nlicari in Washington DC

From the outer structure to the inner sanctuary of the Supreme Court we find the nine justices seating behind the columns of antiquity. (At least we see their chairs!) Equal Justice Under The Law predominates every architectural structure that pursues that notion. It is an attempt to physically visualize what the internal values of a nation reflect.

The notion of Equal Justice Under the Law predominates the overriding values the Founders of our nation attempted to ingrain within. The structure of the Supreme Court reflects that notion derived from antiquity and is seen in the Greek and Roman revivalist structure.

nlicari in Washington DC

One of the scales of justice in front of the Supreme Court introduces the concept of Justice and Equality before the law. It is a fitting example of what how the architecture reflects the concept of the Supreme Court.

Searching for the Mayor of Castro Street; or, a Monument of One’s Own

But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction—what has that got to do with a room of one’s own? I will try to explain.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

But, you may say, we asked you to speak about national monuments and American identity—what has that got to do with the Mayor of Castro Street, Harvey Milk? I will try to explain.

Washington, DC, Monday, July 27, 2:00 pm

I've been assigned to blog about the Library of Congress, the first historical site that we will visit during our four-day expedition to the nation’s capital to study the complex relationship between place, memory, and citizenship. What are the facts about this cavernous repository of books, a repository so vast that both the gorgeous late-nineteenth-century Jefferson building that has housed its impressive collection beginning in 1897 and the John Adams building that was added in 1938 were no longer sufficient to accommodate its ever-expanding holdings? I won’t really be able to answer that question today, however, since our first meeting takes place in the map room of the Library’s most recently acquired, but architecturally unimpressive, James Madison building. We’re here to study early plans for the District of Columbia. I stop feeling disappointed by the exterior of the structure and instead become absorbed by L’Enfant’s vision of this new city—an absorption that is heightened by a lecture on the history of a swamp that became the seat of American government and of multiple marches on the city by wide-ranging groups of the marginalized, the disenfranchised demanding that their voices be heard, demanding their right to equality and participation in the democratic process.

Washington, DC, July 27, 9:00 pm

Although I have been to Washington many times since my first visit in the early 1980s, I have seen the Lincoln Memorial only from a distance, so I am excited about finally climbing the steps to the sculpture of a President who has been immortalized in history books for preserving the Union and for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. I’m not expecting the well-spring of emotions that are churned up by the magnificence and majesty of the work of art itself and, perhaps more importantly, by the man it commemorates, a man whose name is synonymous with equality and freedom. I look up at him looking down at me and feel nothing but reverence. This reaction starts me thinking about emancipation, about equality, about freedom, and I realize that I have mapped onto a man, a sculpture, and a place—all of which have figured prominently in the ongoing struggle of African-Americans to achieve equality—the story of my own quest for liberation and equity. At the top of the stairway, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. These words have been carved into a stone right in front of my feet. I have a dream, too. I hope that I will live to see on the Washington Mall not just the Lincoln Memorial and the massive sculpture of King that is in the making, but a monument to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who, like Pres. Lincoln and Dr. King, was assassinated by a man with hatred in his heart.


Washington, DC, July 27, 11:00 pm

I don’t realize as I stand here gazing at the Washington Monument and at the cupola of the Capital that this hope will shape the rest of my week in DC. But by the time I get back home late Thursday night, I will know what I’ve been seeking, but haven’t yet been able to find: a monument that says to America, “I am a part of your history, too. Yes, me. Me, a man, who had the courage to love other men in a time and place when love like ‘that’ was for most Americans still unspeakable, when that love still seemed like just cause for murder.” A monument that says to America, “We all matter. We all must be remembered. We must remember all. Not just me, but everyone who has lived and died in the name of emancipation, equality, and freedom. Chief Joseph and Susan B. Anthony and César Chávez and K. Patrick Okura and others.” A monument that lets me say to America, “Hey, I’m here. I was here. And when I’m gone, I’ll still be here. Carved in this statue of ‘The Mayor of Castro Street’ is my story, too. And the stories of generations of men and women who like him, like me, believe in a world in which everyone is truly free.” I know now what I’m seeking and in my lifetime still would love to find: a monument to Harvey Milk, a monument of my own.

Reflections...

After discussing the blog with Carolyn, we decided it would be inappropriate for us to edit the blog. We found the comments to be quite personal and to tamper with that would diminish the authenticity of the blog. For us, the blog is more of an ongoing dialogue among teachers than a published website with interesting facts that we can share with our students. It could potentially be used as an example, but it would have to become something else if we wanted it to be a resource for students.

