Deborah Baker's "Charlottesville"

Deborah Baker is the author of A Blue Hand and The Last Englishmen. Her biography In Extremis was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and her book The Convert was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in New York and Charlottesville.

Baker applied the "Page 99 Test" to her latest book, Charlottesville: An American Story, with the following results:

Page 99 describes the January 16, 2017 Charlottesville City Council vote on the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a local park. Here is a paragraph describing the mayor's thinking at that moment.

Until [vice Mayor Wes Bellamy] brought up King's definition of the white moderate from his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Mayor Mike Signer felt certain he had persuaded him to keep the Lee statue in Lee Park. This was a measure of the high value he placed on his own thinking and powers of persuasion. Signer prided himself on his results-oriented approach to the statue question. He arrived that evening prepared to expound on this at great length. In his prefatory remarks, he took pains to express his own "abhorrence of slavery" and his desire to "create bridges rather than divisions." But what was the practical effect of moving the Less statue he asked, vis-a-vis advancing the cause of racial justice? Not seeing any material benefit, he concluded it was an empty political gesture. He voted no on removal, yes on contextualizing it and renaming the park.

Page 99 comes in the final chapter of Part 1 of my book, Charlottesville: An American Story. Part I is prefaced by the 1924 ceremony that accompanied the installation of the Lee statue in Lee Park. A reader opening page 99 would get a good idea of what the book was about and my style of reporting. What would be missed is my deeper dives into Virginia and Charlottesville's history; the Lee statue's installation ceremony, for example, was presided over by a prominent Klansman, who was also a Grand Commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Even before this city council meeting, the statue had become a subject of controversy. Neo-Confederate groups had staged rallies to defend it. The council had convened a Blue Ribbon Commission to study the question. When the commission's conclusions were less than conclusive, it was left to the city council to make the final call on its fate. That evening it wasn't yet clear how individual council members would vote. Council chambers were filled with people carrying signs, there was a woman in a hoop skirt who'd driven all the way from Maryland. Four days before Donald Trump's swearing in, emotions were running high.

It was the council's 3 to 2 vote to move the statue elsewhere that put Charlottesville in the nation's crosshairs. Only then did Richard Spencer, who had been milking his notoriety during the lead up to the election of Donald Trump, decide to make this local controversy a national flashpoint for his brand of white nationalism. Eight months later he and over one thousand white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klan members, far right internet trolls, podcasters, and influencers showed up in Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally. Before the day was over a neo-Nazi had driven a car into a crowd of counter protesters, killing Heather Heyer and critically injuring dozens of others.

Visit Deborah Baker's website.

Writers Read: Deborah Baker (December 2011).

--Marshal Zeringue