Things Have Changed

The Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863

Let's just say it didn't make southerners real happy

And then:

Following Confederate general Jubal A. Early's defeat at the Third Battle of Waynesboro on March 2, 1865, and fearing pillaging by advancing Union troops, town and university officials surrendered to Union generals Philip H. Sheridan and George Custer on March 3, 1865. Union forces initially occupied Charlottesville for three days. Following Lee's surrender a month later, the town came under the jurisdiction of the Army of the James, and the new occupation force consisted of a regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry. A local newspaper sullenly conceded: "The Virginia of the past we shall not know again any more than we can revive the Middle Ages."

Thomas Jefferson April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826

WaPo:

(Charlottesville) -- His name still adorns much of the city, from the public library to a private winery. And from the foot of a mountain dedicated to him, his statue still gazes out over the university he founded.

But lately, in ways both small and seismic, Thomas Jefferson’s town has started to feel like it belongs to someone else.

For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery.

Liberation and Freedom Day, as the new holiday is known, will commemorate when Union troops arrived here on March 3, 1865, and freed the enslaved people who made up a majority of Charlottesville’s residents.

“This marks a wholesale shift in our understanding of the community’s history,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who helped organize the events, which, despite the name, stretch all week. “To take Thomas Jefferson’s birthday off the calendar and add this is a big deal.”

His name still adorns much of the city, from the public library to a private winery. And from the foot of a mountain dedicated to him, his statue still gazes out over the university he founded.

But lately, in ways both small and seismic, Thomas Jefferson’s town has started to feel like it belongs to someone else.

For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery.

Liberation and Freedom Day, as the new holiday is known, will commemorate when Union troops arrived here on March 3, 1865, and freed the enslaved people who made up a majority of Charlottesville’s residents.

“This marks a wholesale shift in our understanding of the community’s history,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who helped organize the events, which, despite the name, stretch all week. “To take Thomas Jefferson’s birthday off the calendar and add this is a big deal.”

Across the country, especially in the South, communities are arguing over how to tell more inclusive and accurate histories.

Nowhere has this clash been more fraught than in Charlottesville, where parks have been renamed, then renamed again, streets have been re-christened, and stickers bearing white supremacist slogans go up as quickly as activists can remove them.

It's not that anyone wants to get rid of Jefferson - nobody's trying to "expunge" any history. In fact, the efforts to remove Confederate monuments and to change the story in order to include relevant details, are actually about stopping the expungement of those details - the parts of our history that make us uncomfortable.

Jefferson had greatness in him. He did some awesomely awesome things. But just like all the other founders - just like all of the rest of us - he had his shortcomings.

I'm not afraid to learn as much as possible about my heroes - warts and all.