Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 5, No.

3, September 2004 Routledge

l h f O

Symbolic accretion and commemoration

Owen J. Dwyer
Deparrment of Geography, Indiana University at Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN
46202-5140, USA

Controversy has erupted in Selnta, Alabama, over recent efforts to commemorate tbe career
of Natban Bedford forrest, a Confederate cavalry officer and founding member of tbe
original Ku Klux Klan. More generally, tbe controversy in Selma is emblematic of an
enduring regional pattern in wbicb contests over tbe future are coucbed in terms of tbe
past. Relative to otber media, tnonuments appear to be trustworthy and lasting. Despite
ibis appearance of bistorical consensus and stability, tbe city's public spaces are tbe product
of and conduit for ongoing politics. Tbe current conflict pits memorial activists associated
with the Civil Rigbts Movement against neo-Confederates. Interpreted in tbe context of
Selma's increasing promotion of Civil Rigbts heritage and the recent election of tbe city's
first African American mayor, the Forrest affair bigbti^hts tbe utility of tbe concept of
symbolic accretion for understanding tbe cotnpiexities of commemorating antagonistic
histories in tbe same place. Symbolic accretion describes the appending of commemorative
elements onto already existing memorials. The situation in Selma suggests two different
types of symbolic accretion, allied and antithetical. More generally, the act of commemor-
ation itself may be utiderstood as a process of accretion in that heretofore anonymous
spaces are formally recognized via tbe grafting of memorial elements.

Key words: race, memory, symbolic accretion, commemoration, place.

Historical memory... was not merely an entity al- Introduction

tered by the passage of time; it was the prize in a
struggle between rival versions of the past, a ques-
cion of will, of power, of persuasion. (Blight 1989:
1159)
The tangible past is altered mainly to make history
conform with memory. Memory not only conserves
the past but adjusts recall to present needs, instead
of remembering exactly what was, we tnake the past
intelligible in the light of present circumstance.
(Lowcnthal 1975: 21)
As observers of America's cultural scene have
noted, multicultural heritage tourism is one of
the travel industry's most vibrant sectors
(Paredes 1996). Among multicultural attrac-
tions, none are receiving more attention than
Civil Rights memorials {Auchmutey 1997; Lee
1998; Sack 1998). Beginning with Maya Lin's
Civil Rights Monument in Montgomery, Ala-
bama, 1990, no less than a dozen formal muse-
ums and monimients have been established to

ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/04/030419-17 2004 Tavlor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.10SO/1464936042()0()252S04
420 Otreji J. Dwyer
commemorate the Movement. In addition, hun-
dreds of streets, community centres and other
pieces of civic infrastructure have been drafted
into the cause of celebrating its memory (Alder-
man 2000; Dwyer 2000, 2002). Clustered in the
American South, the most significant sites trace
the history of the Movement from lunch coun-
ter sit-in protests in Greensboro, North Car-
olina, to the motel in Memphis where Martin
Luther King, Jr, was assassinated. Monumental
memory works have been undertaken in towns
and cities whose names are synonymous with
the struggle against white supremacy; Topeka,
Kansas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Oxford, Missis-
sippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Albany, Georgia;
and Orangehurg, South Carolina.
Alongside this veritable movement to re-
member the Movement, another, older, mem-
orial endeavour continues across the South.
Dedicated to preserving and, in some cases,
resuscitating the memory of rhe Confederacy,
this memorial effort is undergoing something
of a renaissance. While traditionally the do-
tnain of elites. Confederate memorializing has
undergone a democratic transformation over
the past forty years (Horowitz 1999; Warner
2001). Since the 1950s, working-class whites
opposed to integration have claimed the mem-
ory of the Confederacy, especially its battle
flag—a blue St Andrew's cross with a star for
each state of the Confederacy set against a red
field, the so-^called Stars and Bars—as a bul-
wark against what they interpret to be the
threat of racial integration. The shift in the
Confederacy's constituency and its new sense
of purpose is symbolized by the rising popular-
ity of the Confederate cavalry officer, Nathan
Bedford Forrest. A two-fisted slave trader and
land speculator, Forrest rose from the rank of
private to general during the course of the
American Civil War. Known to supporters as
the 'Wizard of the Saddle', and described by an
adversary as the 'Devil himself, Forrest's repu-
tation has grown at the expense of the man
who most embodied patrician sensibilities,
Robert E. Lee. Organizers of newer Confeder-
ate memorial groups, notably the League of the
South, see in Forrest the sort of rugged, self-
made man with whom latter-day Confederates
will identify. The shift, registered in terms of
new memorials, biographies and, most ubiqui-
tously, T-shirt sales, has been lamented by the
older, more established proponents of Confed-
erate memory as a vulgar corruption of their
cause. As a result, commemoration of the Con-
federacy, formerly an elite undertaking, now
has a decidedly proletarian, overtly racialized
edge to it.
Recent attempts in Selma, Alabama, to com-
memorate the failed defence of that city by
Forrest provide a case study of the complexities
of commemorating antagonistic histories in the
same place. The ensuing controversy over
Selma's memorial landscape can be interpreted
through the conceptual lens of symbolic accre-
tion. Originally put forward by Footc in his
landmark study of landscapes associated with
violence and tragedy, symbolic accretion refers
to the appending of commemorative elements
on to already existing memorials (Foote 1997:
231—232). Activists use symbolic accretion as a
strategy for burnishing the reputation of their
cause via proximity, both actual and metaphor-
ical, with an established memorial landscape.
Consider the manner in which court house
lawns commonly attract a plethora of memori-
als, all of them seeking to legitimate the cause
they represent via close association with the
seat of government. In turn, the courthouse
square remains the symbolic locus of the polis
as memorial activists pursue some measure of
recognition via tbe public lawn.
Likewise, Foote recounts the manner in
which veterans of the Vietnam War erected a
prisoner of war/missing in action (POW/MIA)
memorial on the grounds of a battlefield park

