{"id":79269,"date":"2021-09-21T17:04:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T17:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/09\/21\/monuments-rise-and-fall-at-west-point-and-vmi-amid-racial-reckoning\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:09:11","slug":"monuments-rise-and-fall-at-west-point-and-vmi-amid-racial-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2021\/09\/21\/monuments-rise-and-fall-at-west-point-and-vmi-amid-racial-reckoning\/","title":{"rendered":"Monuments rise and fall at West Point and VMI amid racial reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LEXINGTON, Va. \u2014 Two of the Army\u2019s oldest sources of young officers are going beyond simple removal of Confederate symbols as they rethink the way their landscapes, buildings and statues influence their students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reckoning comes amid a congressionally mandated review of the Defense Department\u2019s Confederate objects and names, in addition to stricter scrutiny from state governments and the broader public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, this means adding new statues and changing a few names. But for the Virginia Military Institute \u2014 sometimes called \u201cthe West Point of the Confederacy\u201d \u2014 the task is much more complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, the Army unveiled a new monument at West Point. It honors the Black soldiers who helped train cadets in horsemanship from 1907 to 1941. The bronze monument, donated by the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point, depicts a ten-foot tall Black cavalry trooper on horseback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe battles fought by the Buffalo Soldiers from 1866 to 1947 were many, and their accomplishments were storied,\u201d said retired Gen. Vincent Brooks, who presided over the ceremony unveiling the monument at West Point. \u201cAll the while one particular battle went with them no matter what the location was \u2014 the battle against institutional racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Buffalo Soldiers worked daily with some of the Army\u2019s World War II luminaries during their formative years, including George S. Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese Soldiers embodied the West Point motto of Duty, Honor, Country and ideals of the Army Ethic,\u201d said the academy\u2019s superintendent, Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, in a press release. \u201cThis monument will ensure that the legacy of Buffalo Soldiers is enduringly revered, honored and celebrated while serving as an inspiration for the next generations of cadets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The U.S. Military Academy officially unveiled the Buffalo Soldier Monument September 10, 2021, at West Point, New York, with approximately 600 guests in attendance. The sculpture represents the Soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments who embodied the Army\u02bcs values during their service to the Corps of Cadets between 1907-47. (Army\/John Pellino)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The new monument comes as the Army\u2019s service academy prepares to rename one of its dormitories, a road and a gate that are all named for Robert E. Lee, the former West Point superintendent who rose in fame when he chose to lead secessionist Confederate forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past year, the landscape of the Virginia Military Institute has also rapidly transformed as its new leadership looks to different historical figures to inspire its student body after publicly backing away from its former deification of Thomas \u201cStonewall\u201d Jackson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson was a legendary Confederate commander who was a \u201cmediocre\u201d faculty member<\/a> at VMI for a decade before the war, according to an archived version of the school\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cadets once saluted a Jackson statue from its erection in 1912 until the tradition was banned in 2015. The school removed the statue late last year. Recently, the school\u2019s governing Board of Visitors voted to remove his name from buildings, quotes and other inscriptions on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it is a state university rather than a DoD institution like West Point, VMI is exempt from the DoD ban on Confederate symbols and the Naming Commission\u2019s reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that hasn\u2019t stopped the nation\u2019s oldest state-run military school from receiving withering criticism of its previous handling of its Civil War heritage. Law firm Barnes & Thornburg submitted a report detailing a \u201cracist and sexist culture<\/a>\u201d at VMI to the Virginia state legislature this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report described how some in the VMI community \u201cfound the [Confederate] iconography and traditions to be degrading,\u201d especially cadets and graduates of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also found that continued \u201cemphasis on Confederate symbols and support for the Confederacy\u201d would make it more difficult to recruit and retain cadets of color. The report recommended that the school deemphasize its Confederate heritage in favor of other prominent VMI alumni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Army Times spoke with VMI officials \u2014 including its superintendent and longtime director of its museum system \u2014 <\/b>about their efforts to reshape the school\u2019s landscape and bronze statues despite outcry from a vocal minority of alumni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school\u2019s governing Board of Visitors has established a committee that is reviewing VMI\u2019s voluminous Confederate iconography as a starting point for working towards the report\u2019s recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The superintendent, retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins, says the moves are meant to be part of creating a more \u201cwelcoming\u201d environment for developing future leaders \u2014 55 percent of VMI graduates accept commissions in the U.S. military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wins, the first Black man to lead VMI, graduated from the school in 1985. He took the reins as interim superintendent in November 2020, after his predecessor was forced to resign amid controversy over systemic racism allegations brought to light in the Washington Post. The Board of Visitors confirmed Wins\u2019 permanent appointment in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want young men and young women\u2026to be able to come here and find the environment welcoming, because that, I believe, is what best ensures their ability to find their place,\u201d Wins told Army Times in a Friday interview. \u201c[We want them to] find out where they want to achieve excellence, what they want to strive to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as the committee continues its work, which VMI Museum System director Keith Gibson says will be complete by May 2022, VMI has already made one major reorientation in its commemorative landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gibson, a 1977 graduate of VMI, is a former Navy officer. He joined the VMI Museum staff in 1986 and now oversees its three museums. As is standard practice with VMI administrators, he holds a commission as a colonel in the Virginia State Militia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December, the school removed the Jackson statue that stood prominently by its parade field and received mandatory salutes from passing cadets until 2015, Gibson explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parade field, after some reshuffling of flagpoles and landscaping, is now centered on a plaza featuring a bronze statue of Gen. George C. Marshall, a 1901 VMI alum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marshall went on to serve as the Army\u2019s chief of staff throughout World War II before becoming secretary of state and overseeing the rebuilding of Europe after the war. Now, passing first-year cadets salute Marshall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve re-envisioned and centered our barracks front on the Marshall statue, where it\u2019s bookended by two flag poles,\u201d explained Wins. \u201cThat\u2019s a reminder of a significant alum who did some consequential things at a time that I think we can all recognize was important to the continued development and success of the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This monument dedicated to George C. Marshall, who served as an Army general, Secretary of State, and Defense Secretary, is the new centerpiece of the commemorative landscape at his alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. (Courtesy\/VMI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never felt the way it was positioned before [the shift] gave Marshall his just recognition and acknowledgement,\u201d said Gibson. \u201cWe have now had that opportunity [with the removal of Jackson] to\u2026give [the statue] the prominence that Marshall deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school also plans to expand its existing memorial space honoring Jonathan Daniels, valedictorian of VMI\u2019s 1961 class and Episcopalian civil rights martyr<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels, who participated in the second Selma to Montgomery march and then stayed in Alabama to continue his activism, died in 1965 while shielding a Black civil rights activist from a white man infuriated over their attempt to enter a store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Luther King Jr. later described Daniels\u2019 actions as \u201cOne of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VMI will erect a monument to Daniels that will serve as a gateway to an expanded memorial plaza and will double as an outdoor classroom space, Gibson and Wins said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marshall and Daniels offer a better aspirational ideal for the school\u2019s cadets and are more worthy of places of honor on campus than Jackson and the other Confederate icons on campus, Gibson told Army Times during a Thursday morning tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are really meaningful changes that, in their totality, once complete, are going to be evocative of a well-rounded, fuller ideal of what we would want a VMI graduate to go on to do,\u201d Gibson told Army Times. \u201cThe world is changing. The culture is changing. And VMI graduates have to be prepared to take their place in that new environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A pre-decisional conceptional rendering of an expanded entrance to the Jonathan Daniels memorial courtyard at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. The school plans to expand its tribute to the civil rights martyr, who was valedictorian of its class of 1961. (Courtesy\/Virginia Military Institute)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But VMI\u2019s Confederate history goes beyond bronze and granite, extending into the realm of tradition. The entire student body was sworn into Confederate service ahead of the 1864 Battle of New Market, where 10 cadets died in a bayonet charge that helped secure victory over the Union Army that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Market cadets are considered a cornerstone of VMI tradition and legacy \u2014 first year cadets, known as \u201crats,\u201d are traditionally forced to memorize their names. Rats also used to take their cadet oath following a reenactment of the bayonet charge at the historic New Market battlefield, where VMI operates the Virginia Museum of the Civil War.