Monument to black patriots dedicated in Charles City

A granite monument engraved with the names of 26 black patriots from Charles City County who fought in the American Revolution was unveiled during a Jan. 27 dedication in the cemetery of Elam Baptist Church in Ruthville.

The Virginia Sons of the American Revolution conducted the ceremony. Elam, founded in 1810, is the third oldest black church in Virginia.

Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania gathered with church members and local dignitaries to pay tribute to the long-neglected heroes.

Virginia SAR president Joseph W. Dooley quoted actress Whoopi Goldberg who said, “Call me a jerk, call me a blowhard, but don’t call me an African-American.”

Dooley noted that Goldberg said she was not an African but a regular American from New York. She also said there should be no such divisions; all are Americans.

Dooley mentioned the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote in the introduction to William Cooper Nell’s book on black patriots that these men “fought for a land that enslaved them.”

Dooley also spoke of historian Benjamin Quarles whose research revealed there were at least 20,000 black patriots in the revolution’s army. He pointed out that in the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, seated in front of the general is a black man.

Blacks, he said, were not just slaves but farmers, merchants, and freedom fighters. Failure to honor all Americans who fought is failure to honor any of them, he said.

Bana Caskey, Virginia state regent of the DAR, said it shouldn’t matter whether patriots were black or white, only that they fought. She invited female descendants of the black patriots to join the DAR.

Bruce Wilcox, president general of the National Society SAR, paid tribute to the slaves and free blacks that joined militia units during the American Revolution. He said the SAR has for decades welcomed blacks into the organization, and that research has shown blacks were descended from white patriots and whites from black patriots.

The ceremony was a beginning, after more than 200 years, of the recognition of all colors of men whose blood has been spilled for the freedom of this land.

Submitted by Frances Broaddus Crutchfield