dedicated to the Texas Revolution. Describing
the memorial landscape at San Jacinto, Texas,
Foote writes, '[t]he sanctity of some of the sites
has been reinforced over the years by the con-
struction of additional monuments and memo-
rials ... In effect, the battlefield has become a
repository for other memorials that help to
reinforce its status as a meaningful place"
(1997: 231-232). By seeking legitimacy at rhe
existing monument, the Vietnam veterans reiu-
venate and reinvest meaning in the otherwise
distant example of the Texas revolutionaries.
In this case, public memory of the Texas Rev-
olution and Vietnam War veterans is mutually
reinforcing. The emplacement of tbe memorial
on the site has the effect of galvanizing the
POW/MIA cause with some measure of the
loyalty and bravery attributed to the long-dead
Texan revolutionaries—regardless of the fact
that the site has no historical connection to the
issue of missing Vietnam-era combatants.
Thus, something akin to a symbiotic relation-
ship exists between memorial places and con-
temporary memories-in-the-making as they
draw strength from one another.
Importantly, symbolic accretion is not lim-
ited to the appending of commemorative ele-
ments that are sympathetically reciprocal. In
some instances, the accretion can be antagon-
istic and insurgent, rubbing against the grain of
the common or dominant interpretation of the
memorial. While symbolic accretion is most
commonly employed to reciprocally augment
commemorative themes, there are instances in
which symbolic accretion is used to contradict
or otherwise disrupt a memorial via the ad-
dition of a counter-narrative. The much dis-
puted Liberty Monument in New Orleans
offers a case in point (Boulard 1993; Guillory
1993). Erected in 1891 to commemorate the
White League, a paramilitary organization that
spearheaded the drive to disenfranchise African
Americans in Reconstruction-era Louisiana, the
Symbolic accretion and commemoration 421
Liberty Monument was removed from the
city's main thoroughfare in 1989 under the
pretence of street repairs. Following protests by
an odd coalition of white supremacists and
historic preservationists, tbe monument was
re-erected but tbis time at a new, less promi-
nent location—sandwiched between a parking
lot and a commuter rail line. Importantly, the
re-dedicated monument included a new plaque,
une that calls into question rhe original inscrip-
tion on the monument by praising those who
died fighting the White League. In this case,
symbolic accretion promotes one cause by
dampening another, in the process suturing
competing versions of the past one to the other.
Thus, extending Foote's original concept, it
is possible to identify a politics of memory
associated with symbolic accretion, one in
which memorial elements interact with one
another in unexpected ways. The political con-
dition of these interactions lie along a contin-
uum whose extremes are marked by two
oppositionai moments of accretion: allied and
antithetical. Allied accretion (e.g. the POW/
MIA monument) enhances and confirms the
dominant discourses associated witb a mem-
orial whereas antithetical accretion (e.g. the
new Liberty Monument) is counter-intentional
and seeks to contradict or otherwise adjust the
conventional message of the monument. Com-
monly, antithetical accretion is used either in
conjunction with or as an alternative to the
outright removal of the memorial. In both
cases of symbolic accretion, activists seek to
further their position vis-ci-vis an established
memorial presence.
That said, whether an instance of symbolic
accretion is considered to be antithetical or
allied is itself a matter of politics as one reader-
ship's alliance may very well be another's an-
tithesis. Further, the term itself^—-symbolic
accretion—connotes a degree of rigid finality
that is not born out in practice. The sum of
422 Owen J. Dwyer
Figure 1 The intersection of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Street and Jefferson Davis
Avenue in Selma, Alabama is symbolic of the
struggles that ensue when commemorating an-
tagonistic histories in the same place.
these concerns emphasizes rhe point rhat the
Lmdscape is constantly open to reititcrprcta-
tion. As will be discussed below, symbolic ac-
cretion draws attention to the unsettled
condition of memory and the manner in whitjh
it can be cast and recast.
In Selma, symbolic accretion offers a timely
lens for understanding contemporary struggles
over commemorating the Civil Rights Move-
ment and the Civil War (Figure 1). In both
cases, comtnetnoration can be understood as an
attempt to impose a partial (in both senses of
the word) interpretation of past events on the
nietnorial landscape, in effect, trying to con-
dense and harden—to accrete—a layer of
meaning above all others. After discussing the
political condition of commemoration more
fully, I highlight the instances of symbolic ac-
cretion associated with the rise of Civil Rights
commemoration in Selma and the neo-Confed-
erate response. In accord with my hope that
this brief discussion will raise more questions
than it answers, I conclude by suggesting that
symbolic accretion is a central component of
the production of places more generally.
The politicized condition of commemor-
ation
Despite the widespread perception of monu-
tnents as faithful witnesses to the past, their
condition as memorial texts—one among many
media designed to facilitate remembering and
forgetting, e.g. holidays, books, parks,
plaques—renders their meaning susceptible to
change (Young 1993). As with other memorial
texts, monuments are political resources, laden
with authorial intentions, textual strategics and
readers' interpretations. Conceived of as dis-
cour.se made material—built environments that
embed and conduct meanings through their
representation of social identities—monuments
are shaped by and in turn influence the society
that produces them (Natter and Jones 1997).
The narrative content of monuments reflects
the types of archival materials that survive, the
intentions of their producers and contemporary
memory politics. In turn, through their sym-
bolic power and audiences, tnonuments play a
role in contemporary America's racial politics.
A sense of irony attends to these sires: while
their manifest purpose is to summarize and
synthesize into a coherent narrative the people,
places and events associated with the past, they
nevertheless facilitate the opening of future
chapters of struggle associated with the mean-
ing and significance of the 'past'.
One aspect of their politicized condition
stems from the common impression of monu-
ments as impartial records of past times and
places. In the case of monuments, their location
in public space, use of canonical media, and the
enormous amounts of financial and political
capital such installations require imbue them

