Richmond Is a Hard Road to Travel

From NC to VA; finding the light

I love my home state, and I love almost everything about it. It is very conflicting to be a North Carolinian when looking at the terrible ways in which we have treated minority populations in the past. From colonization to the Wilmington Massacre, North Carolina’s past is troubled.

It is also a state of incredible brilliance, resilience, and spite, from one of the first black medical schools to open in Raleigh to the creation of UNC to the Lowery Gang. North Carolina is home. I bleed Carolina Blue. Please give me the fights over BBQ, but we can all agree that either is better than everyone else’s. From Duke vs. UNC basketball to one of the largest state fairs in the nation, I am proud to be born in NC.

My husband and I decided we needed a restart. After battling years of depression (thanks to the pandemic) and an incredible amount of therapy and self-work, we agreed that Winston-Salem didn’t fit any longer. We have met fantastic people, academically and personally, but in my heart, I am a Raleigh girl.

From my little home in downtown Cary, my house was across the street from the plastic plant. To the smell of sweat, dirt, and grass of those Friday night games, jumping in my uniform and screaming, “Go Dawgs!” A proud SRHS emblazoned across my chest (yes, you can never beat the pride of a bulldog) to my endless days spent in Alumni Hall, cleaning, tagging, and organizing pottery sherds in that slightly damp basement in Chapel Hill. While with my Aunt Rose at the Attorney General’s office in downtown Raleigh, I carried boxes of pamphlets, flyers, and paperwork down to her car as she advocated for North Carolina Victims. The Triangle is about the best place in the world to grow up. Beaches are a couple of hours away, and the mountains are a few hours away. Museums, arts, music, comedy shows, and the Wake County Motor Speedway. It is tough to beat.

Raleigh Girl

Sadly, Raleigh is not in the position for my husband to grow his career. My husband is a brilliant researcher, but finding the right academic fit is difficult. We opened the search to outside North Carolina, but I had a couple of ground rules: I wanted to stay in the South or near Appalachia. (Asheville, why don’t you have a way to support more medical academic research? THAT WOULD BE THE DREAM. Mountains, NC, and so much culture and activities. If it couldn’t be the Triangle, Asheville would be magic.)

I would have loved Tennessee: Knoxville, Nashville, or Chattanooga. Twenty years ago, pack your bags. We are going to be volunteers, baby! Today, those abortion laws are something else. No exemption in case of rape or incest? Nope!

South Carolina? Did I mention that I am from NC? South Carolina is NOT our sister state; TN is our sister, and as I said, she is currently working through some stuff. Deep South? I almost have conniptions from walking around NC with its Lost Cause iconography. Do you think Mississippi or Louisiana will be any better? My poor middle fingers would be stuck permanently out. I would have to be treated for carpal tunnel!

Atlanta, Durham, Charlottesville, Pennsylvania, or Kentucky? We considered all of them, but none of them worked for both of us. That was until VCU invited my husband to give a talk at their hospital. He showed me videos of the historical work done there, and we had to go and check it out.

I know how weird it is for me to be excited about Richmond, given how much I hate the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It inspires me to tell you how much work Richmond has done in telling the truth about their history. From the removal of the confederate monuments of Monument Blvd, the Valentine Museum’s work, looking back honestly on the impact that the Lost Cause and White Supremacy have had on all of Richmond and Virginia. It was inspiring! That isn’t to say there aren’t any pro-confederacy groups there, but more than not, I saw historians, archaeologists, and museums showing their past sins for everyone to see. They were using history to heal and help move their community forward. Where do I sign up?

**The video below is from the Valintine Museum of Richmond. This is one of the Confederate Statues that was pulled down during protests in Richmond. Instead of hiding it, Richmond placed the statue in a historical context and documented the removal of the statue by the people. They also allowed Virginians to air their feelings about the past and the statue using post-it notes. I proudly wrote about my East Tennesseans and how I loved seeing the narrative corrected. (May 2024).

There also is a weird connection for me to Richmond. My ancestor Calvin Hance was captured during a battle and was taken as a POW to Richmond. A Southern Unionist in chains taken to the Capital of the Confederacy, can you imagine what that must have been like? Bad enough to be jailed in your home state by your next-door neighbors but taken to the heart of your enemy? I guess I will have to find out!

While I hate leaving my beautiful home state, I am beyond excited to learn and document all the wonderful ways Richmond is actively dismantling the Lost Cause. Plus, DC is just a three-hour ride away, meaning I will have to use all self-control not to head to DC on a whim to shout at politicians on any given day. Lewis Black, my fellow Carolina Alumni, discussed growing up near DC and how he would get pissed off. He would go down to the capital and start swearing at the government. I love that man; he is the only person I could think of who could do anger justice in the Inside Out Movies.

I want to use history and archaeology to correct the narrative and include all those long-silenced voices from the past. I want to see how those in Richmond are using the narratives of those enslaved people and their descendants who had to suffer through Jim Crow. I want to see how organized institutions admit to their past sins and try to do a better job in their honest retelling of history. I want to learn this to bring those tools, that eye, to North Carolina and Appalachia. I want to be on the front lines of public history and archaeology and see how honest discourse might allow us all to heal. I want to be a country that sees value in all its citizens, past, present, and future. In this darkness of our country, I want so desperately to find the light and protect it.

No matter how many books they remove, our stories, tales, and oral histories can never be taken away. The truth can be on our lips and hearts, no matter how many statues they refuse to remove or place in their false ideology. It is up to us to do the work, whether they work with or against us. We must continue educating each other because they want to take everything we should be proud of and sell us their lies or versions of history.