Judge: City can remove 176-year-old slave auction block

[groundloop]

Source: ABC News

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- A judge has ruled that officials in a Virginia city have the authority to approve the removal of a 176-year-old slave auction block from a street corner.

Circuit Court Judge Sarah Deneke’s ruling on Friday upheld the Fredericksburg City Council’s vote in favor of relocating the weathered stone to a local museum, The Free Lance-Star reported.

A kiosk with information about the auction block will replace it, the newspaper said. It wasn’t immediately clear when city officials plan to move the auction block to the Fredericksburg Area Museum

Two businesses near the auction block, a restaurant owner and commercial building owner, sued to block the removal of the slave auction block. They said the block is listed as a landmark in a historic district and a point of interest on a tourist map. They argued they will lose business from tourist traffic if the auction block is removed.



Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-city-remove-176-year-slave-auction-block-69008152?cid=clicksource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed

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So....... two businesses view making money more important that removing that horrific reminder of slavery which is still painful to many people. Their argument that it's a piece of history is hollow, it can better serve the purpose of reminding us of our horrible past in a museum (or else throw a party where the main attraction will be seeing the auction block blown to bits).

[Chipper Chat]

1. Dachau and Auschwitz were preserved by the Germans.

And Poles. Just sayin'

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Auschwitz is in Poland.

And currently that country is trying very hard to deny it had anything at all to do with the Holocaust.

Which is frightening. There were some 3 million Jews in Poland in 1939. Essentially all of them were sent to the camps. After the war ended, around perhaps 100,000 returned to Poland. By 1980 there were perhaps 5,000 Jews in Poland. Today that number is down to around 3,000.

My now ex husband, whose family all came from that part of Europe, mostly prior to WWI, in this country is never taken for being Jewish. Even by other Jews who don't already know him. We went to Eastern Europe on our honeymoon in 1980. When we were in Cracow, we'd be walking around and suddenly out of nowhere, someone obviously Jewish would approach my husband and start speaking to him in English. It was completely bizarre. He'd be taken aback, not sure how to respond, and they'd invariably say, "You're Jewish, aren't you?" To them it was obvious.

Me? I, the granddaughter of Irish immigrants to the U.S., was completely invisible to them.

[DownriverDem]

34. After Lincoln

President Andrew Johnson was a southerner who stayed loyal to the Union. However he let the south get away without many consequences at the end of the Civil War. Reminders of slavery and the glorification of the south's participation in the Civil War should never have happened. Many of the monuments put up were paid for by the Daughters of the Confederacy during the Jim Crow era. Since many folks down there still glorify their relatives' participation in the Civil War, I could never live there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. The actual slave block is best in a museum.

There should be signage there saying that the block was there for however long, and refer people to the museum.

I am white, and my grandparents came to this country several decades after the end of slavery. I'm saying that simply to make it clear that I know I cannot begin to imagine what it feels like for someone whose ancestor did stand on that slave block, or any other such block. Nor do I have any sort of personal connection to slavery from the white side.

But I do feel strongly that history needs to be preserved. As an American I do live in a country that had slavery. In that way it's part of my history. We don't want to be glossing over the truly terrible things that happened.

[RestoreAmerica2020]

3. Replace it with bronze plaque of Emancipation Proclamation

A condensed historical version can read:

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

[Apr 17, 2019
https://www.archives.gov › exhibits
The Emancipation Proclamation | National Archives
Date: January 1, 1863[

[Calista241]

33. The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order that could be overturned at any time

By any President. If you’re going to immortalize something in a plaque, I’d suggest the 13th Amendment, which outright banned slavery.

[bitterross]

5. FFS, They're moving it around the corner! 2 MIN away.

For cripes sake. I just googled the address for where the thing is now and where they want to move it. It's a 2 min walk from the old location to the new one at a museum. If your restaurant doesn't have a good enough reputation for people to walk two minutes from the museum then that's your own fault. Every mapping app and yelp will show your establishment with the "restaurants near me" option.

If it was going to be moved across town I could see a possible claim about it reducing traffic. Around the corner to a museum that probably is a more major draw in the first place doesn't convince me of any issue.

[christx30]

13. Maybe the restaurants can sponsor the exhibit.

Maybe have a sign advertising the place and their chicken tenders,if it’s such a big deal to them.
Everyone wins. Except the chickens.

[Merlot]

20. Just how many hoards of tourists come to see a slave block and

in doing so work up a hearty appetite for lunch?

[rickyhall]

22. Just Trumpers

[BlueWI]

29. Hilarious!

Well-put.

[ret5hd]

6. Huh, go figure...None of the typical "We is only celebrating our history and heritage!!!" protests?

Just a couple of commercial enterprises that want to keep the money spigot flowing.

[Drahthaardogs]

7. It is history that is awful and if displayed, should be displayed f

In a museum, but even that is questionable. It probably suffices to let it be known it was done.

The Germans didnt save the showers or the trains. There are memorials quietly around Berlin, but the museum has little on the holocaust

[Brother Buzz]

10. Justice Alan Page might disagree

"It puts in context what we're seeing today. We have to confront it. We have to have conversations about it." - Ex NFL player and retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. "Germans didn't save the showers or trains"?

I seem to remember that Dachau was fairly well preserved, documented, displayed. Nobody was hiding the ovens.

