A Greek-revival style mansion sits on top of a steep hill at Arlington Cemetery, overlooking the graves of those who have represented the U.S. in military uniform and their loved ones. In front of the Arlington House on Oct. 7, visitors stood below a waving American flag as they looked beyond the hill to observe the nation’s capital.
Stephen Hammond frequently walks the grounds of Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial. Hammond, whose ancestors were enslaved at Arlington House in the 1800s, according to the National Park Service, has been advocating for redesignation of the memorial since 2020. He wants it to better represent all of those who lived at the historic site.
“I care so much about this,” Hammond said. “I care about raising up my ancestors. You know, my personal goals are to speak their names, are to give agency to the fact that I’m here. I wouldn’t be here without them.”
Hammond said he wants to educate and inspire healing from history in addition to mending relationships harmed by it. He sees Arlington House as a place where descendants of those who were enslaved at the house can come together to share a more complete narrative.
Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia introduced a bill to change the name of the memorial to Arlington House National Historic Site in 2020 and continues to advocate for it today. Legislators and descendants who support the redesignation believe the new name will better reflect the history of the enslaved people who once resided at the site, but some opponents say a name change is unnecessary.
Beyer introduced the bill during the 116th Congress — a time when the country was reexamining public symbols, particularly Confederate memorials, Beyer said in an email sent to AWOL. The bill aims to shift the focus from honoring the confederate general to commemorating the individuals who were enslaved at Arlington Cemetery.
Beyer, D-Va., and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., announced on June 22, 2023, they would reintroduce the bill as it did not pass in 2020, according to a press release from Beyer. Virginia Democrat Reps. Bobby Scott, Gerry Connolly, Abigail Spanberger, Jennifer Wexton, Jennifer McClellan and Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton co-sponsored the bill.
“Beyer and Kaine’s updated legislation would identify and repeal statutes that memorialized Lee and add a formal historic site designation to the name, making it ‘the Arlington House National Historic Site,’’ the press release said.
But not everyone supports the effort. Gary Young, a U.S. military veteran, said he visits the memorial almost every day and thinks the name should stay the same.
“You can’t change history by erasing it and pretending it didn’t exist,” Young said.
The history
When Arlington National Cemetery officially became a national cemetery on June 15, 1864, it was 200 acres. Today, it spans 639 acres and is the burial site for approximately 400,000 veterans and their eligible dependents, according to the cemetery’s website. Before the cemetery existed, at least 100 enslaved African Americans lived on the site, according to the National Park Service website – the piece of history that redesignation supporters feel is being forgotten by the current name.
The history starts in 1778 when John Parke Custis purchased 1,100 acres of northern Virginian land. Between 1802 and 1818, African American enslaved people constructed Arlington House after John Park Custis’ son, George Washington Park Custis, inherited the property in 1802, according to the cemetery’s website. After his death, his only child, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, inherited the property and 196 enslaved people with her husband, Robert E. Lee. Lee was the commander of the Confederate Army during the Civil War.
When Virginia seceded from the U.S. in May 1861, the Lees left the estate and the U.S. Army began occupying the site. The federal government officially confiscated the estate in 1864 because Lee had failed to pay taxes in-person, according to the cemetery website.
In 1863, the federal government designated the southern part of the Arlington estate as Freedman’s Village, a community of over 1,500 previously enslaved people as the land had once been a plantation operated by some of them, according to the cemetery’s website. The federal government established many settlements like this one during the Civil War. The village had a hospital, two churches, schools and an elderly home and it was a space for the previously enslaved people to live and farm.
In 1900, the government closed the village and converted the land into what is now known as Arlington National Cemetery, which is run by the National Park Service, according to the cemetery’s website.
Designating the memorial
In 1925, long before the initiative for redesignation, former President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill officially designating Arlington House as a national memorial to Lee, according to the NPCA website. The 1925 bill says Lee is “one of the great military leaders of history, whose exalted character, noble life, and eminent services are recognized and esteemed.” In 1955, 30 years after the original designation, Congress passed a joint resolution that renamed the home to the Custis-Lee mansion.
In 1972, Congress renamed the mansion from the Custis-Lee mansion to Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial.
Fifty-two years later, Hammond said renaming the site would commemorate all of the people who contributed to its creation and upkeep before 1900. He said Lee is not the whole story.
“Robert E. Lee has a space in which he resigned from the U.S. Army in this house,” Hammond said. “He left the house. He helped to raise seven kids, but there are dozens of other people who helped to care for the Lees, who worked in this space, who actually are related to the Lees that we believe deserve agency, and this site should reflect that in its name.”
The park service cannot rename the site to Arlington National Historical Site, according to the National Parks Conservation Association website. Since Congress originally established the name, only Congress has the authority to make changes.
