Replacement In Richmond

[Douglas Mercer]

Douglas Mercer
April 20 2022

Douglas Southall Freeman was one of those Southern Establishment types that is so familiar to us. That this was a White man's country he considered an unexceptionable idea but he was considered a moderate on race relations; he won a Pulitzers, edited a newspaper for 34 years, did radio broadcasts, was befriended by Presidents and Generals. He lived a fruitful life in his native state of Virginia and his home is in the historical register.

A job well done, right? The warm glow of grateful memory surrounds him?

No, now he is proscribed. Now he's on a Most Wanted list or a Least Wanted List really.

"Pulitzer Prize Winning Historian, Douglas Southall Freeman was an advocate of eugenics and was a great defender of the ban on interracial marriage, his name is now being removed from buildings at a University in the heart of the Old Confederacy."

There is replacement going on in Richmond, in the heart of Dixie.

"As the report notes, however, his prominent and well-publicized views rested on the foundation of racist, white supremacist beliefs that led him to glorify the Confederacy, promote segregation and disenfranchisement, and support eugenics."

As said he was a moderate on race relations. This of course was all just run of the mill stuff once upon a time. When Freeman died (1954) there were dark clouds on the distant horizon but the notion that so revered and well liked a figure as he would one day be removed would have beggared belief. It would have been seen as alien as a hundred thousand Mexicans a month banging on our border.

But there it is: as far as official memory goes Douglas Southall Freeman is no more.

***

Freeman was born in Lynchburg, Virginia and his family had an indelible tie to the Confederacy--his father fought for four years in Lee's army. At his childhood home he lived near the Confederate legend Jubal Early, giving him a sense of the living heritage to which he was the heir and which he would do so much to allow to continue to live. Freeman's family would move the to the city with which he will forever be associated (Richmond) at a fortuitous time. 1892 was near the zenith of the commemoration movement when Virginians began to take seriously their charge to hand down their living memories to all future generations. The result of this would be the living monuments of Monument Avenue.

The result of this would be that given enough time and enough cowardice Douglas Southall Freeman would himself posthumously experience decommemmoration.

Freeman got a PhD in History from John Hopkins but rather than entering the academy he became a gentleman scholar, working for a living as newspaper editor and writing history in his spare time. Right off the bat he hit it big when he happened on to a at that time unknown collection of wartime letters between Lee and Davis. His work, the fruit of four years labor, and called Lee's Dispatches, was published in 1915 and permanently established Freeman as a front rank American Historian.

Never heard of him? That's because only thinks rank and gross possess our country now.

Freeman then embarked on a years long research that would result in his masterpiece, a biography of Robert E. Lee. In this work he pioneered the technique of "for of war" narration, only giving the reader the information that Lee himself had during battles, thus highlighting the existential nature of war. For this book Freeman was given the Pulitzer when, apparently, a Pulitzer t still meant something. He also thus founded the Virginia School of Civil War scholarship, a school which was subsequently derided as the "history of the lost cause."

Already he had achieved enough for any man; he was by then himself one of the fathers of Virginia and there must have seemed to be nothing but smooth sailing ahead. He could rightly stroll down Monument Avenue like he owned the place.

"In 2021, some students and faculty at the University of Richmond, where Freeman served as Rector for seven years, criticized the University board of trustees for refusing to remove Freeman's name from a campus building, although he had supported racial segregation, opposed interracial marriage and promoted racist concepts underlying the eugenics movement."

The “greatest inheritance,” Freeman once said, was “clean blood, right-thinking ancestry."

To say that "clean blood" has gone out of fashion is to say the least of it. They now want blood as dirty and as muddied up as possible, and they want any remembrance of the White ancestors banished for all time.

Next came is book Lee's Lieutenants:

"Published in 1942, 1943, and 1944 it presents a unique combination of military strategy, biography, and Civil War history, and it shows how armies actually work. This book led to close friendships with George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower."