Things that were useful from the blog that we can use in the classroom were the initial requirements that were labeled on the site: 1. The essential question 2. Asking for the historical context of the assigned monuments with accompanying visuals and 3. Reflecting on each other's work.

One suggestion for improvement would be requiring students to reflect on the day of the actual visit in order to have a more immediate/ fresh response. After conducting some research I came across these helpful suggestions... (below, is a modified version of what I found)

1. Decide the Main Use for Your Blog and be clear about its purpose

2. How you structure classroom blogs depends on its utility. Here are various approaches:

a. Classroom management: Use a blog to post assignments, handouts, and notices. You can also put up study notes and have students take turns summarizing what happened in school that day.

b. Learning journal: uses individual or small-group blogs as a place for students to "write reflectively" on what they learned from a particular assignment and how they might do better next time.

c. Class discussion: set up a single blog for the whole class. You may post entries for discussion, or have individual students and guest bloggers post entries.

d. Use blogs to post homework for traditional evaluation but with the added component that students must choose a follow classmate's entry and compose their response to what they have read.

In all cases, it will be important to decide in advance how the work will be graded.

We are interested in hearing your feedback in order to better implement this tool with our students. Please post a comment.

Thanks!
Cindy

protests

I've had time to think about the purpose and audience for the protests held every day in the nation's capital. A few of us went tot he White House and oiutside were various people, not really groups who wnated their voices heard. Some more frivolous than others. It made me think of two kinds of protests in Washington-those large, massive marches of King, the singing of Marion Anderson as supported by Eleanor Roosevelt, and of ocurse the Vietnam protests( two of which I attended). Then I saw this past wkeek the smaller protests in front of the Whiter House and Supreme Court-on some ways more intimate and less likely to be seen or heard by those in power. The White House protesters seemed to want the President to take notice while the larger, more well known protests, seem more for the nation as a whole. The smaller groups seemed more of education for those who would stop and question or read their posters (convincing us one by one).Sharon

From the Arlington Experience

PHOTO - http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/laosmem.htm

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞Interesting Twist: A Secret Army∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Remembering Persons Who Fought a "Secret War"

Something I Had Not Known

The U.S., as a major world military power in the 20th century, has often conducted "secret" missions and "secret", or"proxy", wars in faraway places. Some efforts were successful but had bad consequences for innocents (the local populations), as in the case of Chile in 1973, when the U.S. government interfered with the rightful sovereignty and democratic processes of the socialist but freely-elected Salvador Allende government, making the way for August Pinochet and his right wing thugs. (To get a moral whiff of the political rot and societal repression resulting from the extremely active Nixon-Kissinger supported Allende overthrow, see the excellent film called "MISSING" with Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, and John Shea).

In terms of regionally, indigenously political strife and perhaps on a more brave-sacrifice scale, however, is a story of secret fighting against communist North Vietnamese forces in Laos over a dozen years, by the Hmong and Lao groups of combat soldiers, - supported by JFK, LBJ, and finally Nixon - starting in 1961 and lasting to at least 1973. (Thousands of Lao people have since made their homes in the U.S.) It remains in some ways, a story still untold to the American public, but the INFO is out there. It is likely a story filled with courage on all sides. (Real history will tell us that adversaries have their own true heroes, too). That said, of course, everyone knows by now that the overall U.S. policy in Southeast Asia from the late 50s to the late 70s was still a great big flop.

The fighting effort by Hmong and Lao forces against communist North Vietnamese forces is officially acknowledged by a memorial stone formally placed in Arlington by the U.S. government in 1997 and its plaque reads - in part:
"In Memory of the Hmong and Lao Combat Veterans and Their American Advisors Who Served Freedom's Cause..."

Go to the Following Web Address for More Interesting Details about the SECRET ARMY that is Memorialized at ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY:

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/laosmem.htm

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Some more on Arlington

Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia is a military cemetery in the United States, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a descendant of Martha Washington. Roughly 320,000 people are buried in the cemetery, which is still active. According to the National Park Service rangers, casualties and veterans from each American conflict, from the American Revolution to the present day wars, have been interred at Arlington.

The first soldier to be buried in Arlington was Private William Henry Christman of Pennsylvania on May 13, 1864. Although Christman’s grave reads #19, he was the first to have his grave finished on the first day of interment when dozens of soldiers were laid to rest.

