Museum of the Confederacy to drop the Confederacy word

[Jamieva]

Talk about a PC takeover. They are killing the place.

Civil War museum to change name?
Center may drop the word 'Confederacy' after move; perception problem cited

BY JANET CAGGIANO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Feb 20, 2007

The Museum of the Confederacy will likely drop the word "Confederacy" from its name when it moves its collection to a new home.
"One of our challenges is a gap between the public's perception of who we are and the role we play, and the reality of who we are and the role we play," Waite Rawls, the museum's president and CEO, said yesterday.
"The repositioning we have done over the past 30 years is to be more of a modern education institution and less of a memorial . . . to the Confederacy."
The museum dates to Feb. 22, 1896, when The Confederate Museum opened in the former home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
The new name, Rawls said, would depend on the location of the museum. Lexington took a step closer to becoming that place last week when its City Council voted unanimously to enter into nonbinding talks with the Richmond institution.
"It would be a boom to tourism and in increasing the vitality of downtown," Lexington Mayor John Knapp Sr. said yesterday. "But we've really just begun the process."
In January, Rawls and three members of the museum's board toured a possible site in Lexington, the historic Rockbridge County courthouse complex on Main Street. The complex also includes the old jail, which dates to 1841, the First American Bank building and the "lawyer's row" building. All are vacant and would require renovation.
"To me, the Confederate flag symbolizes slavery, oppression and denying people their rights," Lexington Councilwoman Mimi Elrod said yesterday in a phone interview. "I have a problem with a museum that celebrates that being in our city. If you have a museum that looks at all aspects of the Civil War, that's very different to me."
After discussing a possible name change with Rawls, Elrod said she welcomes more talks. Lexington City Council has appointed a committee to look into the best uses for its courthouse complex.
"This may all work out very nicely," Elrod said.
Not everyone agrees.
"Moving the museum would be a bad administrative move," said Darryl Starnes, the Sons of Confederate Veterans commander of the Edmund Ruffin Camp in Mechanicsville. "Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. That's the place the Museum of the Confederacy should be."
He's even more concerned about a name change.
"I think it would dilute the integrity of the museum," he said.
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A group of about 10 historians, grant writers and preservationists don't think so. The committee studied the museum's health last year and released its findings in October. The report states that the word "Confederacy" carries "enormous, intransigent and negative intellectual baggage with many. For them, the Confederacy, and by association the Museum of the Confederacy, now symbolize racism."
The museum is seeking a new home for its Civil War collection, the world's largest, to escape the sprawling medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. About 140 miles west of downtown Richmond in Rockbridge County, Lexington could be a good fit for the museum's collection of artifacts, manuscripts and photographs. Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson are buried there, and the city is home to Washington and Lee University as well as Virginia Military Institute.
In October, Rawls announced that the museum at 12th and East Clay streets would relocate its collection but that the adjacent White House of the Confederacy would stay put.
Although museum officials may be interested in Lexington, Rawls said other sites will be considered as well. He hopes the relocation is complete by 2011, the beginning of the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.

Contact staff writer Janet Caggiano at jcaggiano@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6157.

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[Battalion]

I suggest-

"Museum of the"

~~~

What about the history books?-

"----------- States of America"

"Articles of ------------"

[ole]

Just another one of those things we'll have to live through. Nobody's gonna like it and everybody's gonna hate it. And that board's decision will be the way things are and will be, for a while. Can't say as I've seen any evidence of smarts in the current situation, but then, I can't say how I would steer things so that the museum survives and becomes self-sustaining. I can complain, but that and an episode of flatulence in a gale would have about the same effect.

Somehow, I figure honoring of the Confederacy will not die with the passing of the Museum of the Confederacy. Die it will, eventually.
Ole

[samgrant]

"The Museum of The Lost Cause" ?

[blue_zouave]

Originally Posted by samgrant

"The Museum of The Lost Cause" ?

I like it, Samgrant!

Honestly, as staunch a Unionist as I am, I see no problem whatsoever with the Museum of the Confederacy title. I'm sure it's a place of pilgrimage for many.

Zou

[Jamieva]

Side note

This all may be as a result of the possible move to Lexington, VA. Some city council moron there told their local paper that to her the word "Confederacy" was synonymous with oppression and slavery and she didn't want the museum there.

So this may all be a ploy to win approval of the move in Lexington.

[larry_cockerham]

Originally Posted by ole

Just another one of those things we'll have to live through. Nobody's gonna like it and everybody's gonna hate it. And that board's decision will be the way things are and will be, for a while. Can't say as I've seen any evidence of smarts in the current situation, but then, I can't say how I would steer things so that the museum survives and becomes self-sustaining. I can complain, but that and an episode of flatulence in a gale would have about the same effect.

Somehow, I figure honoring of the Confederacy will not die with the passing of the Museum of the Confederacy. Die it will, eventually.
Ole

I assume you referred to the museum and not the memory of the Confederacy as it relates to mortality? Looks like a name change to Civil War Museum might be in order. The more critical aspect of this, which you address rather well, is a good kick in management pants to set up a business plan.

[FSPowers]

Museum of the South, perhaps?

[Rad2duhbone53]

Political Correctness has hit a new low in stupidity.

[larry_cockerham]

Political correctness can be a pain in the lower regions, but may be necessary for the common good and equality in our country. Just pray it doesn't last too long.