Opening Shots of the Sesquicentennial

This past Wednesday, Carol and I attended the Virgina Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission's signature conference on America in 1859. It was stated frequently that this was the first event of the observation of the 150th anniversary, not just in Virginia, but nation wide. If so, it got off to a good start and I will write in more detail about the content of the program in future posts.

Today, however, I want to focus on the history not of the Civil War, but of Civil War anniversaries. While we were driving home, Carol wondered about what the Civil War Centennial observations were like. That led me to tell her one part of the story that I learned about in working on the New Jersey 150th, but which is probably not that well known.

For the centennial observations, New Jersey like other states appointed official government commissions that in addition to planning New Jersey observations represented New Jersey at the national level. In April of 1861, the national commission held its annual meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, the site of the first shot of the war at Fort Sumter. One member of the New Jersey commission was Ms. Madaline A. Williams, the first African-American woman elected to the New Jersey State Legislature as a member of the assembly. Because she was black, Ms. Williams was denied accommodations at the hotel that was to host the conference. Protests reached the White House where President John Kennedy intervened saying that the commission which was funded by the government had an obligation to be sure that every was treated equally. Incredibly (or perhaps not), the commission's executive committee initially refused to change its plans before ultimately moving the meeting to the Charleston Naval Base.

Thinking about that incident after attending this conference demonstrates that today we live in a very different country. The panels that discussed the issues at the conference were made up of very diverse voices especially from the African-American community. The topics did not dodge the tough issues especially the session that focused on Virginia in 1859, about 1/3 of that session was devoted to a discussion of the slave trade in Richmond. The discussion vividly illustrated how the slave trade was enmeshed with every aspect of Virginia society and that there were few if any voices raised in opposition. It couldn't have been an easy discussion for Virginia residents and all the more credit to those who planned and carried out the conference for their commitment to honesty and integrity.

Just the difference between how the country looked at the Civil War a 100 years later and how we look at it now 150 years later demonstrates how important the War remains today. More about this in future posts over the next week.