To the Editor:
Two articles caught my attention in last week’s Gazette, the first, a report on the council’s decision on the Ramsey redevelopment; the other a letter to the editor in support of maintaining the name Jefferson Highway. What was disturbing in both was an underlying cynicism toward mainstream history. In the later the author presented a sympathetic portrayal of Jefferson Davis as victim. In the former a council member expressed his desire to remove a visible vestige of history he found painful and therefore objectionable. I could be wrong but I assume the two have differing views on many issues; however, when it comes to history they share a common skepticism. They both prefer a sanitized version of history supporting their world view.
While I have a differing position on Jefferson Davis, I do not support renaming the highway. It is a visible vestige of a complicated history that precedes the Civil War and lingers to this day; it is a reminder of unresolved issues in our national dialogue. The Ramsey Homes are not esthetically pleasing but they too remind us of a not so illustrious chapter in our city’s past. The council voted, what’s done is done; no one will see the visible sign of a past these buildings represented and in time no one will remember. They will simply disappear, a recurrence in the African American diaspora where all too often history is systematically ignored, erased or suppressed. The legacy of Ramsey Homes is now up to historians and perhaps inclusion in a museum display footnote.
When we relegate painful remnants of the past only to libraries and museums, societal curiosity is diminished, dialogue is circumvented, knowledge and growth suppressed. Outward and physically visible signs from the past might not always be comfortable but they are often powerful and necessary reminders. It is why the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp; and the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. remain visible and standing despite numerous books, documentaries and museums dedicated to these extremely painful reminders of war, inhumanity and racism. Visible physical manifestations make history real in a way books and other representations cannot.
The council member might have been correct when he stated, “If you did a survey, I don’t think [African American residents] would care at all about keeping something around that would remind them how they were treated in the past.”
I cannot speak for all African Americans in this city; however, I can say had there been a survey, this African American resident would not agree with the council member’s assertion. I care and I care that others, including future generations, are reminded of how African Americans were once treated. I am willing to chalk some of this up to political inexperience, a public misstep, a momentary lapse, where the member forgot his office does not entitle him to speak as the voice for an entire class of citizens. He is of course entitled to express his personal opinion and I defend his right to do so. However, as an “at large” elected council member, he should take pains to dispassionately consider the interests of all Alexandrians. As for the assertion implying that constantly talking about history somehow impedes progress, perhaps an introduction to George Santayana’s “The Life of Reason” published in 1905 is in order, where he wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Roy R. Byrd
Alexandria