Virginia city removes 176-year-old slave auction block

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — A 176-year-old slave auction block has been removed from a Virginia city’s downtown.

The 800-pound (363-kilogram) stone was pulled from the ground at a Fredericksburg street corner early Friday after the removal was delayed for months by lawsuits and the coronavirus pandemic, The Free Lance-Star reported.

The weathered stone was sprayed with graffiti twice and chants of “move the block” erupted this week during local demonstrations over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, city officials said in a statement announcing the removal.

The protests were part of a nationwide movement that was sparked by the death of Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck as he pleaded for air.

Read more: https://apnews.com/1e15c4a451b65451362752da28e9240d

[AllyCat]

1. Why on earth was that even still THERE????

What kind of message does that send to the citizens? Never mind...I know. Ugh. Glad to hear it is gone.

[demosincebirth]

2. Reminder of our ugly past?

[AllyCat]

3. We have plenty of reminders. We don't need the physical ones

[demosincebirth]

9. Yes we do. We always have to be reminded because we have such short memories.

[SoCalNative]

11. Then put it

in a museum

[demosincebirth]

14. You want people to see it not hidden away I some dark corner in a museum

[AllyCat]

17. I would want to hear the black voices here about what they think of it

Since I am white, I don't know...but if I was black, seeing that every day in my community would be distressing. I think. I want to know how they feel about it being there and that should guide our community action.

[freepotter]

28. Agree,

and I think that "Black Lives Matter" should be engraved on all of its sides.

[jaxexpat]

22. Modern Germans disagree.

[Blue_Tires]

25. Auschwitz is preserved just like it was, fwiw...

[still_one]

24. I agree with you. It is so we will never forget, and those that believe that people won't try

to rewrite history our naive at best.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Sorry, I think the block should have been kept in place.

I realize that many people would disagree, but I believe that cultures advance by keeping the artifacts of a shameful past in plain site to remind them of earlier sins, instead of consigning them to some sugar-coated oblivion.

[demosincebirth]

5. I agree

[TreadSoftly]

10. Are you saying object ok statues not ok?

i.e. no people statues (because they might be worshiped) but objects are important reminders?

Just wanting to know where you draw the distinction.

[demosincebirth]

12. Statues glorify, objects don't.

[Coleman]

13. I agree as well

Removing it, is just hiding the past. Every student in that city should be required to visit the stone, stand there silently and look at it. And think about what happened there. There should be an auctioneer blasting out from a PA, day and night, with a cracking whip in the background, cries of pain ...

[obamanut2012]

18. lolz

Have you watched the news the past week? Because the fucking past history of slavery and Jim Crow isn't being hidden.

JFC some of you astound me.

Most people don't want to continually see the place where their relatives were treated like livestock marked as a "monument." Put it in a fucking museum, or better yet, crush it into powder and fertilize the earth with its remains.

[DeminPennswoods]

31. Willing to bet

most people walk right by it with hardly a notice, if that.

[packman]

6. Had not place in a city - move it to a museum

and display it there as cultural insensitivity, oppression, man's inhumanity to man and (hopefully) past injustices .

[Archetypist]

7. it belongs in a museum

not a public square

[forgotmylogin]

15. That's where it's going.

https://apnews.com/1e15c4a451b65451362752da28e9240d

In 2019, the City Council voted in favor of its removal and relocation to the Fredericksburg Area Museum, and a judge upheld that decision in February after two businesses near the auction block sued to stop the relocation.

The process was held up after one of the businesses, a commercial building owner, asked the Virginia Supreme Court to bar the removal while her decision was being appealed, the newspaper said.

The museum now plans to display the knee-high stone in an exhibit chronicling the “movement from slavery to accomplishments by the local African American community,” the Free Lance-Star said. The staff also plans to feature the recent protests in the exhibit, according to the museum’s president and CEO.

[obamanut2012]

16. THat is what museums are for

Not for black citizens of Fredericksburg, which is also very, very close to several huge Civil War battlefields, to see every day. I wouldn't want to walk past a monument marking where my relatives were shown naked, prodded like livestock, had their genitals touched and examined, etc. If you do, then whatever, but many people don't want to see it.

[stillcool]

21. The white glory days of slavery

must be honored every day. A couple of hundred years of seeing these relics of the past was not enough to 'shame' anyone, because those relics do not represent earlier sins. They represent the good old days. Why else would they have stood for so long? The reminder that this monument evokes from the descendent of a slave, auctioned on one of these blocks, must be very different....definitely a reminder of earlier sins.

[Merlot]

23. Some people look at it without shame.

The city can put a true memorial and sign explaining what happened at that spot. Keeping the actual block there is a disgrace.

[eppur_se_muova]

26. I agree very strongly. You can't view the relics of slavery and stay in quiet denial.

When our history is overly sanitized, we miss some of the most important lessons.

There are many former plantations which survive as parks or museums; the slave quarters have been allowed to decay to nothing. The results are aesthetically pleasing, and dangerously deceptive.

The National Park Service has been busy trying to excavate and restore slave quarters and graveyards at the monumentified homes of the Founding Fathers. It is a jarring juxtaposition to view these fine homes, knowing the accomplishments of the men who lived there, and realize that they spent most of their lives a few yards from the enslaved workers who built their wealth and comfort, utterly contradicting the fine sentiments so many of them expressed. If these men meant the words they wrote and spoke, these things should not be here; but they are here, and were present for their whole adult lives. It is impossible to miss the contradiction, or deny it, and that is why these things should be preserved. Their presence speaks so much more forcefully than any words can do.

Perhaps those who find these sites discomfiting should do as the survivors of the Holocaust do, and simply say, "never forget". Hiding the evidence is the beginning of forgetting.

[Blue_playwright]

29. I agree.

That has to have a huge impact on everyone who sees it. But then I’m white so it’s my shame not pain that it represents.

[DeminPennswoods]

30. Agree

Seeing and touching such an object gives one pause and a chance for reflection.

[bbernardini]

8. But...but...MUH HERITAGE!!! nt

[allnews]

19. Museum

Definitely should be in museum as exhibit of the past. Not on the street in people’s faces!

[iluvtennis]

20. And they wonder why people are in the streets during a pandemic protesting. ugh

[3Hotdogs]

27. I am white. I saw one of those stones.

I spent time reflecting about the lives and families destroyed on that block.

I think it should have stayed.

[riversedge]

32. Way past time. But good for them.