Transforming Confederate Memory Sites into Spaces for Encounter: Reclaiming Space at Marcus-David Peters Circle

ABSTRACT

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police in May 2020, cities across the United States erupted in protest. These public displays reignited debates over the presence of Confederate monuments, such as the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. This essay examines several protest events at the Lee statue memorial space in summer 2020, arguing that these moments are a sustained form of a space for encounter. Protestors reclaimed the Lee statue through art and renaming the space, celebrating Black heritage and excellence, and creating educational, accessible, and safe spaces to encourage conversations about racial justice across social differences. The Lee memorial space, renamed Marcus-David Peters Circle by protestors, shows how spaces for encounter can navigate moments of contingency and eligibility for antiracist activism, and how other toxic memory sites can be remade into generative spaces that offer alternative visions of the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Lost Cause
• protest rhetorics
• public memory
• space/place

Acknowledgments

The author expresses her sincerest thanks to Jacqueline Rhodes, Cheryl Glenn, Michele Kennerly, Jeff Nagel, and the anonymous reviewers for their help at every step of the process.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Spanish translation: “together we are powerful!”