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a complicated legacy, and VMI has faced criticism in the past for its role in promulgating the false narrative of the \u201cLost Cause,\u201d which holds that the Civil War was not fought over the issue of slavery. In the Barnes & Thornburg report, many recent graduates expressed their frustration with the way VMI history courses downplayed the role of slavery in sparking the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those traditions are changing, Gibson and Wins said, but won\u2019t be thrown out entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No longer will new Rats take their oath after charging the \u201cField of Lost Shoes\u201d at New Market, as Wins did in 1980 during his first year, nor will the institute host a battle reenactment there, Gibson added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have been reviewing that very seriously every year for at least 15 years,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cThere began to be more cons [to holding the events] than pros.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the COVID-19 pandemic showed that the historical park and museum could survive without the reenactment events, \u201cand so we made the decision to terminate that living history event,\u201d Gibson explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school has also expanded traditional commemorative roll calls that took place annually on the anniversary of the battle to now include all of VMI\u2019s wartime dead throughout its history rather than just the ten who died at New Market, six of whom are buried on campus. This includes a new and expanded interpretation of a landmark statue on campus, Virginia Mourning Her Dead<\/i>, to include VMI graduates who have died in combat in all American conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Gibson and Wins, the New Market story is one of cadet solidarity and camaraderie, immortalized by a giant mural hanging in the school\u2019s Memorial Hall. They think they can divorce it, as well as other reminders of it on campus, from the greater context of the war so that cadets can continue to draw lessons from their forebears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a story that can be told about the character of young men who answered the call, not being in a position to make a decision of necessarily right or wrong,\u201d explained Wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said when he charged the New Market field in 1980, he was \u201ca young and impressionable 18-year old…[who] was just trying to make it through this place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In a now-discontinued tradition pictured on September 6, 2015, first-year Virginia Military Institute cadets charge up the same hill that their predecessors did during the 1864 Battle of New Market. Some of the cadets pictured are in period Confederate dress. (Courtesy\/VMI Communications via VMI Digital Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wins also pushed back on the idea of fully evaluating the school\u2019s own role in perpetuating the Lost Cause. He argued that curriculum changes underway and the evolving interpretation in the school\u2019s museum system might be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether or not we have to have a confessional about VMI\u2019s role in the Lost Cause, I\u2019m not too certain about [that],\u201d the superintendent said. \u201cWe need to make sure that the things that are fundamental to our mission are consistent with the development of young men and women who are capable of being leaders in a very diverse and complex world today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VMI faces perhaps the most complicated path forward of any of the Army\u2019s six senior military colleges thanks to the depth of its connections to its Confederate legacy, to include the very ground it stands on. Its educational neighbor in the sleepy rural town of Lexington is Washington & Lee University, whose board recently voted overwhelmingly to retain its name honoring the Confederate general who served as the university\u2019s president after the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of \u201cStonewall\u201d Jackson, less his left arm, is buried down the street in a cemetery that bore his name until recently. Lee is also buried in town on W&L campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town also celebrates \u201cLee-Jackson Day\u201d annually on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, though the state abolished the holiday in 2020. That did not stop this year\u2019s festivities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia\u2019s leaders have made it clear that VMI\u2019s state funding is at stake if the institute doesn\u2019t improve its experience for cadets of color and women \u2014 14 percent of whom reported experiencing sexual assault while at VMI, according to the Barnes & Thornburg report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wins\u2019 advocates argue he is the right man to lead this transformation, given his experience and confluence of identities that resonate with many of the school\u2019s stakeholders. He\u2019s a 1985 graduate of VMI, a Black man, a retired general officer and a first-generation college graduate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s many things that have helped me bring a different perspective \u2014 or at least my perspective \u2014 of how VMI needs to operate in the 21st century, to continue to produce the type of leaders that we believe are important to the nation,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But will he succeed, and will he be able to usher a sufficiently broad reckoning to preserve the nation\u2019s oldest state military college? Only time \u2014 or perhaps VMI alum and Virginia governor Ralph Northam \u2014 will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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