Thursday April 13, 2023

COMMENTARY: What the periwinkle hides | GUEST FEATURE: Spotsy's Nazis? | OBSERVED: The 27th is shaping up

COMMENTARY: What the periwinkle hides

by Martin Davis

As white racists fought against integration by pushing the disgraceful policy of “massive resistance,” while bankers enforced “redlining” to keep Black Americans from living among white Americans long after Jim Crow died, the periwinkles kept blooming just yards from the Madison family cemetery at Montpelier - the home of America’s fourth president and the author of the U.S. Constitution.

For decades, it was long assumed that beneath the sprawling blanket of dark green leaves and light purple flowers lay fallen Civil War soldiers.

“No one quite knows how that belief started,” says Elizabeth Chew, recently interim CEO and president at Montpelier.

Perhaps as the estate passed from family to family after the Madisons lost control of the plantation in 1844, the true identity of who lay beneath the flowers was simply forgotten. Perhaps the new owners, or those familiar with the property, wanted to change the story in order to eliminate the whole truth of who lived at Montpelier.

We’ll probably never know exactly how it happened, only that it did.

But thanks to archaeologists working at Montpelier, the mystery of who lay beneath the periwinkle finally revealed itself. The bodies of about 40 enslaved people who had been forced into labor for the Madisons.

Memory and History

In the years since the truth of those buried beneath the periwinkle was revealed, the push to minimize and, indeed, eliminate Black history from the American story has found new footing.

A national backlash against “critical race theory” - a term stretched far beyond its original academic meaning to encompass a wide range of efforts to minimize Black history and silence Black voices - is picking up the battle that the leaders of massive resistance lost.

And in the most blatant effort to suppress Black history in education arguably since the 1960s, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s hand-picked education team has worked relentlessly to eliminate the Black story in Virginia.

But these efforts haven’t rooted out the periwinkle at Montpelier, and today the secret they’ve held for over a hundred years are speaking and telling the fuller story of life on the Madison plantation.

Thanks to a $5.8 million grant from the Mellon Foundation described in our Mar. 23 issue, the enslaved will finally be memorialized appropriately.

What shape that takes remains to be seen. It could be a traditional monument, or it could be a piece of landscape architecture. Chew emphasizes that there are no preconceived notions going in to this process.

Whatever occurs, it will be refreshing to finally have the enslaved buried at Montpelier recognized for the significant contributions they made not only to the plantation, but to the founding of the nation itself.

There are no small actors

There are those who would draw a distinction between Madison’s achievements, and the role that slaves played in those achievements. “Madison’s brilliance stands alone,” one reader said to me last year. “Madison would have written the Constitution regardless of whether he held slaves or didn’t. They played no role in his success.”

Others have worried aloud that the emphasis on the enslaved is diminishing our image of Madison, and downplaying his image at Montpelier.

On Monday, F2S spent the day at Montpelier, taking the tour available to visitors and walking the grounds. The idea that Madison is being diminished is simply wrong. From the tour of the house that focuses almost entirely on Madison, his guests, and the beauty of his home, as well as his considerable political achievements, to the visitor’s center loaded with Madison books, memorabilia, and documents, Madison stands tall at his home.

What the work on Madison’s enslaved people is accomplishing is filling out a much fuller picture of Madison and what drove his work.

For Madison did not reach the heights he did, alone. In fact, it’s not unreasonable to argue that the very ideals of freedom he espoused in writing were shaped entirely by his interactions, and lifelong discomfort, with the Peculiar Institution. (For more, see this fine summary from Princeton University - Madison’s alma mater.)

As the tour of Madison’s home makes clear, he was aware of, and frequently challenged on, the inconsistency between the ideals of freedom he espoused, and his own involvement with slavery. Most notably by the Marquis de Lafayette.

The new memorial will not only bring the long-overdue attention that Madison’s slaves deserve, but it forces us to see more clearly the entangled connections between the Father of the Constitution, and the 300 people he and his family owned, and sold.

The Mellon grant will ensure that we all are forced to confront that reality, and that we all begin to understand better just who Madison was. And in so doing we will begin to better understand our own, ongoing, struggles with race.

And for this brighter understanding of our past and our future, we can thank the periwinkles - The tiny, creeping flower that protected the enslaved when racism and racists worked to destroy their memory.

At Montpelier as in America - there are no small actors.

For without those Madison depended upon for everything, and whose condition haunted him throughout his life, there would be no stately mansion. No Constitution. And arguably, no America.

In life, and in legacy, Madison and the enslaved lived side-by-side - we owe our nation fully to both.

GUEST FEATURE: Spotsy’s Nazis?

By Drew Gallagher

The following is reprinted with permission from Pie and Chai magazine, an innovative literary journal founded by Steve and Janet Watkins.

Are the majority members of the Spotsylvania County, VA, School Board Nazis?

Are the majority members of the Spotsylvania County, VA, School Board Nazis?