with an air of civic authority and permanence
(Johnson 1995; Lowenthal 1975). Relative to
personal and corporate media {e.g. television,
books, films, music), public monument.s appear
to be a lasting and official record of the past,
above political bias and worthy of civic admir-
ation. Additionally, monuments constitute a
situation for everyday activity, accruing to
these representations the naturalizing power of
time and place. For monuments, their weighty
materiality and apparent permanence suggests
the possibility of annihilating the vagaries of
time with the enduring verities of place. Etched
in rock and steel, memorial activists cultivate
the appearance that the real and authentic past
is within reach. In the case of Civil War and
Civil Rights monuments, they are commonly
intended to present a mirror-quality image of
the world from which visitors may gather their
socio-spatial bearings. In contrast to the domi-
nant trend in contemporary public art to pro-
duce objects that embody self-reflexive inquiry,
monumental landscapes associated with these
two American epochs are commonly designed
to be unabashedly referential {Dwyer 2000).
With respect to the Civil Rights Movement,
consider Maya Lin's memorial in Montgomery
with its hypnotic recounting of the names and
dates of those slain in the Movement; likewise,
the literalism of statues and streets dedicated to
Martin Luther King, Jr, and finally the c-mpha-
sis more generally on plaques and markers to
highlight places in an 'historic' manner. Over-
all, these landscapes seek to present in tangible
form the past itself, not the processes through
which the *past' is produced {Figure 2).
Modernist criticism of referential monu-
ments decries them for presenting an unchang-
ing, static version of history at odds with
modernity's creative cycle of destruction and
rebirth (Mumford 1938; Nietzsche 1985). This
line of criticism charges that authorially rigid
representations result from an ineffectual and
Symbolic accretion and commemoration 423
morally bankrupt desire for stability through
the erection of facades and monuments rather
than confronting the promise of discontinuity,
rupture and change. In terms of Civil Rights
memorials and Confederate memorials this is
expressed in terms of the 'timeless' qualities of
loyalty and dedication to a cause—rather than
interrogating the production of these discourses
and the political commitments they imply.
Equally unsympathetic are critics who charge
that figural didacticism displaces the responsi-
bility of remembering from the living on to a
totem-like structure that does the work of
memory for them {Nora 1989). As one observer
noted, 'once we assign monumental form to
memory, we have to some degree divested our-
selves of the obligation to remember' (Young
1993: 5). For these critics, the production of
referential monuments raises the haunting
question of whether they serve the purpose of
remembering or forgetting. By necessity, how-
ever, monuments are implicated in the act of
forgetting. For some this is a matter of exercis-
ing the political will ro obscure or bury the
past. In other cases, forgetting is intrinsic to the
act of commemoration, inasmuch as a monu-
ment dis-embodies memory, dislodging it from
its context and focusing scarce attention on the
particular at the expense of the whole.
By imbuing monuments with an unchanging,
static quality, supporters and critics alike fail to
consider che circuitous basis through which a
monument's meanings are derived {Halbwachs
1980; Nora 1989). While authors may hope to
attach an essential meaning to a sign, memori-
als exhibit a remarkable plasticity of meaning:
their ability to 'escape history' renders them
susceptible to 'the full range of possible
significations' {Nora 1989: 2.^24). Mtmunients
have 'no referent in reality, or ruther they are
their own referent: pure, exclusively self-refer-
ential signs' {Nora 1989: 23). Possessing no
intrinsic meaning, a monument's significance—
424 Owen J. Dwyer

