Episode Details

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the Unite The Right rally and counter protests in Charlottesville, Virginia that claimed the life of Heather Heyer and set off a firestorm around President Trump’s remarks about who was to blame for the violence. One year later, the Robert E. Lee statue at the center of the controversy is still there, and it seems the conversation about what it stands for has stalled.

The Lee statue is part of a complicated public memory about the south’s Confederate past. These shared stories of the Civil War and what it means make it difficult to change the conversation and have a productive dialogue about how to move forward.

Joining us to unpack the public memory around Charlottesville is Brad Vivian. He is the director of the McCourtney Institute’s Center for Democratic Deliberation and a professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State. Brad studies public memory, particularly around Confederate iconography. He also grew up in the Charlottesville area and recounts some of his experiences there during the interview.

We are excited to begin the second season of Democracy Works with such an important and timely topic. If you like what you hear, make sure to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

Recommended Reading

Brad’s op-ed about Charlottesville and democracy in the Philadelphia Inquirer 

Vinegar Hill neighborhood, by the Virginia Foundation for Humanities

History of Market Street Park, now known as Emancipation Park

Brad’s book, Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture

Discussion/Reflection Questions

• What are your memories of the events in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017?
• Do you think that the national narrative following the events was focused on the right issues?
• What do you think leads to the development of an inaccurate memory of past events? Especially ones that tend to look at past actions through rose colored glasses?
• How do you think the concept of public memory relates to democracy?
• What do you think we can do to ensure that the story of past events maintains more truth over the years?

Interview Highlights

[2:20] What was it like growing up in Charlottesville and what went through your mind as you watched the events unfold there last summer?

Brad: It is sort of a closely held secret. It is a great college town. It has sort of this small town living with a sort of metropolitan feel to it. Sort of like State College. The town is part of this growing corridor from DC down to Richmond Virginia. A lot of those coming here to study from Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey are turning a once red state into a purple or even a light blue state.

[3:50] While you were growing up there, was the Robert E. Lee statue something people would talk about?

Brad: Everyone knew it was there but it wasn’t really a part of the discussion in the circle I was in, which consisted of the university. Surprising, after the riots, we didn’t really talk much about the statue. What we did talk about was Thomas Jefferson and his legacy there.

[6:20] What is public memory and how does it