October 9-10, 2009
Advancing Social Justice in Times of Crisis
American University’s 6th Annual
Public Anthropology Conference
Dave Cavanaugh
Question: How can citizen activist seeking to address injustices within our community bring about the changes we desire during challenging economic and political times?
Upon completion of the presentation audience members will appreciate the history of the Fort Ward area and how it can be used to protect the existing historical park from recreational expansion and provide an opportunity to diversify the interpretation of Civil War history. The presentation will suggest practical ideas to facilitate a more collaborative community based planning process.
Thank you. I appreciate being here and speaking to you regarding our efforts to better diversify the interpretation and educational experience of those visiting Fort Ward by including the African American contribution.
The coalition of citizens interested in protecting Fort Ward arose out of concern for the future of the park. City officials and the Recreation Department and Commission had begun taking steps that would have dramatically changed the historic character of the park. Plans were in place to convert a portion of Fort Ward Park, a park listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to a major recreation and district maintenance facility. The plan was to increase use of the park, enlarging picnic and parking areas, making it a venue for large events.
They City of Alexandria also planned to increase use of an existing maintenance yard that over time had been expanded by Recreation and Parks without any public involvement. The maintenance yard was being used to store City owned trucks, supplies, compost, gravel and other park supplies. They had converted the maintenance facility, located next to the subdivision, into a district maintenance facility for temporary storage of trash. The physical size of the maintenance had been increased by filling in an area believed to contain grave sites. The compacted soil increased water run-off into an existing African American Cemetery located within the Park boundaries, undermining grave markers and burial sites.
Efforts by adjacent property owners expressing their concerns were brushed off as a Not in My Back Yard Issue (NIMBY). There was this notion the adjacent property owners were only interested in their narrow concerns and did not fully understand the increased demand for use of City parks.
However, African American History has not been mainstreamed into the interpretation of Civil War history in Alexandria, Virginia. Little has been written regarding the population of Contrabands that flooded into the Alexandria area. Homeless, destitute, malnourished and in poor health, families built shacks (huts) and were forced to rely on humanitarian efforts of benevolent organizations and the Union Army. Their suffering and survival are part of the Civil War story.
The increased awareness and interest in the unique African American experience is beginning to attract broader community support. The planned Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and local African American Museums that have sprouted up over the last ten are examples renewed interest. This public response is fed by a public willingness to look back at the struggle and progress made as a result of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 70s.
While James M. McPherson and other noted Civil War writers have elaborated on the active and crucial role of African Americans played during the Civil, this awareness has not widespread outside of academic circles. Many Americans who saw the 1990 movie, Glory were surprised to find that African American, wearing Union blue uniforms fought gallantly during the Civil War.
Near the end of the War, 1865, the Federal Government, through the Freedman’s Bureau, took on the humanitarian role of helping feed, shelter and providing clothes for the freedman. Although circumstances for African American families certainly varied, many had picked up and left home. Many families were homeless, hungry, destitute having to survive under wartime and uncertain conditions. With the end of the war, government jobs and demand for labor increased and new economic relationships began to develop. Over a period of time, African Americans helped rebuild the Seminary and Episcopal High School, and later. . . on their own, being able to buy property, establish churches and provide schools for their child.
The active participation of the African American community is absolutely essential in gaining public support to protect and eventually share their history at Fort Ward. It is the history of people brought to America as slaves, the struggle for freedom, enduring that makes their story unique and compelling. History has been used to keep African Americans in their place and marginalize their contributions. The City of Alexandria appropriated land from the African American communities to build Fort Ward and T.C. Williams High School. As Adrienne Washington has reminded coalition members, “They can take our land, but not our history.”
In 2007 the dedication for a new T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, no mention was made of the colored public school dedicated 70 years earlier on the same site. Douglas Wood, a former slave whose father served and died in the Civil War, obtained community support and funding for a four room school. The former T.C. Williams High School built in the 1960s was featured in the Hollywood film, “Remember the Titans”.
Background
At the beginning of the War, Washington, D.C. was totally unprepared. Troops from New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island were rushed to Washington to provide limited security for the new Lincoln administration. On April 23, Virginia voted by a small margin to secede from the Union. Early the next morning, Federal troops moved across the bridges (Long Bridge, the Aqueduct Bridge in Georgetown, and Chain Bridge) and by steamer to Alexandria to secure the highlands overlooking the District of Columbia and the City of Alexandria. Work began immediately to build forts near the bridges and secure the rail lines and major crossroads.
