Richmond and the Olympic Torch, 1996

As the Summer Games kick off in Tokyo, let’s turn our attention to Richmond’s own Olympic history. Are you surprised that Richmond has an Olympic history? It does! In 1996, the Olympic torch passed through and even spent the night here, on its way to Atlanta. If that doesn’t seem very noteworthy, let us illuminate the significance of the event.

First, the choice of Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Games was controversial. To be blunt, many considered Atlanta to be a second-tier city unworthy of the prestigious event. Compounding that, Atlanta (like other southern cities) had not overcome its reputation as an epicenter for injustice: slavery, followed by segregation, followed by racial violence during the Civil Rights Movement. That long history, which included the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War, was hard for many Americans to forget. For detractors, Atlanta did not represent the “American ideals” that should be presented to the world. For supporters of the Atlanta Games, however, the Olympics offered the perfect opportunity to showcase a new and reformed American South, which they believe had overcome this painful history. No doubt, this historic rehabilitation was on the minds of many Southerners, not just Georgians. So when the Olympic torch arrived in Richmond on June 21, 1996, citizens rallied in support, enthusiasm, and optimism.

The “Mother Torch” had left Athens, Greece, on April 27, aboard a Delta flight to Los Angeles. They were granted special permission for the airborne flame, which burned inside a brass lantern, inside a bronze canister, while affixed to the wall of the plane. From Los Angeles, the Olympic flame began its 15,000-mile, 84-day journey to Atlanta. The fire was carried by hand by 10,000 torch bearers, who made their individual half-mile journeys to light the next torch in line.  Some walked, some ran, others rode bikes or wheelchairs or motorcycles. Every night, the Mother Flame stayed in a hotel room with two police officers: one slept, while the other kept watch to make sure the flame never went out.

The actual torches—17,700 of them—weighed three pounds and were outfitted with dual burners that could withstand rain and 45mph winds. The lit torches were further protected by a motorcade of Georgia State Troopers, Olympic Committee vehicles, and many sponsor cars, including a fleet of Coca-Cola trucks and trailers, stocked to sell to thirsty spectators along the epic journey across the country. This was, after all, the first Olympics to rely almost exclusively on corporate sponsors. The Georgia State Troopers rode in $33,000 BMWs that were painted like the $18,000 Crown Victorias they normally drove.

The torch entered Richmond via Monument Avenue on the night of June 21. Around 9:45pm, it passed one of the major symbols of our “reformed” southern city: the Arthur Ashe, Jr. Monument, which was to be unveiled in just a couple weeks.

In all, 24 locals moved the torch through Richmond. Thousands lined the dark streets to watch the procession. At 10:30pm, Judy Henry, a cancer survivor and mother of five relayed the torch to Tredegar, where approximately 15,000 spectators cheered her on as she lit the cauldron and kicked off a gala. Among the flags of 100 nations, live music, food carts and living gold-painted statues, the party went on late into the night and turned out to be much larger than anyone expected.

The Torch Is Coming! The Torch Is Coming!, 1996 Handbill, V.96.75.01, The Valentine.

Newspaper accounts and interviews about the Olympic event here alluded to optimism, unity and joy. Kids freely confessed to reporters that they had skipped school to follow the torch, others that they had skipped work. Clearly, Richmonders glimpsed hope in the Olympic torch’s brief stay here. But by 10am the next morning, it had moved on to Petersburg.

On July 19, the flame arrived in Atlanta. There, Muhammad Ali received the final torch and lit the cauldron to open the 1996 Summer Games. Thus, the city devastated by fire in 1864 hoped for rebirth through a different kind of fire. The Reformed South was now in full public view. And Ali, near the end of the games, was given a replacement gold medal for the boxing gold he had won at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Decades earlier, Ali claimed to have thrown his original medal in the Ohio River, after being refused service at a Louisville restaurant. Though some doubted the story, the medal had definitely been lost and it seemed fitting for him to reclaim his lost gold in the Reformed South.