The cemetery is administered by the Army. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) and its grounds are administered by the National Park Service as a memorial to Lee.
When Robert E. Lee turned down command of the Union armies and instead took command of the Confederate forces, many Union soldiers and commanders considered Lee a traitor. His property across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. was prime real estate to capture and was easily taken. In order to spite Lee, Union officials demanded that to keep the property, he would personally need to come to Washington to pay taxes. When, for obvious reasons, he did not, Lee’s property was confiscated permanently. To further spite Lee, the Union turned his land in to a cemetery for the Union dead.

While the cemetery has always been a place of reverence, it’s beginnings are clearly tainted by the veil of revenge that the U.S. government had for Lee. But Arlington’s entire nature has been duplicitous, as it has been home to a segregated African American section; was actually home to thousand of Freedman’s Bureau freed slaves after the war; has Confederate, foreign, and any thousands of nameless soldiers buried in it; and other seemingly incompatible features about it. (see the Arlington National Cemetery website for more information [Click this link])

The list of those who are eligible to be buried in Arlington is extremely long and can be found here at Wikipedia. Interestingly, because of the eligibility of Timothy McVeigh to be buried in Arlington, Congress has since passed laws prohibiting those convicted of both state and federal capital crimes, those serving life sentences, and those who flee their conviction of such crimes.

An interesting note about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. While remains were first interred here in 1921, the Marble tomb we see above ground today was not put in to place until 1932. The Tomb contains remains from WWI, WWII, and Korea, but no longer contains remains from the Vietnam war, as DNA technology allowed for these remains to be identified and no new remains from the Vietnam war have been placed there. The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, the oldest active regiment in the U.S. military and known as “The Old Guard” stands watch over the Tomb 24-hours a day, while also conducting funerary services at Arlington. More information on the history of the 3rd Regiment can be found here on Wikipedia as well as here on the Arlington National Cemetery site.

The meaning of Arlington has certainly changed over time and changes to this day with the personal beliefs of the person being asked. Some see it as a solemn remembrance of those who died for their country; others see it as a living example of the hypocritical nature of the American government’s actions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; still others see Arlington as both a living memorial to fallen heroes, great and small while also being a testament to both current and future citizens to be wary of war. Arlington is one of the few sites in D.C. which can have so much duplicity and an changing nature based solely on one’s own viewpoint as well as evolving its meaning over time based on current and past American actions. Take this phrase in contrast to the Library of Congress, which is and always shall be an institution of learning and knowledge. While Arlington’s purpose has not changed, the light Americans view it in has evolved and will continue to do so. Arlington will mean different things to different generations, these meanings being constantly in flux, as well as opposition to one another.

Online Resources:

Arlington House - http://www.nps.gov/arho/

Arlington National Cemetery, Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_national_cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery Historical Information, U.S. Government site - http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/historical_information/index.html

The Old Guard, Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_United_States_Infantry_Regiment_(TOG)

The Old Guard, U.S. Gov't site - http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/ceremonies/old_guard.html

Arlington tribute site - http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/

The Capitol as a Symbol both Inside and Out

The fateful deal between Hamilton and Jefferson to made make what is now know as Washington D.C. the Federal City set the wheels in motion to create a Congressional building that would serve a symbol of the new Republic. The architectural history of the building, as spelled out above, is a multi layered and as complicated at the city itself. About 6 designers and 6 presidents oversaw the construction of this building, designed to express the new political and social order of the day.

The outside of the Capitol is not the only feature that symbolizes the countries national identity. Inside, visitors and congressmen alike can witness the interpretations of American history through art. Most notable, the Apotheosis of Washington, atop the inside of the rotunda by Constantino Brumidi in the 1850's, deifies Washington as the nations first president. Brumidi also began the frieze of U.S. History that lies just below the rotunda that highlights historical events in U.S. history chronologically. This frieze was originally intended to be carved stonework. However, Brumidi convinced Congress he could complete it faster and cheaper if he painted it to look like stone. Look closely. Does is look like stone to you? Two other artists went on to finish where the other artists left off to complete this frieze. These works as well as others include American flora and fauna to immortalize the people, events and landscape of America.

Both inside and Out, the Capitol Building expresses the new Republic as defined by our founding fathers and offers itself a visual manifestation of the political history and challenges since the beginning of our Nations Capitol.