stores, I found an apparently renowned barbecue joint called Double T 's. I stepped into the modest wooden restaurant for lunch, and was greeted by beer on special for $1 a glass, and a blonde waitress with a broad Southern accent. Country music drifted through the establishment, and the pulled pork sandwiches (delicious), came in two sizes: regular and Double T size. After a thoroughly satisfying meal, replete with a side of collards, and with a slice of pecan pie to follow, an old man with a walking stick made his way over to me and introduced himself.

"How did you enjoy your meal," he asked. "I'm Double T."

Upon hearing I was an out-of-towner, Double T, with pride, told me the history of Virginia barbecue, explaining that his pork is cured only by smoking it, whereas barbecue elsewhere preserved the meat with a variety of spices and sauces. In the old days, he explained, the bad meat was given to slaves (or so I understood - Double T used the curious and unfortunate euphemism "plantation workers"), and so in the deep South, barbecue is more heavily treated than in Virginia. Or something. I found the intraregional rivalry and unusual terminology more interesting than the actual culinary history, not being any kind of barbecue connoisseur myself.

Double T's wasn't the only place in Richmond I found this unusual ambivalence about the past. Near Carytown is Richmond's museum district, which features the headquarters of the Daughters of the Confederacy, preserved Confederate churches, and a great many cannons memorialising the War. Most of the flags round here are the historically-accurate Confederate flag, rather than the more controversial modern variation on the battle flag, though its hard to shake the feeling that whatever else these ensigns may represent, they are emblems of an ugly racial history that should not be celebrated.

The Virginia Historical Society is a great museum in the midst of this area, but even here, there seems to be a defensiveness about the Civil War era. Exhibits both condemn and excuse Robert E. Lee (perhaps justly); the reasons for the South's secession are expounded upon at length before revealed to be almost entirely about slavery, and though it has no qualms about portraying the horrors of slavery, I thought it a little ghoulish that the museum says part of the wealth Southerners lost after the conflict ceased was the value of now-emancipated African-Americans.

Yet, even these oddities are hidden away in Richmond. Perhaps most indicative of the town's history is the Confederate White House, now the Confederate Museum. The one-time head of government of the seceding nation stands within the grounds of a University hospital now, and the small, modest building looks rather plain, hardly worthy of being described as a mansion. This wasn't some inspiring revolution creating a grand new nation, but the restless throes of a barely nascent and soon failed state. But even this failed state lingers on today; a plaque on a statue round the back of the Confederate White House commemorates that greatest of "South Will Rise Again" phraseology: "The War Between the States." The South is still the South.

Tags: The Civil War, The South, Virginia

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