Freeman then embarked on the last great work of his life, a seven volume biography of that other great Virginian, George Washington. He finished six of the seven volumes by his death, the last being completed by two of his associates.

These were those mega tonnage books that our scholars used to write, not processed volumes turned out by grad students and copied and pasted by the grand Pooh Bahs of the faculty lounge.

This book work also won a Pulitzer (posthumously)

What more could one ask for in a man?

For a Jew there is always a problem:

"Some 21st century historians, including Eric Foner, have been more critical of Freeman, whose biography of Lee Foner calls a hagiography criticizing its lack of nuance and the limited attention paid to Lee's relationship to slavery."

By nuance Foner means Freeman writes an old school straight up biography of the man, one that is not hedged in the book with constant editorializing about how evil Robert Lee was, about whatever his skills in generalship he still was toiling in not only a lost cause but an immoral one, these interpolations being necessary in their eyes lest the reader get the "wrong" idea and come to admire Lee.

Obviously, this Foner fellow is a Jew and a big Jew too:

"Foner was born in NYC the son of Jewish parents, Liza (née Kraitz), a high school art teacher, and historian Jack Foner, who was active in the trade union movement and the campaign for civil rights for blacks."

A Jew who was a negro lover? Well, I'll be.

Whoever heard of such a thing?

"UR’s board of trustees voted unanimously to remove the name Douglas Southall Freeman from an academic building and a dormitory named in his honor, it announced Monday. Freeman, who led the school as a trustee from 1925 to 1950, advocated for segregation, eugenics and prohibiting interracial marriage as editor of The Richmond News Leader."

So in addition to everything else he did he was also a trustee at the University in town. When you see what this man did you see why "civic leader" in the past was such an honorable distinction. This was a man who in addition to providing culture to the state and city also took up the cudgel on behalf of the many institutions which formed the backbone of the community. This is how a healthy and whole society functions---with volunteerism, with social cohesion and social trust.

For his trouble he is not repaid in kindness or in kind but with a stab in the back by people who are demonstrably his inferior in every way possible.

This is now no country for great men.

In addition to writing those massive multivolume biographies that a former age relished so Freeman was also the editor for the Richemond News Leader for thirty four years. He also gave radio broadcasts on a daily basis during all that time. Thus by working in various mediums he was able to disseminate his opinions to audiences of all kinds, and was an indefatigable advocate for his home city and home state and for the need to keep them White. Of course this kind of work ethic and this world view was what was expected of men like him, men of his caliber, truly giants comparted to their counterparts of today. As it was Freeman was one of the most influential men in Virginia--and kept a steady hand on the ship of his state.

He also went behind what was to become enemy lines and taught journalism at Columbia.

It is said that he rose at 3:00AM every morning and drove to his newspaper's office, saluting the statue of Lee as he made his way.

That statue which he saluted has now been removed and will be melted down and re-forged to make a monument to a negro.

Freeman himself is now gone.

"Freeman was also a Virginian, and described himself as deeply rooted in the soil of old Virginia. He believed in the importance of continuity, even in personal geography, once writing that he thought the American people lose a large part of the joy of life because they do not live for generations in the same place."

No doubt compared to him many of our contemporaries are rootless cosmopolitans.


***

"The University of Richmond will change the names of six campus buildings associated with slavery and racism, including two that led students and faculty to protest last year."

In justifying this race crime the university's diversity bureaucrats resort to insidious bureaucratese and anti-whiteness:

"In support of our mission and grounded in the liberal arts tradition, the University of Richmond has resolved to examine, understand, and communicate our past more fully and inclusively. Our institutional history is neither a singular story nor always one of progress for all members of our community. The University’s past and its legacies intertwine with the City of Richmond, the state of Virginia, and our nation, producing a braided narrative that is at once deep and diverse, complex and painful at times, inspiring at others. Further exploring our past, including the history of the land where the University is now located, provides an opportunity to deepen and share learning with the UR and wider communities."

