So the Mathews County Board of Supervisors is considering a more permanent solution: Grant the municipal land under the statue to a private group, such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to protect it from future changes in public sentiment. Of all the reckonings with lost-cause icons that have gripped Virginia over the past two years—from Charlottesville deciding to melt Robert E. Lee to Richmond loaning other bronze generals to a California museum—this is a new reversal, a sign of the enduring power of the Civil War’s legacy. Officials at the state Department of Historic Resources said they are not aware of any other sites in Virginia that are investigating such a step. Opponents say giving control of a public site to a private heritage group sets a worrying precedent. “The long-term implications are really far-reaching, because this group could do whatever they wanted with that piece of land,” said Caitlin Banner, deputy legal director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Civil Affairs. “The government would lose all control despite being right in the middle of the historic courthouse square.” The advocacy group signed a letter to the county last week warning of possible legal action by the local NAACP chapter. Transferring the land to a pro-Confederate group sends “unmistakable messages that the Mathews County Board of Supervisors supports white supremacy and supports the second-class status of black people,” the lawyers wrote. The letter fueled an idea that has been floating around Mathews for months. Attendance at Wednesday night’s public hearing on the general issue of the transfer of public property to private groups is expected to be heavy. The hearing was originally scheduled to specifically receive the statue, but board members last month — in the face of heated public debate — decided to slow the process. “Let me tell you something, the NAACP jumped the gun on this thing,” County Supervisor Dave Jones said last week in an interview. There will be no vote Wednesday on what should be done with the statue, he said. But not everyone is convinced. “We don’t know what action they might take,” NAACP chapter president Edith Turner said. The confusion was created by last fall’s referendum in a county of about 8,600 people that is about 8 percent black. Although the voters’ message was clear, and despite the fact that the statue has not been the target of graffiti or other protest damage, some residents and county supervisors have mounted a crusade to save it from any possible future destruction. One day last week, Jones stood outside the old courthouse and said he would “never vote to move the monument out of its place,” although that was not the issue. He denied Wednesday’s hearing was even related to the statue and said giving the site to preservationists was too much. He pledged that he would “not vote to transfer this monument to the SCV” or the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the two groups that built it in 1912 and offered to take it over this year. But minutes later, Jones and Matthews County Board of Supervisors Chairman Paul Hudgins — who had joined him in the shade under a willow oak — were a little more vague. Will they transfer ownership to some other team that could protect it where it is? “We can own anything, it’s not a law against it,” Jones said. “That’s a discussion that will happen later,” Hudgins said. “Right,” Jones said. Turner, the NAACP president, is Black and a teacher who was born and raised in Matthews County. She states her age as “over 60” and said she was in about the fourth grade when the local schools were integrated. She attended Lee-Jackson Elementary, named after Confederate generals. Two years ago, Turner was proud when her daughter spearheaded an effort to rename the school. It is now known as Mathews Elementary. In response, someone planted a giant Confederate flag on private property across the street. Confederate battle flags fly in the road along many entrances to Matthews County, which Turner said discourages friends and family who might want to visit. “But I feel comfortable here because I’m from here,” he said. The school’s renaming, however, was an unwelcome taste of change for some Matthews residents who have looked in horror at statues coming down in other parts of the state. Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, has had several Confederate monuments removed, including statues of Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. (Video: The Washington Post) Ben Richardson, 61, grew up in Matthews on property that has been in his family since the 1700s. Like many in this countryside of marshes and creeks along the Chesapeake Bay, he spent most of his life on the water, in tugboats and oil tankers. He had ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, he said, and for the Confederacy. The statue isn’t racism, it’s just history, he said. And the groups that set it up to own it and protect it. “People just want to open a can of worms,” said Richardson, sitting outside Pudding Creek Carvings art shop wearing a “Good Vibes” T-shirt. “I think the statue should stay where it is … and the land, that should be given to them.” The statue itself is the figure of a Civil War general atop a column. The base reads “Our Confederate Soldiers” on one side and “In Memory of the Soldiers and Sailors of Mathews County Va.” to another. It sits about 15 feet from the corner of the old courthouse, which anchors a plaza with historic buildings including a jail and a clerk’s office. Several local residents said they rarely paid much attention to the statue until 2017, after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, when people who support Confederate heritage began showing up around the statue in support. After 2020, when the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police sparked a national movement for racial justice, Confederate supporters littered the ground around the statue’s base with small Confederate battle flags. Some in the county objected, and the board of supervisors warned that the flags could not be placed on the ground because it was public property. For a time, however, the statue itself was thought to belong to the SCV and the UDC. Many of the Confederate statues around the state were put up about a century ago by these heritage groups, and a handful still belong to them despite being on public property. In Alexandria, for example, a Confederate statue was taken down at the request of the UDC and returned to the group for safekeeping. According to research compiled by Mathews Public Library officials, the county monument was spearheaded by a group called the Mathews County Monument Association consisting of seven members from the UDC and seven from the SCV, who raised money from the public to fund it . But both of those local chapters died out or dissolved long ago, the investigation showed. The current groups have been reconstituted in recent years and research has found no evidence that the statue was ever given to them. At last month’s Board of Supervisors meeting, a UDC representative submitted a letter that appeared to acknowledge the county’s ownership. Neither the UDC nor SCV members could be reached for comment for this story. But two advocates spoke strongly at the August meeting. Bobby Dobson, who is a member of the county school board, accused former Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, of creating problems with the monuments and said the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was vandalized and vulnerable at the Valentine’s Day museum. Richmond. “a shame.” Richmond statues fell. Now these sisters aim to highlight Black history. “Now everybody looks like you want to take down” statues, Dobson said. Noting that the county referendum supporting the monument was not binding, he said the Matthews statue needs permanent protection. “God bless the fallen Southerners,” he concluded, “and God bless Robert E. Lee.” Joey Taylor, president of the local SCV chapter, said his group wants to take ownership of the monument because “we believe that if this is not done, then these people on the left will do their best to destroy it because that’s what I want.” Neither Dobson nor Taylor could be reached for comment. Mathews County Administrator Ramona Wilson, who took office in April when the controversy was already in full swing, said in an interview that she remains uncertain about the status of the statue. “We don’t know who it belongs to right now,” he said. The next step depends on Wednesday night’s public hearing. If residents fully support the transfer of public property to private interests, he said, the board will schedule a hearing on clearing the land under the statue. If the public opposes the idea, he said, “I think then it will just go away.” But Jones and Hudgins, the board members, made it clear that the statue itself isn’t going anywhere. The county is going to install video surveillance, Hudgins said. “If they want to come and try to tear it down, they have to go through us and we’ll take all measures,” Jones said. “This ain’t Richmond,” Hudgins said, “I can tell you that.” Jones agreed. “This is not Richmond.”