Fort Ward is one of 68 enclosed forts that eventually circled the nation’s capital during the Civil War. The Fort was located 3 miles northwest of Alexandria was to guard the approaches to Alexandria via routes from the West, Leesburg Pike (Route 7) and overlooked Bailey’s and Balls Cross Roads with a view of the rebel forces at Munson’s Hill. Other nearby Forts included Fort Worth, Fort Williams. After the Battle of 1st Manassas, and the increasing numbers of sick and wounded soldiers, the Theological Seminary was converted to a General Hospital with 925 beds. This is one of many hospitals in Alexandria and Washington serving the growing numbers of sick and wounded where African Americans worked.
The so called “contraband” and later “freedman” settled at the Fort and nearby areas near the Theological Seminary after the Civil War. Later families were able to buy property, build modest homes and started churches, schools and a fraternal lodge.
Telling the Civil War story today arouses strong passions and feelings even after nearly 150 years. This is no less true today in Alexandria Virginia when debating the “occupation” of Alexandria by Union forces, calling Confederate soldiers “rebels” or idolizing Robert E. Lee can begin a passionate debate.
Only somewhat reluctantly historians begin to describe the important role the City of Alexandria played as a major Union Army supply depot, transportation center, hospital center and destination for thousands of former slaves seeking refuge. The War was a tragic event that restored the Union and abolished slavery.
Slave families moved in-mass to the safety of Union lines to achieve long sought freedom. On foot and by wagon they moved down dirt roads, crossed streams into Washington, D.C., Alexandria and the outlying areas seeking refuge, food, and work. They helped build the forts, worked at the hospitals, and served as teamsters, cooks, laundresses, dock workers, ambulance drivers. During the War as many as 185,000 “contraband” enlisted as U.S. Colored Troops and fought and served as Union troops. The so called “contraband” and later “freedman” settled at the Fort and nearby areas near the Theological Seminary after the Civil War. Later families were able to buy property, build modest homes and started churches, schools and a fraternal lodge.
I would like to take a minute to introduce you to some of the events and people that make the history of the Fort Ward area so interesting and relevant to us today.
Cassius F. Lee, Robert E. Lee’s first cousin, lived nearby on his property called Menokin with his wife and family. On 20 April, 1861, three days after the Virginia convention adopted an ordinance of secession; Robert E. Lee resigned his military commission. Upon learning of his cousin’s decision to go south, he wrote a letter expressing his hope that he, Robert E. Lee, would be an instrument for peace. Cassius F. Lee did not move south as many of his friends did. He sought to protect his Menokin from being vandalized by Union troops. But his contentious nature raised suspicion of him being a southern sympathizer. After being arrested and jailed at the Capital Prison in the District of Columbia, he decided to move his family to the safety of Canada.
Burney McKnight, an African American (born abt 1848), is shown as living and working for Cassius F. Lee, Robert E. Lee’s first cousin, (1870 U.S. Census) as a domestic servant. Burney’s mother is Harriet Shorts. Harriet and her husband Burr Shorts paid for a land survey in 1879 and five years later receive the title for 10 acres of land at Fort Ward. Burney will later marry William Terrell and be one of the original founders of the Oakland Baptist Church. She died in 1930 and is buried in the Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery at Fort Ward.
Douglas Wood and his wife lived nearby. His father, William Wood, fled from his owner, enlisted and served as private in the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), at Petersburg, Virginia. He became ill and was transported to L’Overture Hospital in Alexandria, where he died.
After the Civil War, Douglas was reunited with his mother, Susan, who had been taken south by her mistress during the War. Douglas, a chauffeur for a prominent banker in Alexandria, later obtained Julius Rosenwald funding for the construction of Seminary School for colored children on 2 acres of land he had sold to Fairfax County. The four room school house was located where T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria is located and was in existence until about 1950.
Julius Rosenwald was a part owner of Sears, Robuck and Company in 1895 and later served as its president from 1908 to 1922. He was a wealthy philanthropist who started a school building program in 1917 that was responsible for building over 5000 colored schools in the South. The inspiration for the idea was a result of a friendship between Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald. A committee associated with the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now Tuskegee University, oversaw the building program.
The Julius Rosenwald helped fund the Seminary School and the Kemper School in nearby Green Springs, in what is now Arlington. The program required the local black community to contribute cash and in-kind donations to match the Rosenwald grant. As a condition to obtaining the funding, the Fairfax County School Board had to build the school to certain design specifications, provide new desks and blackboards for each classroom, as well as two sanitary privies, and agree to maintain the school.