But now we need to backtrack back to Richmond, to the glorious few hours when the Olympic torch illuminated our streets and so many felt inspired. This would be a poor history indeed if we stuck to the pre-approved parade route down Monument Avenue. Because in 1996, when the torch came through, Richmond was in a terrible state. Not since the Civil War had our city been so devastated. For twenty years, the population had been plummeting, mainly due to white flight in response to desegregation and busing. By 1990, Richmond had lost over 50,000 residents. It is likely that the majority of those 15,000 spectators who welcomed the Olympic flame at Tredegar did not live in Richmond at all.

As tax dollars, jobs, businesses and middle-class families fled to the suburbs, the city’s population then dwindled even more, for the loss of these things. Decades of racist housing policies added fuel to the fire. It was a death spiral of factors that mostly left only those who could not leave: mainly poor Black Richmonders, with little public support and even fewer opportunities to help themselves in the empty city. The poverty and desperation became the substrate from which a crack epidemic exploded. The homicide rate reached triple digits in 1988. In 1994, 160 people were murdered here. The crack epidemic ravaged our neighborhoods and though it bore a striking resemblance to today’s opioid epidemic, there were two main differences: the victims of crack were largely Black; and the crisis was considered one of crime, not public health. With that, there was little help for addiction, mostly just jail. The desperation and criminality created its own death spiral, and it was not uncommon to hear automatic gunfire on the residential streets of Church Hill.

“Blacks Mobilizing Against Crime” on Venable Street, November 18, 1989, Don Pennell, V.91.04.700, Richmond Times-Dispatch Collection, The Valentine.

So that is the city through which the Olympic torch passed in the summer of 1996. People no doubt felt afraid as they crowded along Richmond streets at night to see the historic flame, as they walked back to their cars late after the gala ended. When they spoke vaguely of “bad news” and “recent events,” they were actually speaking of the rampant crime. Despite the belief of many in a Reformed South and despite hopes that the Atlanta games might spark that belief into reality, Richmond’s problems were still very much rooted in racial injustice and would only get worse. The next year, 1997, Richmond would have the highest per-capita murder rate in the country. Clearly, the problem could not be solved with mere symbolism—not a torch or a monument. And though meaningful progress has come, and the idea of a Reformed Richmond does seem more tangible today, there is still so much more to do. That lesson on the limits of symbolism still applies.

 

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James Monroe and the Era of Good Feelings

In our current climate of fierce partisanship, it is difficult to imagine an America without political parties. Looking back, our nation has nearly always been deeply divided in two, despite the warnings of George Washington himself, who loathed political parties. There was, however, a time our nation’s history when there were no political parties. Or, more accurately, there was but one party because the other party had spectacularly imploded. After the close of the War of 1812, that’s exactly what happened to the Federalist Party. Without their sworn foes to battle, the Democratic-Republicans were given the keys to the nation.

This curious time coincided with the two terms of President James Monroe, a Virginian who won the presidency in a landslide. Monroe, in his 1817 inaugural address, declared that “discord does not belong in our system.” He then claimed that his main goal as president would be to foster “harmony among Americans.” He believed this harmony depended on the extinction of all political parties. Monroe began his term with a goodwill tour of the country, spreading the message of unity and cooperation. Perhaps after decades of ugly partisanship and the War of 1812, for which Monroe had negotiated peace, the nation was simply too tired for more conflict. Whatever the reason, he was a hit nearly everywhere. Even in Boston, the Federalist citadel, he was greeted by thousands of rose-waving children, dressed in white. Once-powerful Federalist leaders who would not have stepped into the same room with Monroe before attended the banquet in his honor. The Columbian Centinel, a staunch Federalist newspaper, ran the headline that would come to define the Monroe Presidency: “Era of Good Feelings.”

James Monroe, undated, Vertical Files, the Valentine.

Of course, it’s easy to feel good once your side has triumphed over all opposition. And even easier to call a system in which your party rules unopposed a “partyless” utopia. Monroe had himself been involved in violent partisanship that nearly brought him and Alexander Hamilton (Federalist Foe #1) to a duel in 1797. But Monroe was a skilled politician—he had been a member of the Continental Congress, our U.S. senator, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, a diplomat, and Governor of Virginia— who could embrace the contradictions and sell them to skeptics. His optimism and kind personality were infectious. He completely ignored any remaining self-identifying “Federalists” and went about an ambitious agenda of national expansion, while checking the ever-looming threats of colonial European powers.