I haven't been there in half a century, hope it wasn't torn down to build a shopping mall.

[Lonestarblue]

16. I think it should be in a museum.

One of the most moving, actually horrifying, experiences I’ve had was visiting the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The room with dozens of nooses hanging from the ceiling and photos of gruesome scenes lining the walls just undid me. It was truly an education in man’s inhumanity and capability for true evil that left me both angry and bereft for the millions who suffered those torments. Likewise, the Holocaust Museum in Washington left me emotionally devastated and appalled that human beings could allow such atrocities.

We did not live when slavery was practiced here, but we and future generations need to learn about and remember its devastation on the human spirit and its enormous stain on our national history. We have the same evil that promoted slavery sitting in the White House today. We must remember that evil and predation on the powerless never disappear.

[3Hotdogs]

8. I think it deserves to be where it is now.

Right in the open. I am Caucasian. My ancestors came to the U.S. in the late 19th. century. I get feelings of sadness thinking of the heartache that came from that stone. It is an instrument of teaching.

[DeminPennswoods]

21. Same background and agree with you

I like museums, but some things just need to be left where they are for Americans to contemplate.

A good article from The New Yorker on preserving AfAm history: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-fight-to-preserve-african-american-history

[BlueWI]

30. It depends - i think there's nuances and choices available to us.

There are many small monuments to human slavery, statuary of Confederate soldiers, etc. Does every one of them need to stay in place? There's only so much space, and there are other purposes for public architecture.

Plenty of our history isn't commemorated at all - indigenous history and women's history, for example. How about more commemoration of these historical events as a proportion of what we say about the past?

I'd advocate for more individual decisions about items like this that weigh multiple factors.

[DeminPennswoods]

31. IMHO, this is small, but powerful, reminder

of a sad part of our history. The site currently has a National Historic Landmark designation, too.

On the walk to the our pro football field, we walk through a park. There are two memorials we always walk by. One is a memorial to local sailors killed when the USS Maine was destroyed and the other is the remainder of a huge civil war memorial that was built during the Depression and moved to the park to make room for road construction at its former location. Even though we have been past them many times, I never fail to take note of them and think about the history they memorialize.

I personally like seeing these historial markers and stopping to read them when out and about. They kind of bring the past to life for me.

[YOHABLO]

9. I was hoping someone would post a photo of it at it's location. Couldn't find a photo

[Brother Buzz]

11. Here's one:

[MissMillie]

18. Too bad the dog didn't make use of it (n/t)

.

[mahina]

23. Whoa that is chilling

Last edited Sun Feb 16, 2020, 03:51 PM - Edit history (1)

In place has more power but the community should decide and hear the black people there especially.

[Brother Buzz]

25. I don't disagree. I'm of two minds on this

As I posted upthread

"It puts in context what we're seeing today. We have to confront it. We have to have conversations about it." - Ex NFL player and retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page

[mahina]

27. Read you loud and clear.

[appalachiablue]

12. Google images for more

- Slave auction block, Fredericksburg, Va.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Auction_Block,_Fredericksburg

[Cryptoad]

14. one of my Native American *ggrandmothers of the Cheraw Nation ......

was sold on a slave block near in or around Virginia City around 1675.

[mahina]

24. Wow.

[marble falls]

17. I'd rather see an slave auction block preserved where it is than a confederate memorial ...

that wasn't put up till after the 1880's still standing or in a museum.

Leave it stand where it is. If it's making people uncomfortable - GOOD!

[Farmer-Rick]

19. I think people need to be reminded of the horror of slavery especially in the South

So many of the bigots and racist of the South don't understand the pure horror their ancestors visited on people. They remember Gone With the Wind but forget the sadistic sexual torture their relatives meted out.

We should put realistic statues at every building site that was built by slave labor. We should show the rag encased barely fed, bloodied and beaten slaves that roam the world from 1619 to 1863.

And we should remind people how their ancestors allowed these innocent souls to be abused and tortured all for a little more money for an already filthy rich man. There was a slave handler who specialised in sexual torture of male slaves, to break them. To think that would be an approved profession, that people allowed and encouraged it. Much like Columbus who liked the 13 year old girls he took from the native tribes to have sex with because the fought so inefectually.

This wasn't Gone With the Wind. It was filthy rich men's own creation of hell. It's a hell the filthy rich are always trying to create for the rest of us. We need to remember how awful it really was.

[jgmiller]

26. I understand how it being there can upset people however

I think it's more powerful where it is. Maybe it's just me but I love history and seeing things in their historical place is more moving than seeing it behind glass in a museum. I've never been there but I can imagine if I were and I saw it how easy it would be to imagine the horrific scene taking place there 200 years ago. A kiosk will never be able to convey that and have far less impact. I do question why there isn't a fence or something around it to protect people from just sitting on it or something, that seems a far bigger disgrace than it existing there.

[TheFourthMind]

28. "No more auction block" n/t

[alphafemale]

32. It looked like it was not in a sacred space.

It looked like a stumble over on a corner.

A plaque set in the pavement would also be moving.

[Lithos]

35. It should be put into a museum

I am afraid in this day and age, it would be vandalized. Obviously, it should either have a "duplicate" (replica) or very good informational kiosk, or both. But the actual one should be stored off so that the history can properly transmitted to the next generations.

We should never forget genocide or slavery, nor allow it to be forgotten.

L-