A.P. Hill Monument: The Last Man Standing

By Charles McGuigan 07.2020

When my son Charles attended Linwood Holton Elementary School, it always struck me as odd that his Black classmates, every single day, had to look at a statue to a man who fought to preserve the enslavement of Black people. It’s a particularly odd dichotomy when you consider the school was named after a progressive white governor who effectively ended massive resistance and the white supremacist legacy of segregation, while shattering the demon Byrd machine. By the way, Black students make up more than sixty percent of Holton’s student body.

Recently, the Hermitage Road Historic District Association (HRHDA) voted unanimously for the removal of the A.P. Hill monument, under which Hill is interred.

“Some of the members of the association brought up at a normal business meeting whether or not we should take a position on the monument because it’s actually located in the district,” says HRHDA president Bob Balster. “So I appointed a committee to look at the issues and they came back with the unanimous recommendation that we support the removal of it.” Shortly after that, the association held a Zoom meeting. “The vote was unanimous to remove the statue,” Bob says.

The removal of the unwanted monument will also rid the Northside of one of its worse intersections, the scene of many accidents. “We had talked about the removal before, sometimes in the context of the traffic hazard that the Hill monument posed,” says Bob. “You’ve probably heard about the problems there with that intersection. And with everything going on the way it is, it was time for us to take a positon on it. It was an issue whose time had come.”

So the association drafted the following letter on June 26:

“The Hermitage Road Historic District Association stands for justice and equality for all people. We are compelled to take action in support of this belief. Our Association and its Executive Board support the removal of the AP Hill Monument and the remains of General Hill interred therein.

“We concur with the Monument Avenue Preservation Society that “we have overlooked the inherent racism of these monuments” and their grandeur has blinded us “to the insult of glorifying men for their role in fighting to perpetuate the inhumanity of slavery.” If there is an assumption of past silence regarding the AP Hill Monument from our neighborhood as implied acceptance, we hope this statement and our future actions prove otherwise.

“We are asking that the Mayor and the City Council of Richmond create a plan to remove the monument and remains expeditiously. We understand the reinternment process may take more time, so we ask that the statue itself be removed as soon as possible.

“We look forward to being a part of creating a new vision for this intersection that serves as a gateway to our historic district and other Northside neighborhoods.”

And then on Independence Day, the Historic Brookland Park Collective sent out this letter:

“I’m sure that you’re aware of the change in the landscape of our city in the past few months. In these tumultuous times people are demanding change and are not waiting for the power elite to give it to them.

“Richmond being the former capital of the Confederacy is a place where systemic racism permeates the soil. The biggest example of that is the odes to white supremacy in the form of numerous Confederate statues covering our city’s landscape.

“That being said, we the Historic Brookland Park Collective are in full support of the Hermitage Road District Association’s efforts to remove the AP Hill Monument and the remains buried within it. Located at the intersection of Hermitage Road and Laburnum Ave, it is not only an eyesore but a traffic hazard that needs to be removed immediately. Our children are subjected to this racist imagery daily as they enter their school building.

“Please remove this homage to white supremacy immediately and give our city a real opportunity for the healing that we are so in need of at this time.”

For the time, though, things have been stalled. The same day the globe of the Matthew Fontaine Maury monument came down, and a statue of Joseph Bryan and a cross to Fitzhugh Lee were removed from Monroe Park, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley B. Cavedo granted an anonymous plaintiff’s request for a temporary injunction to prohibit the removal of any other Confederate monuments from city-owned property.  The only one remaining is A.P. Hill.

Back in June, Cavedo granted an injunction prohibiting Governor Ralph Northam from removing the Lee monument which is owned by the state. Cavedo, incidentally, resides in the Monument Avenue Historic District. 

There’s this, too, as reported by Brad Kutner for Courthouse News Services: Back in 1977, Cavedo, who attended University or Richmond, wrote an op-ed piece for the college paper. Caved wrote, “I will be leaving the solicitous paternalism of the federal courts, which among other things nearly wrecked my high school education by instituting a massive busing plan that caused more upheaval in my school and life than most people could imagine.”  Cavedo had attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond.

*It should be noted that A.P. Hill was originally buried in Hollywood Cemetery, among twenty-five other Confederate generals, which is where the monument that now stands in Northside was to have been placed. It was Major Lewis Ginter who spearheaded the move to relocate Hill’s remains. And Hill’s family members were none-too-thrilled with the idea. G. Powell Hill wrote: “I was not favorable to the second disturbance and removal of the General’s remains, and I believe such were the feelings of a majority of his surviving relatives, as we believe it was wholly unnecessary and furthermore, we think it would have been far more desirable had the monument been erected over the grave in the most beautiful God’s Acre in his native State, and where he has been sleeping for nearly a quarter of a century.”