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Local NAACP members not unreceptive to Confederate museum in the area Date published: 3/9/2008
BY DAN TELVOCK The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond may have found more support for a facility in Spotsylvania County to house artifacts with local ties. Spotsylvania's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hasn't endorsed the museum, but some members said last week they would support the plan if it tells the "whole story." "We are going to tell the full American story," said Museum of the Confederacy President Waite Rawls. In September, Rawls announced his vision of a system of four museums in Virginia, including one at or near the Chancellorsville battlefield. The museum in Richmond is dwarfed by the adjacent Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. Attendance is down nearly 50 percent. The White House of the Confederacy and the museum's administration headquarters, research center and library would remain in Richmond. The other two proposed sites are Appomattox Court House National Park and Fort Monroe in Hampton. Rawls has met with local Rotary Club members, Confederacy museum members in the region and the Chamber of Commerce. On Thursday, he met with the NAACP at Mount Hope Baptist Church. About 50 people attended, along with five Spotsylvania supervisors. "What we are looking for is balance," said NAACP member Col. Horace McCaskill. "We're not adverse to learning about the Confederacy side, but we want the whole story to be told, and we need to understand that." The "whole story" means "all cultures involved in the Civil War," including the roles of free and enslaved blacks and Americans Indian, he said. Rawls said the Museum of the Confederacy has unique artifacts that "will bring the human face to what happened on those [battle] fields." His plans call for 8,000-square-foot buildings with about 5,000 square feet for exhibits. Each site would cost an estimated $5 million. He said he wants 1,000 square feet for a community room in each facility. "One of the things I would love to have in the Museum of the Confederacy here is an NAACP meeting. It would send a signal to all Americans of what we are all about," he said.
Read more stories about Spotsylvania Date published: 3/9/2008
When my kids were in the Spotsylvania middle-school system (about 10 years ago), their History books taught that blacks during slavery were in fact indentured servants. I hope those books have been replaced with more truthful books by now.
I seriously doubt that a full and complete story will be told here in VA. No money in it.
Shame on Rawls for even considering this! The NAACP ( Nat'l Assoc of always complaining people ) are once again at it with a renewed effort to suppress and/or erradicate the symbols of our National Heritage. The SCV has successfully met challenges to Southern heritage previously many times. One that comes to mind is the flag at the SC statehouse - now in a more prominent location! The NAACP needs help and legitimacy, as membership is declining. SC tourism is doing very well. To hell with Rawls & NAACP.
it's about time we see something from the Confederacy side that the local NAACP will actually endorse. For far too long other NAACP groups have denounced the Confederacy as being racist for trying to show the truth of the Civil War. Many blacks fought for the South and were free when they took up arms to fight for the southern side yet the war was somehow about slavery, or so says many NAACP members. Good deal that historical facts won't be turned away by Political Correctness this time.
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