Don’t take away or censor expression, assemble “Partitions of Fairness”

Knowledge is acquired by listening to all voices, viewing all signs, measuring all available facts and experiencing realities. The scientific method and sound reasoning relies on it. Nothing is learned from voices not heard, signs or symbols not seen, and forces not felt. Wisdom is never acquired by only experiencing that which is pleasing, convenient and acceptable to our familiar comforts and conventions.

Censorship was a tactic favored by Nazi Germany, the KKK, White Supremacists and proponents of “Jim Crowe.” Lynchburg should not embrace that tactic. If the success of a cause relies on censoring opposing insights, there is a serious weakness in the merits of that cause.

If we are to fully appreciate achievements of Civil Rights advocates then we need a genuine understanding of their obstacles and environment. Current and future generations may not fully appreciate that past governmental and social norms actively opposed racial equality. They may not appreciate the impact of mandated segregation or that minorities were commonly imprisoned and even executed for simply believing themselves to be entitled to equal protection under the law.

Without those insights, it might be easy to minimize, if not dismiss, the courage and sacrifices of Civil Rights pioneers, such as Rosa Parks’ resistance, the Freedom Riders buried in that Mississippi earthen dam, the letters of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his Birmingham jail cell, the innocent girls slayed in a Birmingham Church bombing, Emmett Till, the trial and incarceration of Lynchburg’s “Patterson Six”, and that of so many brave Lynchburg residents. Having clear reminders of our past may enhance appreciation of the drastic changes and fortitude of those who formerly opposed civil and legal inequality.

So, let us not tear down, let’s build up. Let’s not remove, let’s restore. Let’s not oppose, let’s promote. Rather than endorsing censorship, let us allow the past symbols among us to remind us of that past as we simultaneously recognize achievements of significant Civil Rights pioneers who overcame barriers to frame laws and practices embracing inclusion, rather than exclusion.

It would be prohibitively expensive to construct monuments honoring many deserving individuals, but very feasible to erect plaques on “Walls of Equity” or “Walls of Courage”, honoring local Civil Rights leaders. These plaques could include messages about these honorees and include QR codes linked to websites about each honoree. Unlike inscriptions on stone or metal monuments, websites can be updated and edited as information is compiled.

These “Walls” could be publicly/privately funded and located at the 5th & Federal Street round-about and in city gateways, near the Kemper Street Station and the Morrison Garden.

This would emancipate Lynchburg from emotional and controversial intrusions upon existing expressions that are arguably protected by the First Amendment (destroying and/or removing artistic expression of existing statues/monuments), allowing citizens to witness and learn from those past expressions as they simultaneously celebrate local Civil Rights pioneers.

Finally, I find it significant that the Confederate statue atop Monument Terrace is situated in a “museum” honoring Lynchburg’s war soldiers and fully encircled by courthouses and church buildings. That setting invites considerations of how possible “Lost Cause” meanings ascribed to it may be symbolically minimized by the very dominant courthouse and church buildings now surrounding it. It is symbolic because today’s laws and social norms promoting legal equality and civil rights were advocated by those who traditionally occupied these surrounding buildings — voices of legal and religious leaders.

At-large member of City Council from Jan. 2010 to Nov. 2022