Lancelot Blackford, (born 23 Feb 1837, died 23 May 1914) was a former Confederate officer, and highly regarded headmaster at the Episcopal High School for Boys from 1870-1913. His diaries written entries written from 1873-1913 provide a interesting account of his daily activities including his duties, anxieties, discipline of the boys, social life and a glimpse of his feelings towards African Americans.
Harriet Cazenove, a widow, built a house and moved to the Seminary Hill area from Alexandria around 1856. In January 1858, her brother placed an advertisement in the Alexandria Gazette:
[W]anted to hire for present year, for Mrs. Harriet Cazenove, residing of the Hill, Theological Seminary, Fairfax County Virginia, a man and woman, slaves without incumbrance. The woman a cook or washer, the man to attend about the garden and stable.
Harriet and her son evacuated soon after Union troops marched into Alexandria. She fled initially to Chantilly where her mother lived. It is not known when she returned to her home near the Seminary.
Clare Adams , the daughter of Harriet and Burr Shorts, born in 1865. She later married Robert Adams and given three acres by her parents in 1898. Later that year she donated ¼ of acre of land to Fairfax County in 1898 for a one room school for colored students. The school was in operation until about 1925. Clare worked at the Seminary and for other families during different periods of her life. She was revered by family and friends and was one of the early founders of the Oakland Baptist Church. She is buried on land she had owned, now part of the Fort Ward Park.
James Jackson was born in Fauquier County in 1848. The 1870 U.S. Census records he was a Coachman at the Episcopal High School. On August 11, 1894, Lancelot M. Blackford writes in his diary: “Jem Jackson finished hauling coal last evening. The job was worth to him $58.75. In all 50 tons were hauled”
In February 1894 received a deed for 11.5 acres of land at Fort Ward. He died in 1923 is buried at Fort Ward, probably at the Jackson family cemetery.
What I have learned so far. I would share some thoughts I have on what I have learned working as volunteer on the Fort Ward Project.
The African American contribution is not readily acknowledged or valued. In the early 20th Century, American history text books in the South downplay slavery and its brutality. In Margaret McMillian’s book, Dangerous Games, The Uses and Abuses of History, she describes how “even black children in segregated schools were presented with a picture of the South in which slavery and racism were largely absent.”
At Fort Ward, the existence of former slaves in large numbers and their contribution is only now being recognized. What we leave out of text books is as or more important than what we leave in.
Cost and Benefits: Civic activist must be mindful of the cost, funding, and economic benefits of any proposal during tough economic times. During difficult economic times, expectation must be reduced.
In the case of Fort Ward, many of the visitors are predominately white civil war enthusiast with little knowledge of the presence of African Americans in large numbers in the area of the Fort. Fort construction, types of artillery, and a “Day in Camp” have been the traditional mainstay of Fort interpretive history. Updating the interpretation of history at the forts to include the African American experience, can help increase tourism.
African American Involvement: Social justice requires African Americans be directly involved in recording, documenting and describing their experience and contribution. The African American experience is different. For too long African Americans have not been actively sought out by city officials, staffs, contractors and academics to participate in local history projects. As a result White dominated institutions have ignored important elements of their story. This has lead to half-hearted attempts to present their history, e.g., virtual tours, self-guided tours, and podcasts.
Better Utilization of Resources: Fewer resources at the local level provide an opportunity for managers to creatively use citizens and community activist to meet time critical projects. This does not infer excluding professional historians.
Restructuring the Public Meeting Process: Managers should have faith in the public participation process. The process should be open and involve ad hoc groups to assist in making recommendations. City Department staffs should break away from City “officialdom” (you are invited to a public meeting) and instead invite organized groups to plan and conduct meetings, share in making recommendation for setting priorities and using public resources.
A park and the history of people within the major period of American history is a public shared resource. The public involvement process should be revamped to constructively engage members of the community. Citizens can provide supporting rationale for staff decisions and recommendations. Decisions should not be made unilaterally or out of an abundance of arrogance.
Set clear, definable goals. It is essential activist clearly anticipate and define their goals early on. History can motivate and inspire and it is often necessary to introduce possibilities. Providing ideas to City officials, staffs, commission members allows them to begin envisioning possibilities. In the case of Fort Ward, the goal is threefold, 1) remove the maintenance yard, 2) restore and return land to the park, 4) protect known grave sites and produce an interpretive history that attracts a more diverse visitor to the park.
The Fort Ward Project is a wonderful case study of civic activism. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.
Thank you
