Fort Ward’s Lost Graves: Roots of Unrest
CIty Departments Revert to Old Ways
City of Alexandria department directors have typically done what they want to do with Fort Ward Historic Park for the last fifty years. Civil servants often believe that they know best and they are paid to make decisions for the areas and services they provide to Alexandria residents. For example, over the years the Recreation Department removed grave stones and markers, filled burial areas, destroyed public records and made decisions within the park without city and Commonwealth permits or public notice and input. Many of these actions had a direct and adverse impact on historic, cultural and archaeological resources, adjacent homeowners, and the descendants of those families that lived on what is now parkland before the city’s decision to make private lands public.
Over a longer period city officials, as well as department heads, have taken, or are proposing to take, a series of actions which targeted African American communities at Fort Ward, in the Chinquapin/ Seminary area and, more recently in the Woods Lane community. Armed with “the facts” and hiding behind the notion of the greater public good, city elected officials and department heads targeted neighborhoods for schools and athletic fields forcing people to give-up homes they had paid-off so that they had to purchase new ones at a higher price. Other proposals calling for highway by-passes and athletic field lights within or adjacent to remaining homes creates continued uncertainty and further erodes what little trust the residents in these areas have for city leaders.
After years of simmering problems at Fort Ward Historic Park bubbled-over when city officials, without permits, public notice or public hearings, gave their approval to place garbage dumpsters and city maintenance vehicles on top of African American burial areas and next to the Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery and the homes of Marlboro Estates. As city leaders turned a deaf-ear toward their residents concerns the Oakland Church leaders and those from Marlboro Estates formed a loosely-knit coalition to bring more attention to the park’s problems, seek more civic engagement in city decision-making, and prepare a management plan for the park and the Fort Ward Museum.
Media stories and public input at city sponsored meetings eventually managed to turn the heads of City Council members and they took action to create a Fort Ward Park and Museum Ad-hoc Stakeholder Advisory Group to make recommendations. The group met for nearly two years, produced a report and recommended that it be reappointed to work with the city to prepare a management plan. City Council responded favorably and reappointed an improved version of the group and provided funds to find graves, deal with water-runoff problems and prepare a draft management plan for their review and possible approval.
For over five years the advisory group worked with city department heads and their staff, other city commissions and advisory groups, local historians, interested citizens, neighborhood and church leaders and consultants. A major part of the discussions and planning work was aimed integrating decision-making between city department, between the city and stakeholders and between the city and the surrounding and larger community. Considerable progress has been made as everyone involved in the process has had a chance to share their views as well as hear the views of others. Although not directly addressed an undercurrent existed in most meetings that reflected race relations and broadening the message at the park to include civil rights with the story of the Civil War.
The latest planning effort took longer than most hoped that it would and the process of meetings, led at first by advisory groups members and later by city officials and their consultants, frustrated many government and private sector leaders. Throughout the hundreds of meetings that went on over the course of the Fort Ward effort many people outside government felt that department heads were resistant to sharing decision-making with community interests. Certain promises, made publicly by city department heads to work with the community and the descendant families of the Fort Ward African American community, eventually were pulled-back as the process slowly moved toward completion.
During the last meeting of the advisory group, on August 13, 2014, three members expressed their lack of trust in the City of Alexandria. “ The draft plan doesn’t include any guarantees that graves won’t be destroyed. I have had a problem with the process that has been going on. We’ve been told one thing and something else has been done. We don’t trust the city to consult with descendant families before they take action. There have been too many instances when things were done without consulting with us. We need to be sure that the work [to find family graves] has been done.”, said Adrienne Terrell Washington, advisory group member and President of the Fort Ward and Seminary African American Descendants Society, Inc.
In response to Adrienne’s comments, which weren’t new to the advisory group’s discussions, Sharon Annear, the group’s representative from the Seminary Hill Association, Inc. suggested that an administrative process be developed to to clarify public notice and consultations with the descendants. She suggested that Ms. Terrell Washington and Ms. Laura Durham, the advisory group’s liaison from the Department of Recreation, develop the draft procedure. Ms. Durham suggested that “ a draft document, a best practice of how we can work together, be developed and made part of a memo of understanding”. The document would be attached to the memorandum. Elisabeth Lardner, a consultant to the Recreation Department, suggested that this protocol would be part of the Memo of Understanding between city agencies with responsibilities at Fort Ward and would be made an appendix to the draft management plan.
Following some other discussions at the meeting a motion was made to approve the draft management plan, with the consultation protocol as well as other parts of the document, and forwarded on to City Council for review and possible approval. For all practical purposes the Fort Ward Advisory Group’s work was done and it ceased to exist with the adjournment of the meeting.
The final advisory group meeting was followed by a public meeting with three other city advisory commissions on September 10, 2014. Leaders from the Fort Ward advisory group met with those from the Park and Recreation Commission, Environmental Commission and the Historic Alexandria Resources Commission to go over the approved draft plan. Group, commission and city department members discussed the draft plan’s Drainage and History Reports. J. Lance Mallamo, Director of Historic Alexandria stressed that the Drainage Plan and History Report were not required to be in the management plan and there was no mandate to include them. Striking down the idea of integration Mr. Mallamo said, “These [reports] really aren’t relevant to the plan.
Chuck Ziegler, the last of three different members to serve as chair of the Fort Ward Advisory Group quickly countered, “We voted [to approve] the management plan with the History and Drainage Reports.
On October 6, 2014 in response to the Office of HIstoric Alexandria’s implementation of the Drainage Plan within the Old Oakland Baptist Church Graveyard, I contacted the Fort Ward Advisory Group liaison, Laura Durham and asked her if she and Ms. Terrell-Washington had developed the consultation protocol and whether the plan had been approved by City Council. Without a reply from the city, on November 12, 2014 I made a request to the City through the Freedom of Information Act. Yesterday I received a draft document, for a fee of $26.00, dated August 2014, entitled Fort Ward Park and Museum Area Interdepartmental Memorandum of Understanding Guidelines for Ground Disturbance, including Process and Procedures to Protect Cultural Resources. No information was provided on how this document was prepared, although Ms. Durham did not reply to my request for information and Ms. Terrell-Washington indicated she had no knowledge of the guidelines. In addition, no information was provided on the status of the approval of the plan, although city staff and managers, as well as Council members, informally indicate that the draft plan’s proposal for an earth mound/ drainage berm on the Old Oakland Church Graveyard is now underway. No one working on the earth mound/ berm says “If it goes in”, they say “When it goes in”.
The Fort Ward Park and Museum Draft Management Plan is voluminous and reflects considerable effort on the part of the members of the advisory group, consultants and the public. Unfortunately actions speak louder than written words and recent efforts by the city to return to ham-fisted, paternal decisions under the cover of darkness dilutes whatever trust was built during the multi-year advisory group effort. As in the past, it appears that city leaders still believe they know best and that they have authority to make independent decisions in Fort Ward Historic Park. Despite thousands of hours of discussion they continue to resist sharing decision-making with the public they serve no matter what the cost to the city in terms of time and money. Surprisingly they forget recent Fort Ward history which reveals that community interests saved the land from development and helped to support the creation of a park. It seems that a park that tells the story of the Civil War and African Americans journey to civil rights requires an approach that is committed to government leaders and citizens working together to find ways to agree, as well as address moral and legal issues. The best ideas for Fort Ward Park and Museum aren’t god ideas until everyone thinks they are. Like any civil war, this is going to take awhile.
J. Glenn Eugster,
Fort Ward Observer
November 11, 2014
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