These are the people teaching the next generation of students? Why, their prose style does not resemble a limpid brook. In a cramped and horrific style they weave in lies such as our nation is "diverse, complex, painful" forgetting that it is only painful because diverse. A euphemism like "wider communities" means every race under the sun of course, and communicating your past more fully and inclusively means the shoe shine boys and the indolent stoop dwellers of the old South will finally get their due. A statement like this reads like a sign of surrender, or the flag of victory, depending on which side your on.

At first UR rejected removing Ryland (the university's first president) and Freeman (a racist and renaissance man). They conceded right away the (relatively) run of the mill legacies of the slave owners:

"The board also decided to strip the titles of Jeter Hall, Thomas Hall, Brunet Hall and Puryear Hall — buildings named for slave owners."

These four were out in the first wave. No one had a good word to say about them.

But at first UR stiffened its spine (just a little). After all when you begin to go after the actual founders of the school, and a stalwart linchpin of its more recent glory years, people not totally dyed in the wool with communism tend to balk (just a little).

"The decision (to nix Ryland and Freeman) comes three days after a school committee made recommendations as to what principles UR should consider when naming buildings. And it comes a year after students and faculty held signs on campus and the faculty expressed a vote of no confidence in the university's rector Paul Queally."

The principles of naming are simple enough: dark skin good, white skin bad. It's really no more complicated than that. And this Queally fellow probably didn't like any of this renaming but in the end he saw which way the wind was blowing, and took it all on board.

"Mary Kelly Tate, a UR law professor and president of the faculty senate, called it an institutionally historic announcement and a partial but important step forward."

Did you get that? A "partial" step. The writing on that wall is as plain as the break of day or, the coming of baleful night. That is, this is just barely a down payment, a first installment on a very long installment plan they have planned for us. This is the appetizer, not the main course. Once they clear out the fathers do the rest of us stand a chance?

"The uproar began last year when UR announced it would leave the names of Ryland and Freeman standing. Doing so provided a fuller historical narrative the school said."

These two were not the small fries, that's why they were gunning for them, and it's why the university hesitated at first; even at this late a date a university like UR did not lightly banish its first president and a man like Douglas Southall Freeman; no that took constant bithcing and constant whining and pretty soon the calculus became simple: do you really want to defend slavery? Jim Crow? Eugenics? Racism? At a certain point it just becomes easier to capitulate. Because no one who would be able to attain any power at an American university today would be able to simply say what simply needs saying: yes, I defend them all. With the playing filed inclined towards our enemy it's how our side got back footed. They could (and did) make a convoluted argument about providing a "fuller historical narrative" but that will always fall flat. A full historical narrative would include things which in the current year are considered evil per se; and no one in power would ever go near that even if they wanted to, which they don't.

The full historical narrative is that this was once a White man's country, it was a great country, and when it no longer was a White man's country it not only ceased to be great, it began a rapid descent into a mixed race sewer.

"After weeks of protest, the university relented, announcing a fresh start and the formation of a committee to review the matter."

It was too rich for their blood. You could only defend those two on the ground on which they lived, not in an apologetic manner which concedes more than it hopes for.

"The committee solicited the opinion of more than 7,000 university stakeholders in a Gallup poll. Two-thirds of faculty and students responded that a person’s history of discrimination or oppression should factor into renaming."

Should the White race be abolished? Is it the cancer of history? Two out of every three agree. No self-respecting White man should like those odds.

"Last week, the committee presented 10 principles for how buildings and other campus entities should be named. Among them: no building should be named for a person who directly engaged in the trafficking and/or enslavement of others.”

That's for starters. Slavery is the ground floor, the predicate. All subsequent evil flows from that. In the end it will mean being discourteous to a negro is grounds for banishment from the realm.