Figure 2 The Medgcr Evers memorial, on the grounds of the Mcdger Evers public library, off
Medgcr Evers Boulevard, in Jackson, Mississippi is representative of the common desire to present
the past as manifest.
and that of the events it putatively represents^— particular interpretation is endlessly deferred to
is produced intertextually, in the sense of a other texts, and contingent upon the multiple
hermeneutic circle in v/hich the basis for a interpretive canons chat readers bring to bear

on rhe scene (Duncan 1990; Duncan and Dun-
can 1988). In this sense, monuments do not
simply bear the impress of the past. By provid-
ing a means for its articulation, monuments are
implicated in the reproduction of a 'past' as
well. Rather than forming an inert backdrop
for the unfolding of historical tiarratives, mon-
uments are inextricably entwined in the pro-
duction of the past, not simply reflective of it.
They can be understood as signifying sys-
tems—processes of making meaning that arc
produced and reproduced rather than statically
cast once and for all. The result is the mutual
constitution of text and context (Jones and
Natter 1999; Natter and Jones 1997).
This perspective allows monuments to be
conceived of as in the process of becoming
instead of existing in a static, essentialized
state. Rather than possessing a fixed, estab-
lished meaning, monuments are momentarily
realized in a nexus of social relations as the
result of attempts to define the meaning of
representations, which nevertheless remain
open to dispute and change. As a result, monu-
ments can be usefully known in relation to
their connections with the ever-changing 'out-
side', instead of being understood solely in
terms of what is supposedly intrinsic and exclu-
sively of the text. Through these connections,
the individuality and the character of a monu-
ment is made known. The implication is that
monuments can be thought of in terms of their
connections, rather than vi-hat they contain.
Thus, what a monument 'contains' is its mul-
tiple and changing connections to an interwo-
ven web of other socio-spatial contexts
(Duncan and Duncan 1988; Massey 1993;
Schein 1997).
In line with this economy of meaning comes
an understanding that once erected the con-
dition of the monument as a representation
renders it susceptible to multiple, sometimes
conflicting interpretations. As they strive to set
Symbolic accretion and commemoration 425
out an authoritative rendering of the content
and meaning of the past, these monuments—
often ironically and unintentionally—create the
possibility of counter-transgressions (Cresswcll
1996; Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Insofar as they
put forward the understanding of the past,
monuments present different audiences with
the raw material for a new round of criticism
regarding the 'true' or 'real' content and mean-
ing of the past—and by implication the outline
ofthe future (Jones 2000). For instance, witness
the comments of a New Orleans civil rights
activist. Rev. Avery Alexander, who cam-
paigned against the Liberty Monument. In ref-
erence to the monument, he said:
It's Ithc Liberty Monument] like the Confederate
Hag. It's something that people who want to see a
return to the old days, a return to the Confederacy,
can rally around. But every time they do, they are
reminding us of the way things once were, of their
love for those old, old days. (Boulard 1993: 12)
The result of the authoritative visibility and
radical inipermancnce of meaning associated
with monuments dedicated to the Civil Rights
Movement or the Confederacy is that these
representations do not seal up and settle the
meaning of these eras as much as they open a