The short answer is “Of course not.” A mere desire of some to see books they deem offensive burned does not make them Nazis. After all, they’re professed Christians, and the Nazis were religious only to the extent that it furthered their larger aims. The Nazis wanted a religion that hewed to their overall ideology and built their ruling party out of fellow Germans of a like mind. They elevated people in their ranks who held the same fundamental beliefs that they did. Joseph Goebbels was named chief propagandist because of his fealty to Hitler. 

It’s silly to think Spotsy’s school board majority would ever create a position for a propagandist who believes exactly as they do–a propagandist hired at a six-figure salary solely to free der Führers from the odious tasks of having to respond to their constituents. That would be ridiculous.

Oh. Wait. “Spotsylvania County creates new public relations position.”

And. Um. “Spotsylvania hires new director of communications.”

Well, OK. But it’s not as if they’re suggesting anything truly crazy, like getting rid of all the school librarians….

Damnit! “Spotsylvania superintendent proposes eliminating school libraries among options for closing budget gap.

Still and all, the majority members of the Spotsylvania County School Board are NOT Nazis. In fact, it’s unfair to conjure a narrative that does not reflect the truth. I’m creating a bogeyman—a fear based upon a danger that does not seemingly exist. The Four Horsemen and -women of the Spotsy Schools Apocalypse are clearly not Nazis, though two of them did say—on camera—that they would like to burn books they didn’t like. (One, the recently-felony-indicted Kirk Twigg, even made The Daily Show with his braying comments about doing it.)

It is easy to save people from a danger that doesn’t exist, and Spotsylvania Republicans and a handful of parents are again returning to that well-worn playbook in going after books and school libraries under the banner of parental rights. Burn them? Likely not. But ban them—including novels by Nobel-prize author Toni Morrison? In Spotsylvania, there are 55 on the challenge list and counting—most of the challenges coming from one very concerned, very bored, or very ideologically-driven parent. 

Author Brianna Labuskes’ new novel The Librarian of Burned Books is not young adult literature and so it is unlikely to appear on school library shelves in Spotsylvania, but if it did, no doubt it would also be in the conservatives’ crosshairs–a distinction that the author found not too terribly surprising.

“I have been finding it slightly ironic that my cautionary-tale book about book banning would in fact be banned in places,” she told me recently. “It really all comes back to this idea that some people want only certain voices to have a say in shaping our culture, our view of history, our identity as a country. And the voices book banners want to hear paint a superficial, propaganda-type world where people they haven’t even tried empathizing with just shouldn’t exist. Or if they exist, they should stay quiet about it so as not to disrupt a world view that’s so fragile it can be shaken with a book about Nazis or a Sapphic love story.”

The Librarian of Burned Books occurs over three different places and times, from the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Berlin, to France during the German Occupation, to WWII America. At the center of the story are three women who are given career- or even life-threatening choices to make as they consider combatting censorship in a variety of nefarious forms. 

Labuskes, who lives in Asheville, NC, is a former journalist who recognizes the politics that underlie the recent push to control school boards and stoke fear among parents to help buoy the candidates who mine those fears for political gain. Her comments do not address the situation in Spotsylvania specifically, but are reflective of the national attacks levelled by parents and politicians on school libraries. 

“It’s so unfair and also doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “Something I saw over and over again in my decade in D.C. was how dangerous PACs and Super PACs are to our country. These organizations give such outsized power to a small, vocal minority. And it is a minority that wants to ban books, even if they’re well-organized and well-funded. Poll after poll shows that Americans don’t support this kind of censorship. But when you have enough money behind an issue, a few people can have a very loud voice.”

“You have to ask yourself who is benefitting from all this,” Labuskes added. “People don’t pour nearly half a million dollars into tiny local positions without getting something out of it.”

Recent news photos have shown empty bookshelves in Florida, where new legislation has teachers scared about what they put on those shelves. Rather than subject themselves and their classrooms to scrutiny, the teachers have removed every book to avoid conflict. Of course, the people who are then negatively affected are the students in those classrooms. But whatever students may want seems irrelevant. Parents who want to attack books can easily find a hit list of offensive titles on conservative websites–mainly books that mention suicide, same-sex relationships, and America’s historical (and contemporary) treatment of minorities.

 The Librarian of Burned Books doesn’t limit itself to fascist book burnings, which was focused on Jewish authors and any ideology not aligned with Nazism. Labuskes’ story also follows Senator Robert Taft of Ohio who attempted to ban certain books that were being sent to the troops overseas during World War II. Taft didn’t like the popular Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had aspirations to one day challenge him for the presidency. Roosevelt, and much of the country, lauded a book program that sent paperback books to the troops overseas to break up the boredom between moments of death interspersed with sheer horror. Taft, who also wanted to deny troops the right to vote because he knew that they’d support Roosevelt, demanded that titles such as The Great Gatsby be pulled from the books sent to troops. The fact that there were people during World War II who thought the themes in Gatsby might be offensive to troops who were witnessing fresh horrors every day is absurd. Kind of like parents thinking that pulling books from school library shelves will shield their children from the subjects of rape and suicide and same-sex relationships which are readily available on their phones or Netflix.