To ensure the school’s history isn’t swept under the rug, UR says it will take steps to preserve the historical record of buildings, their eponyms, their contributions to the university and the reason for their decommemoration

That is no way to remember--they will remember them only insofar as they will explain why they are no longer to be remembered, they will commemorate their decommemoration. Better to be consigned to oblivion as far as the ignorant millions are concerned and to be remembered, cherished and revered by the loyalists.

"We are confident we can preserve and communicate our history without honoring through building names individuals who enslaved other persons or otherwise acted in conflict with the naming principles, UR President Kevin Hallock and the board wrote in a statement Monday."

No you can't; you can't preserve it that way; and you don't want to; and on the off chance you may want to in some respects the man who comes in after you won't. The towel has been thrown in; no one is going to pick up the cudgel, rather they will pick up a club to beat Whites over the head.

"Freeman Hall will be renamed Residence Hall No. 3. The dorm was briefly known as Mitchell-Freeman Hall last year, when UR added the name of John Mitchell Jr., a former enslaved man who became editor of the African American Richmond Planet newspaper."

So that was just a way station; for a time the great historian and newspaper editor Freeman had to share the name with a two bit negro who scratched out some editorials in a negro paper. No doubt he was moaning about how bad he had it and how the last negro in the noose didn't do nothing.

Freeman’s name also stands on a Henrico County high school.

"Part of Henrico County Public Schools system the institution is named for Pulitzer Prize winning Virginia author, newspaper editor, historian and pioneering radio broadcaster Douglas Southall Freeman. It opened in 1954, slightly more than one year after Freeman's death."

It opened just in time to be subject to integration. Trust me, its days are numbered.

Tick-tock says the watchman.

***

"We recognize that the university would not exist today without the efforts of some whose names have been removed."

Ah, there's the rub in one mouthful. Indeed, without the efforts of those men there would be no University Of Richmond, there would be no black students, there would literally be nothing. Everything they have is contingent on the men they now revile, gratitude and a modicum of decency not being their strong suit.

"The Black student coalition, faculty and other members of the community never stopped pushing for change."

These grievance hustlers never let up. On the other hand when's the last time you saw White people with protest signes protesting the treatment of Whites?

"The university revisited the issue last April, deciding to suspend the process and create a naming principals commission to determine principles that would guide future decisions about naming and removal or modification of names for buildings, professorships, programs, and other named entities at Richmond.”

Instead of calling it the naming principal commission they might as well have called it The Directory so ominous and dire is it. It's not a naming commission it's a re-naming commission. In the anti-White fire sale everything will have to go.

"University of Richmond sophomore Simone Reid is a member of the Black Student Coalition. When the Board issued its decision not to change the names of the two buildings, she said it felt like students’ voices didn’t matter. It’s definitely another reminder, she said, especially in that, on campus, it feels very segregated, feels very suffocating. We feel isolated, and then on top of that, we have to walk around and see that not even reflected in the names. Like there’s no respect for us reflected in the actual physical landscape of the school."

Way back in 1969 a prophet unheralded wrote a letter to the dean of Yale Law School. The prophet was a judge in California, and was a graduate of that school, and he had just heard that for the first time the Law School was going to admit negros solely on the basis that they were negros. His long letter outlined every sick dynamic that has since occurred based on this abomination. Moste specifically he said that the black students would soon begin to burn with resentment and that, once appeased, their power as grievance mongers would grow exponentially and could never be checked.

"On Friday, the faculty senate approved a motion to censure that trustee, Paul B. Queally, for his stance on the naming issue and his conduct during the meetings. Queally, as rector of the 3,900-student university, leads the board of trustees and has emerged as a staunch defender of leaving the surnames of the Rev. Robert Ryland and Douglas Southall Freeman on prominent buildings. Afterward, seven faculty leaders who were there wrote an account of the meeting that sharply criticized Queally. They wrote that the rector said he considered the issue of building names a closed matter but that he wanted to help Black, Brown and regular students."

Regular students, presumably, being White students. This Queally fellow, is a sad case. His instincts are good and back in the day he might have made a decent stalwart for Whites. But as it is he is out of his depth and has no idea how to defend his ideas. Presumably the last thing he would consider himself is a racist.

