Front Royal Unites to host “Heritage or Hate?” teach-in as part of Confederate statue relocation campaign

Does Front Royal’s Confederate statue represent our Southern heritage or our dark history of oppression? Local historians and experts will tackle this issue and more through a panel and Q&A on October 18, 2020, to help voters weigh in on the statue’s future. Featured speakers include James M. Gillispie, Dean of the School of Humanities & Social Sciences at Lord Fairfax Community College; Samuel Porter, President of Front Royal Unites (FRU); Gene Bétit, historian and author of Collective Amnesia: American Apartheid — African Americans’ 400 Years in North America, 1619-2019; and Suetta Freeman, Warren County High School student shut out by Massive Resistance to desegregation in 1958, later returning to graduate, and former President of the Warren-Page Branch of the NAACP.

The teach-in is the latest development in FRU’s campaign, whose petition has garnered over 2,500 signatures urging Warren County’s Board of Supervisors to remove and relocate Front Royal’s Confederate monument. After being overwhelmed by concerned citizens at recent meetings, in August the Board refused to continue hearing FRU’s request on its agenda—and instead put it up for referendum, while pledging to host a public forum for debate. With no signs of such an event on the horizon and voting now in full swing, FRU scheduled its own educational panel for the public to learn about the parallels between Confederate memorials and the institution of slavery. At the October 6 Board meeting, member Laura Lee Cascada urged the Supervisors to attend, stating, “Today we need to take action and not wait around for the majority to come around on issues of justice. If we did that, women would not have the right to vote; slaves would still be enslaved.”

This year, over 100 Confederate monuments have been removed nationwide, including in Virginia localities like Charlottesville, Norfolk, Richmond, and Loudoun (where Supervisor Kristen Umstattd stated, “This statue is like a knife to the heart of so many of our African American residents, and it is there every day. We have to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of other people.”) However, Warren County joins only five other Virginia counties in offloading the issue to voters: Lunenburg, Charles City, Franklin, Halifax, and Tazewell, as the Roanoke Times elucidates in an editorial against them.

According to FRU President and veteran Samuel Porter, “Confederate symbols  on public land, in effect, endorse a movement founded on white supremacy. If our government continues to pay homage to the Confederacy, people of color can never be sure they will be treated fairly.” In speaking in favor of relocation of the monument, he has been joined by former Mayor Stan Brooks, who wrote in a recent letter to the editor, “I think it is an act of understanding, of love, of respect to remove it from its place of prominence, to understand its effect on our fellow citizens and on our own conscience; to move forward toward a slightly more just society.”

As part of the campaign, FRU supporters have also erected dozens of yard signs urging a “Yes on 3” vote around the County and will continue appealing to the Board for relocation at its October 20 (7 pm) and November 4 (9 am) meetings.

• DATE: Sunday, October 18, 2020
• TIME: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
• LOCATION: Bing Crosby Park, 50 Stadium Dr, Front Royal, VA (Pavilion 1) and live-streamed