Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507190014
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Nearly 200 people signed up to speak at a public forum called to decide whether a statue of Ashe belongs at the end of a line of memorials to Robert E. Lee and other Southern heroes.
Ashe's family and many friends, including former Gov. Douglas Wilder, say Ashe belongs on Monument Avenue.
Placing Ashe, who died of AIDS in 1993 after contracting the disease from a blood transfusion, on the city's most symbolic and arguably its most beautiful street is an important counterpoint to Richmond's legacy of slavery and segregation, Wilder said. Wilder, who knew Ashe as a boy, was the nation's only elected black governor.
``Let's face it, Arthur is a Virginia hero,'' said his brother, Johnnie Ashe. ``And this is the avenue where Virginia and the city of Richmond depicts its heroes.''
The City Council and Richmond's black mayor are reconsidering the plan in light of complaints from black and white residents that Ashe would be out of place there.
Most residents of Monument Avenue, a tony neighborhood of Victorian mansions, said they do not object to honoring Ashe with a statue placed elsewhere.
``Our neighborhood has worked hard to maintain its historic character,'' Mary Lou Carr, a white resident of Monument Avenue, said at the forum.
Some blacks say it is unfair to Ashe's legacy of quiet but determined struggle for racial equality to install him near the Civil War gallery.
Harry Bradley suggested the statue of Ashe surrounded by children be placed near the State Capitol. Other black city residents suggested sites in Richmond's blighted downtown shopping district.
Whites generally downplay the racial issue, but say the statue of Ashe in a sweat suit is too modern and not in keeping with the ornate 19th-century art of the boulevard.
``The statue should not be in casual dress or modern style,'' Carr said.
But Michael P. Cummings Jr., who lives across the street from the proposed site, said he would be delighted to welcome Ashe to the neighborhood.
``The heroes on Monument Avenue whom I admire represent one of the bloodiest areas of Virginia's history,'' said Cummings, who is white. ``I can't see the need to preserve a warlike atmosphere just to keep the historic nature on Monument Avenue.''
The City Council chambers were packed for the evening meeting. The crowd included women in African-style dress and one man in full Confederate uniform.
``A hero is a hero whether he is a defeated Confederate soldier or a great humanitarian,'' said Shirley A. Jackson, who wore traditional African headdress to the podium. ``Mr. Ashe deserves to be on Monument Avenue because he's our hero.''
Thomas S. Adams said two of his sons were boyhood friends of Ashe, and he sided with the Ashe family.
``We have got to do something about this black and white thing,'' Adams said. ``It's driving us in a hole that we won't get out of.''
Ashe, the first black player to win Wimbledon, would be the only modern figure on a street born of the Southern romance with its complicated and racially divided past.
Stonewall Jackson is on horseback a few blocks away. Farther down the cobblestone boulevard stand Gens. J.E.B. Stuart and Lee. Lee sits atop a colossal stone pedestal in a circular park. Confederate President Jefferson Davis is depicted gesturing grandly toward Richmond's downtown, the home of the capitol of the Confederacy.
Saying the debate is giving Richmond a black eye, Mayor Leonidas Young proposed a last-minute compromise.
The Ashe statue would stand in a downtown park, near the tennis courts where Ashe could not play as a child in segregated Richmond. And in his place on Monument Avenue would be a memorial to all blacks, or perhaps to blacks who fought during the Civil War.
But backing off the Monument Avenue plan, which was approved by a city planning commission last month, would sanction a ``separate-but-equal'' policy for black and white heroes, Johnnie Ashe and others said.
``This is the site that was chosen. If we delay now, what are we saying to the city, and what are we saying to the world?'' asked Viola Baskerville, a member of the City Council.
by CNB