"At another point, they wrote, Queally interrupted a Black woman staff member in the middle of her initial comments and noted that she sounded angry. He then proceeded to direct a series of comments and questions at this staff member over much of the remaining hour in a largely adversarial manner."

That is, he was discourteous to a negro.

Which will not do.

Not only don't you want to make the black angry you don't want to say they are angry. Though they have done nothing to deserve it they demand deference.

"In recent years, responding to mass movements for racial justice colleges and universities around the country have been reckoning with their past and unearthing painful new information. Johns Hopkins University, for example, disclosed in December that its namesake benefactor had been an enslaver. Hopkins leaders do not support renaming the university."

Tick tock says watchman.

***
It's a sad state of affairs when a University such as UR, which you might think would hold the line in some sense, has gone completely round the bend on the issue of anti-Whiteness. In the universities of our time you find the vanguard of the hatred of White Civilization, you find the zenith of the worship of blacks, the nadir of health and sanity.

You also find some truly rotten prose which reminds you why Joseph Sobran said that in the old days in America High Schools they taught Greek and Latin, but today in American colleges they teach remedial English.

"Racial equity is the result of intentionally anti-racist policies that are supported by intentionally anti-racist ideas. The University of Richmond's pursuit of racial equity requires proactive institutional anti-racist inquiry and education at all levels upon which we must build a solid structure of anti-racist policies and practices. In addition, anti-racism must attend to the multi-dimensional nature of racism, including the specific and different ways racism has affected individual and group experience(s). A number of current initiatives exemplify the University's commitment to anti-racism as the means to racial equity."

To be fair this paragraph sounded better in the original gobbledygook before being translated into gibberish .

Some form of the word race appears in the monstrosity eleven times.

"The University of Richmond is among the 51 inaugural member institutions of the new Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance organized by the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center. This national alliance provides ongoing professional learning opportunities and resources about issues of racial equity to member liberal arts colleges."

Equity used to be about what your house was worth; now it's about how your house is going to be worth a lot less.

"As a member institution, University of Richmond faculty and staff have access to a variety of resources and opportunities on antiracism, diversity, and equity, including access to virtual learning sessions on topics of racial equity, and 24/7 access to an online repository of tools such as equity-related rubrics, readings, case studies, videos, and more."

The heart of dixie has been ripped out of the living body---and was then held aloft to propitiate the gods of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

It goes without saying that the body now lives no more.

"We support White anti-racism by providing opportunities to the campus community to learn about race, racism, and the practice of anti-racism. A focus on white anti-racism is necessary because white people have important roles to play in anti-racism work. In addition, we seek to promote white anti-racism efforts that relieve pressure often placed on people of color to educate white people about race, and to support and be in solidarity with change efforts led by people of color."

The black man's burden has finally been given vent! It was hard for the black man to toil in the shadow of the White man's oppression, and even harder for the black man to have to hold the White liberal maggot's hand and lead him to the promised land where White people are no more.

Given the onslaught of this claptrap the amazing thing is that the name Douglas Southall Freeman lasted as long as it did. When institutions begin to strip themselves of their past they have no future; or no future worth the name. Or maybe they do have a future--but it certainly is not ours. But it is certainly not a future that Freeman would recognize as being of value. It is a future where it goes without saying there will be no salutes on Monument avenue, no 2000 pages paeans to the greats of the Confederacy, no safe, decent neighborhoods chock full of White heritage, it will be a future where on that formerly great street there will be only sneers, howls of execration, chimp outs, and wrecking crews; don't look now but the material of that noble White man will be remade into a negro whose claim to fame is zero.

No future for us, that is.

[Douglas Mercer]

[Douglas Mercer]

[Douglas Mercer]

[Douglas Mercer]

[Douglas Mercer]

Eric Foner (Jew)

[Douglas Mercer]

Paul Queally