It goes without saying that The Era of Good Feelings was misery for many in America. The acquisition of Florida and settlement in western territories endangered the lives and sovereignty of Indian tribes. Slavery was the foundation of the national economy. Monroe claimed to be an abolitionist, though he owned approximately 250 enslaved people in his lifetime. To be clear, he insisted on gradual emancipation… so gradual that he only freed one person, at the end of his life. But even as conflicts over slavery grew, the Era provided a solution meant to please: the Missouri Compromise. With it, the balance of free and slave states would be preserved in Congress. The law merely staved off the larger issue, which would only fester as the nation expanded its borders. The Missouri Compromise, like Monroe’s personal views on slavery, was a way of having it both ways. At least politically, the good feelings held for those who could cast a ballot. Monroe ran virtually unopposed for reelection, in 1820. He lost only one electoral vote.

President Monroe is most remembered for the Monroe Doctrine, which he delivered in 1823. As America engaged in eternal power struggles with European superpowers and as countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean declared their independence from those same powers, Monroe declared that any further interference from Europe in the Western Hemisphere would be considered a threat to the United States. This demand for national sovereignty was a powerful rebuke of colonialism, though it was also convenient to eliminate those serious competitors in land conquest. Yet again, good feelings are easy once you’ve wiped out the serious competition. The logic of the Monroe Doctrine did not apply to America itself, as it waged the First Seminole War and as westward expansion infringed on the lands of Indigenous nations. 

The Era of Good Feelings ran on the fumes of a conflict-weary populace, eager to have it both ways. Monroe embodied that desire when claiming that one-party rule was partyless rule; when arguing that emancipation should move at a glacial pace; and in criticizing colonialism while adopting its tactics. Having it both ways does feel good because it delays the hard decision-making of good governance. The illusion could not last long and did not endure past Monroe’s second term. The 1824 “partyless” election was an electoral debacle. By the 1828 election, two new parties, the National Republican Party and the Democratic Party, had returned us to the two-party system. Over the next 30 years, the issue of slavery acquired the partisan urgency, passion, and rage that had initially defined the Federalist/Democratic-Republican rift over federal power. Some issues are too big and too important for compromise. By 1856, America was so divided that many feared Civil War.

That year, in a seemingly desperate ploy to heal the splitting nation, the Governor of New York wrote to Virginia’s Governor, Henry Wise. In the letter, he offered to exhume the body of James Monroe (he had died 27 years earlier, in New York City) and repatriate his remains to Virginia on the 100th anniversary of Monroe’s birth. This conciliatory gesture in the face of rising North/South tensions was readily accepted by Governor Wise, who secured funding for the ensuing spectacle: the Era of Good Feelings would be resurrected.

Monroe’s Casket Arrives in Richmond, July 1858, V.45.28.128, Hibbs Collection, The Valentine

On July 2, 1858, Monroe was dug up, his coffin placed into a new coffin, and his body was escorted in a lavish parade to spend the night under guard in New York’s City Hall. The next morning, the steamer Jamestown arrived with a delegation of Virginia dignitaries. The entire party, including New York’s Governor and his 7th Regiment, accompanied the corpse down the eastern seaboard. Monroe rode in the gentlemen’s room on the upper deck, elaborately draped with black and white muslin. The steamer arrived in Richmond in the early morning hours of July 5. Governor Wise, military regiments, and a large, cheering civilian crowd were already at the wharf to greet their Northern neighbors and their beloved Virginia statesman.

James Monroe was reinterred at Hollywood Cemetery on July 5, 1858. Richmonder Albert Lybrock won a contest to design his tomb, which the Dispatch called a “gothic temple,” and which has been recently restored to its original appearance. At the new, open grave, both governors delivered speeches on national unity. Afterwards, the delegations and military attachments from Virginia and New York celebrated aboard the Jamestown. The Era of Dug Up Good Feelings lasted well into the night. It was a great party and the entire affair was deemed a diplomatic success for both the North and the South, even if, in a spooky turn, Alexander Hamilton’s grandson fell overboard and drowned. Even if, in three years, the two sides would be at war. 

Tomb of James Monroe, Painted by Oswald Heinrich, 1858, V.65.16.05, The Valentine.

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