Virginia preservationist proposes Confederate design removal

FORT MONROE, Va. – Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources is backing an alternative to Gov. Ralph Northam’s call to take down a 1950s-era archway honouring the president of the Confederacy.

The preservation officer at Fort Monroe says that instead, just the letters reading “Jefferson Davis Memorial Park” should be removed from the arch at the historic U.S. Army site.

The Virginian-Pilot reports David Stroud would move the letters into the fort’s Casemate Museum, and contextual signage can explain their history. The arch was installed in 1956 at the request of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Davis was briefly imprisoned at the fort after surrendering during the Civil War. The site also marks where John Smith landed on the James River in 1607 and where the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619.