It was, BY FAR, the busiest day at the museum that we have EVER seen. Crowds came and went ALL DAY and most of them got an EYEFUL of Confederate flags. Conversations were GREAT, with many positive results. So many flyers were given away that we had only a handful left at the end of the day...and we came with 100!
An terrific day on the Boulevard, and an amazing group of Va Flaggers who braved the icy elements to stand for our ancestors and their flags!
God Bless the Virginia Flaggers!
You can help! Join our efforts...contact vaflagger@comcast.net for more information. We also need folks to contact the museum and tell them to put the flags back on the Pelham Chapel! Email the Director at alex.nyerges@vmfa.museum or call (804)334-1500.
Twenty years after Gen. Robert E. Lee rode into Appomattox and surrendered his tattered army, ending the War Between the States, a memorial chapel was built in Richmond in memory of the 260,000 Confederate soldiers who died during the conflict. The Pelham Chapel – Confederate War Memorial is designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S., and has been granted the status of Confederate Monument by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The organ in the chapel was donated by a group of Union veterans from Lynn, Mass. One of the contributors to the soldiers' home that surrounded the chapel was Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. And a Union private from Massachusetts donated his annual pension to support the home.
Confederate flags had flown over the grounds since the opening of the Old Soldiers Home in 1885. Those flags did not trouble the Union soldiers who donated the organ to the chapel; nor did they trouble Ulysses S. Grant. They were placed there by Confederate Veterans, to memorialize the Confederate dead, and honor the living.
Fast forward 150 years…on the eve of the Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the War Between the States, June 1st, 2010, Confederate Battle Flags were forcibly removed from the Confederate War Memorial by a restriction in the lease renewal, at the insistence of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
This is in direct violation of Virginia law, which clearly states: “it shall be unlawful for the authorities of the locality, or any other person or persons, to disturb or interfere with any monuments or memorials so erected, or to prevent its citizens from taking proper measures and exercising proper means for the protection, preservation and care of same. For purposes of this section, "disturb or interfere with" includes removal of, damaging or defacing monuments or memorials, or, in the case of the War Between the States, the placement of Union markings or monuments on previously designated Confederate memorials or the placement of Confederate markings or monuments on previously designated Union memorials.” (§ 15.2-1812)
As citizens of Virginia and descendants of Confederate soldiers who gallantly answered Virginia’s call to defend her, we demand that the VMFA remove these blatantly prejudicial restrictions and allow the Confederate Battle Flags to once again fly on the Confederate War Memorial.
RETURN the flags!
RESTORE the honor!
Va Flaggers
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