The Historical Background for [No] Common Ground

Next month, LVA’s Common Ground Virginia History Book Group meets virtually to discuss the September Weinstein Author Series title, No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice by Karen L. Cox. This 2021 book traces the history of Confederate monuments and their origins in the white supremacist ideology of the “Lost Cause.” No Common Ground documents how monument building—and anti-monument sentiment—reflect the state of race relations in the post-Civil War South.

Following Karen L. Cox’s talk on September 14, the Common Ground book group meets virtually on Tuesday, September 21 from 6 PM to 7:30 PM. This event is free, and registration is required. In preparation for our discussion, we’ve highlighted some Library of Virginia’s items related to the history of Confederate monuments, Civil War commemoration, and anti-monument dissent in the American South.

• “Complicated History: The Memorial To Robert E. Lee In Richmond”, The UncommonWealth
• “The 1907 Monuments In The Press”, The UncommonWealth
• A Conversation About Monuments, Civic Conversations

• c1870s-1890s -Virginia. Treasurer’s Office; Lee Monument Association Records
• 1904 – “An Act To Permit the Circuit Court…To Authorize and Permit the Erection of a Confederate Monument..”
• 2018 – Monument Avenue Commission Report Prepared by the Mayor and City Council of Virginia
• 2020 – “An Act to amend and reenact §§ 15.2-1812, 15.2-1812.1, and 18.2-137 of the Code of Virginia and to repeal Chapter 119 of the Acts of Assembly of 1890, relating to war memorials for veterans.”

• Library of Virginia Digital Collections
  By searching the Library catalog for the subject “Monuments–Virginia” and selecting only digital images, you can browse photographs across many different dates and collections.

• Virginia Chronicle
  Many dedication ceremonies were covered in the Richmond Times-Dispatch or local papers, many times a complete or partial transcript of the speeches given were included.

• On Monument Ave
  An online resource focused on Richmond’s Monument Avenue including two digital exhibits, The Birth of Monument Avenue and The Life of Monument Avenue, collaborations between the Library of Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society, The Valentine, and the American Civil War Museum.

• Commemorative Cultures, University of St. Andrews
• List of Confederate Monuments and Memorials in Virginia, Wikipedia

• Bellamy, Wes. Monumental: It Was Never About a Statue. Newport News, VA: BlackGold Publishing, 2019.
• Blight, David W. Race and Reunion : the Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001.
• Cox, Karen L. Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.
• Hartley, Roger C. Monumental Harm: Reckoning with Jim Crow Era Confederate Monuments. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2021.
• Janney, Caroline E. Burying the Dead but Not the Past: Ladies’ Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
• Landrieu, Mitch. In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History. New York, NY: Viking, 2018.
• Mills, Cynthia, and Pamela H. Simpson, eds. Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003.