[VAcourier] MOC name change - Rawls responds.

Tue Feb 20 14:55:08 EST 2007

Below is a letter from Waite Rawls posted on the Museum of the 
Confederacy's website concerning the issue of  the museum changing its 
name if it moves to Lexington (or anywhere else for that matter).  At a 
Lexington City Council meeting last Thursday, anti-Confederate 
councilwoman Mimi Elrod and Major John Knapp both independently 
confirmed to the audience Rawls stated the museum would change its name 
which was much to relief of the knee-jerk liberals.  Whether the name 
change has "officially" been confirmed or not, the decision has already 
been represented to two governing bodies.  The name change "possibility" 
was also confirmed in todays Richmond Times-Dispatch.  

See the article at: 
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193287672

A Letter from S. Waite Rawls III, President and CEO of The Museum of  
the Confederacy:

February 20, 2007

For the past two years The Museum of the Confederacy has undergone a 
series of studies and discussed various strategies in its efforts to 
address financial difficulties and declining visitation. Last summer a 
panel of museum experts conducted an outside independent study of the 
Museum and all facets of its operations. The results from the study, 
released last fall and available on the website at www.moc.org , 
assisted the Museum's Board of Trustees in their decision to keep the 
White House of the Confederacy in its current location and their 
determination to relocate the Museum's collections. The Museum is now in 
the midst of discussions with several potential locations regarding the 
relocation of the museum's collections.

Additionally, the consultants recommended the consideration of a 
possible renaming of the museum, which might accompany the relocation. 
The Museum's Board of Trustees will carefully weigh any decision that is 
made regarding the renaming of the museum. No decision on whether or not 
to change the name has been made at this time, and possible new names 
for the Museum have not been chosen. Any decision that is made will be 
in concert with and dependant on the new location.

 Thank you for your calls, letters and opinions regarding the Museum's 
pending move and the decisions surrounding the relocation.

I am your most obedient servant,

S. Waite Rawls III
President & CEO

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

BY JANET CAGGIANO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, February 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.

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 at timesdispatch.com 
<mailto:jcaggiano at timesdispatch.com> or (804) 649-6157.
This story can be found at:

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