Lobbying for change
Although not a descendant himself, Andy McLeod volunteers for the Arlington House Family Circle. The group also consists of three descendants of those enslaved at the estate and three Lee-Custis descendants. The seven lobbied Virginia representatives to pass the original bill in 2020, McLeod said.
“I love telling people that we have Robert E. Lee V among our cadre — the direct descendant of Robert E. Lee, saying, ‘This is a miscarriage. This should be rectified,’” McLeod said.
Hammond, who is part of the Family Circle, agrees with McLeod that it was important that members of the Lee family also supported the redesignation.
“We felt that it was extremely important to hear that from the Lees, because they felt that they never asked for their ancestor to be acknowledged in this way,” Hammond said. “So, therefore, their voice is just as important as those who are descendants of the enslaved.”
McLeod said people have focused on things other than redesignation this year because of the election. As advocates for the legislation, McLeod said members of the Family Circle want to be pragmatic and push it in a constructive way.
McLeod said he is confident Beyer, the Virginia representative who introduced the bill, will continue to push the bill forward in the 119th Congress, which begins in January.
“The slate is wiped completely clean,” he said. “We will inherit all of those co-sponsors we’ve been amassing, but a lot of assumptions and roadblocks that exist today may not in January.”
He said it’s possible the bill will get passed in the next Congress.
“This is a great issue to document one’s vision about inclusiveness and good history and to some extent, righting wrongs of the past,” McLeod said. “And so, if done well and in detail, this is a great issue that can benefit members of Congress who want to associate themselves with it.”
Support for redesignation
As of October 2024, 4,818 people have signed a petition to redesignate the Robert E. Lee Memorial at Arlington House.
Last June, Edward Stierli, the mid-Atlantic senior regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, wrote a letter to Beyer on behalf of the NPCA to support redesignation, saying it will increase representative narratives of history.
“Removing Lee’s name will make the site more inclusive and further recognize the intertwined lives of the estate’s white and Black families,” Stierli said in the letter.
During a three-year rehabilitation, the park service engaged with six families of descendents of the enslaved, restored artifacts and uncovered new artifacts, Stierli said in the letter. Since reopening in June 2021, visitors have experienced exhibits that highlight the fuller history of the house and slavery’s impacts, according to Stierli’s letter.
Now, the NPCA is looking to move the redesignation bill forward, Stierli said in an interview. He said he thinks more members of Congress need to visit Arlington House to see what the space represents.
“We are not trying to remove Robert E. Lee from history,” Stierli said. “We are just trying to tell the rest of the story, in addition to Robert E. Lee, at this site.”
Beyer told AWOL in an email that support for the bill has grown tremendously since he first introduced it. According to Congress’ website, 150 representatives have signed on to the 2020 bill as co-sponsors.
Beyer and McLeod said a new Congress is likely needed for the redesignation to happen, though. Stierli said more needs to be done to expand Congressional support, and Congress should have already redesignated Arlington House.
“[Arlington House] is in the heart of our nation’s capitol,” Stierli said. “And it’s past time, I think, to make sure that we’re naming things correctly.”
Learning from the past
The exhibits at Arlington House contribute to the museum experience at the site. According to Melanie Bullock, American University’s director for the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement, museums are able to share narratives in a way that other spaces don’t. She said the name of a building, statue, monument or site holds great power.
“It’s the stories, it’s the legacies, it’s the history behind that particular name that speaks volumes beyond just what the actual monument may be, or the building may be, so on and so forth,” Bullock said.
She said renaming something can help people ask questions about that name.
“I think there’s great excitement, too, because in the replacement of the name, you’re opening a door to a story that has probably been hidden, or a story that has not been told, and an opportunity for that story to live in the history books, or take place in history books that decided a long time ago they didn’t belong there,” Bullock said.
Bullock said a name can be crucial in defining the importance of something. Chris Stroud, a park ranger at Arlington House, said visitors get value out of historic places like the house.
“And that’s radically different for every person who comes here because, if you’re a 6-year-old coming to Arlington House, you have a very radically different experience than if you’re here with your family or just stumble upon it because you’re here in Arlington National Cemetery,” Stroud said.
Beyer said in his email he hopes visitors will know Arlington House not just for Robert E. Lee, but for the Syphax family, the Custis family, Freedman’s Village, the national cemetery and all those with lived experiences there.
“History is the story we tell our grandchildren and memorials reflect what we value,” Beyer said. “We need to be sure that we are setting up our children and grandchildren to understand our complicated history accurately so that we can learn from the mistakes and lessons of the past.”
This article was originally published in Issue 35 of AWOL’s magazine on November 19, 2024. You can see the rest of the issue here.