In Labuskes’ book, a librarian takes on Taft and all his political might because this is fiction and it makes for a compelling story. Asking school librarians to take the same fight to their local politicians in real life, where real careers might be at risk, is another matter. Labuskes, for one, thinks it’s a fight worth taking on.

“I’m a hopeless optimist—I do believe both readers and democracy will prevail. There have been book bans and burnings pretty much since there have been books. You can even look at our own fairly recent history and see it happen over and over again. Ulysses was banned from being published in the United States; in the early eighties, there was a similar moral panic to today’s that sparked the idea for Banned Books Week. One of my favorite sayings is that history might not repeat itself but it certainly does rhyme. Books are incredibly powerful—and people like to control powerful things for their own gains.” 

There’s something in social psychology called pluralistic ignorance, or collective illusion. It’s when someone who holds a majority opinion thinks everyone else holds the opposite opinion. A big study in 2022 showed that up to 80 percent of Americans supported major climate change mitigation polices, and yet when asked to estimate what their fellow Americans thought, they said only about 40 percent did. 

One man got 150 books in Florida pulled from the shelves of a high school in the state. One man. In a lot of the stories about bans across the country, the effort is being made by a select few people who don’t even have children in the school anymore. Pluralistic ignorance can lead to the bystander effect, which paralyzes the rest of us from acting in these situations to stop what’s being allowed to happen. We need to remind ourselves, when we contemplate fighting back against this injustice, that we’re supported by the vast majority of Americans.

The heroes in The Librarian of Burned Books do not emerge immediately. One is a popular American author who is a guest of the Nazis and gets swept up in the moment before witnessing books being thrown onto a pyre in the streets. That’s when the author realizes the true nature and horror behind the Nazi movement. 

When book burning is discussed today, it doesn’t necessarily mean Nazis are at the front door, but it does mean that ideals and independent thought are under attack. The Spotsylvania County School Board majority members aren’t Nazis, but the fact that they say they want to burn books, or stay quiet when someone else suggests it–or put forth a proposal to defund all school libraries and eliminate all school librarian jobs–sure puts them in some dark company. 

*** 

Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second most prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 136-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. You can find some of his video book reviews at Fredericksburg.com.

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OBSERVED: The 27th is shaping up

For the past year, I’ve paid considerable attention to the 27th District Senate race. The primaries for the Democratic and Republican candidates are in June, and November will be here before we know it.

From the beginning, this race has had a lot of uncertainty. Monica Gary’s running as an independent makes her a wild card that will be difficult to analyze. Those who would sell her short best be reminded that she’s run, and won, unorthodox, poorly funded, campaigns before - most notably her race for and victory in the Stafford Board of Supervisors’ election.

On the Democratic side, Ben Litchfield and Luke Wright hit the campaign trail early. Then, in February, Joel Griffin announced his candidacy, shaking up what everyone thought was going to be a Litchfield-Wright race to the finish.

On the Republican side, Tara Durant has until recently been quiet, running like the incumbent (even though this is a new district with no incumbent). Matt Strickland, on the other hand, has been running just right of Donald Trump, with campaign signs sporting a “Crush the Establishment” motto.

Well, over the past couple of weeks, a lot has changed.

Let’s look at the Democratic side first. Luke Wright has dropped out of the race and is now backing Joel Griffin. And Griffin’s fundraising dollars are eye-popping. He’s raised more money than all the other candidates (Democrat and Republican) put together, making him a formidable contender. But Litchfield has scored some major victories of his own. On Mar. 28 he announced that the Virginia National Organization for Women had endorsed him. He’s also been pounding the pavement and knocking on doors, putting together an impressive ground campaign.

The Democratic race is now a two-man horse race between Griffin and Litchfield. And it’s sure to be a fascinating two months til the primary. (Watch for F2S’s profile of Griffin and Litchfield coming in the next week.)

On the Republican side, Durant has finally come out of the shadows - sort of. Drive the backroads of Stafford County, and Durant signs are popping up like spring wildflowers. Her most recent promo piece, and a Facebook ad, however, plant her firmly in Youngkin’s shadow. Her most recent flyer, for example, reads like a Youngkin stump speech. Parents’ rights, CRT, family values, all the hits on the right-wing hit parade.

Strickland, meanwhile, seems to be toning things down. His early in-your-face Crush the Establishment signs have dropped that Trumpian slogan and replaced it with “Veteran and Gourmeltz owner.”

It’s not hard to guess why. Strickland is known to keep company with the Spotsy School Board’s majority members, and their popularity is sinking faster than an anchor in Lake Anna. We suspect Strickland is feeling the pain of being too close to these four (one of whom faces a criminal felony trial in August) and trying to create some separation.

Who wins this race? No way to guess.

And Gary is still hanging out there building her grassroots campaign. We’re hard-pressed to believe that she can win the general election (but we won’t count her out), but she’ll surely pull votes from one side or the other. Which one is anyone’s guess. Her message appeals to Dems and Rs - depending on the topic. She is a true independent.

Stay tuned.