The Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau unveiled a website Wednesday to promote the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and Emancipation.
Speaking to reporters outside of the American Civil War Center at the site of Tredegar Ironworks, RMCVB President Jack Berry said the website, http://www.ontorichmond.com, will serve as a guide for the throngs of tourists they expect to descend upon Richmond’s historic sites beginning in 2011.
“We know that, historically, 10 percent of our visitors come to Virginia specifically to experience our Civil War history. We expect that, with these major anniversaries beginning next year, the proportion of visitors interested in the Richmond region will increase considerably,” Berry said.
Together with the American Civil War Center and the National Parks Service, the visitors bureau has designated the Tredegar site as the starting place for tourists to begin their exploration of the various sites throughout the area.
David Ruth, superintendent for the Richmond National Battlefield Park, said that after documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’s Civil War series was released, there was a surge in visits to sites across the country. He said that the park service was caught off guard then but that this time they are prepared.
“We were really unprepared for what Ken Burns did for the Civil War then. We will have the same kind of reaction with this anniversary, but this time we are ready. People will come here by the thousands,” Ruth said.
Sorry, but it is not going to happen in the Richmond Metro Area. The City is too racially divided for any positive promotion of the Civil War. The usual suspects will object to effort to promote the South as a tourist attraction.
Hurry up and build the slave museum and finish the slave trail and then you can promote them together. As long as both sides are presented it may cut back on the strife.
Rather then have lectures from historians, which I find interesting and informative, but a lot of non-history majors find passe’, I think the right idea is to have some rein-actors take “center stage” as it were to promote history in a living form. As a side note are any of you going to see Hal Halbrook as Mark Twain? He looks exactly like him at this point. I already have my tickets! Anyway, It looks like from the website promoting these historic events that there will be some of that on the slave trail and at some of the battlefields. I would take it a step further. Instead of saying, ‘Take this walk that Lincoln took through Richmond.’ Have a rein-actor as Lincoln and have him take the walk through Richmond. Give people a chance to experience it with a real person instead of trying to envision it for themselves. Go to the Stuart Lee house and have a rein-actor dressed as R.E. Lee like in that famous photograph that was taken there, in front of the door. Give people a chance to ask questions or hear words from, “R.E.Lee” Maybe even set up JEB Stuart rein-actor in that old house across the street from the police station on Grace Street, and put him “mortally wounded” in a bed. Have him be reflective on the war and his role. I mean some of these ideas may be controversial but does everything have to be so politically charged? Isn’t it better we remember and recognize then keep arguing? Look slavery happened, the war happened, no one is around who started it or served in it. We are descended from these people. We’re all Americans. We’re all Richmonders. This is apart of our collective consciousness. Thank you. Support Civil War Preservation Trust.