In Mathews County’s November 2021 referendum, 3,782 (80.06%) voted against relocating the Confederate Memorial that has stood next to the Historic Courthouse since 1912. At the April 26, 2022 Board of Supervisors meeting, there was a motion to authorize a survey to delineate the land under the Memorial to be transferred to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The local paper, the Gloucester Mathews Gazette Journal, mistakenly printed a headline that read, “Mathews board approves ownership transfer of monument.” To their credit, unlike larger papers that don’t acknowledge errors, the Gazette Journal reprinted the edition to say, “Mathews board approves survey of Court Green, intends to convey ownership of land under monument.”
Unfortunately, whether due to lack of time or space, the newspaper omitted the details of a bigger story — the Board’s openness to hearing and responding to the perspective of the African-American community expressed by Supervisor Melissa Mason, as well as their intent to offer a second plot of land for an African American memorial.
Before acting on a motion to authorize the survey, Chairman Paul Hudgins suggested that while they were “doing the deeding” of the piece of land that’s under the monument, that the Board also should consider another spot on the Courthouse Green, if Supervisor Melissa Mason could find a group interested in putting up an African-American monument or memorial as he had discussed with her. Continue reading