new chapter of struggle inextricably linked to
their memory.
Thus, monuments are targeted by activists
for symbolic accretion because these sites are at
once authoritative and yet susceptible to re-
writing and appropriation. Beneath the appear-
ance of historical consensus and stability
discussed above, monuments—and by impli-
cation the meaning and significance of the
events they represent—are the product of and
conduit for ongoing political debate (Foote
1997; Gillis 1994). From their inception, monu-
ments are designed and planned, with all of the
narrative choices and biases this entails, by
426 Owen J. Dwyer
those who have the time, resources and, most
iniporiaiuly, the state mandate to define the
past. Their role as authoritative arbiters of the
past links them to the city, hringing into ques-
tion their place in urhan redevelopment, real
estate speculation and gentrification plans asso-
ciated with the entrepreneurial city and its
selective appropriation of history (Hall and
Hubhard 1996; Harvey 1989; Roberts and
Schein 1993). As part of the growing heritage
tourism industry, the history represented at
memorial landscapes has heen tailored to ac-
commodate a broad range of interest levels
(Lowenthal 1998). Their reliance on state fund-
ing and corporate largess makes them funher
susceptible to influence. Monuments 'do not
arise as if by natural law to celehrate the
deserving; they are built by people with
sufficient power to marshal (or impose) public
consent for their erection' (Savage 1994: 135).
That they are laden with interests, both served
and denied, is exemplified by recent happenings
in Selma, Alabama.
Selma's changing memorial landscape
Selma's traditional memorial landscape resem-
bles that of many small cities across the South.
Crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named
after a local Confederate hero and US senator,
rhe defunct cotton warehouses along the river-
front give way to a downtown shopping district
that has remained healthy and viable in the
absence of an interstate connection. Along oak-
lined streets, many of the city's remaining ante-
bellum homes have been restored as quaint inns
boasting extensive gardens and traditional
hospitality. The contrast between the derelict
riverfront and the well-groomed bed-and-
hreakfast district bespeaks the importance of
tourism for this city. Not surprisingly, the local
cemetery includes a Confederate memorial cir-
cle while across town the remains of a Confed-
erate munitions factory are on display. It was
the munitions factory that attracted the atten-
tion of Sherman's army on its infamous march
to the sea. The resulting three-hour skirmish,
referred to by local boosters as the 'Battle of
Selma', is annually commemorated by the local
Kiwanis Club. Taking place over the course of
a week, the event features an encampment of
Union and Confederate re-enactors, a mock
battle and an evening ball in period garb. Im-
portantly, African American participation in
these events is minimal, limited to the bussing
of school children to the battlefield to observe
the mock soldiers on parade.
Set amid this traditional context of war and
whiteness, the opening of the National Voting
Rights Museum in 1992 marked a radical break
with the past (Jackson 1997). The museum
commemorates the citizens who demanded
their voting rights during the late 1950s and
1960s. Their activities culminated in the Voting
Rights March from Selma to Montgomery in
1965 and the passage three months later of the
landmark Voting Rights Act (Chestnut and
Cass 1990; National Park Service 1991;
Williams 1988). The Voting Rights museum
arose out of the efforts of local activists who
were troubled that school students were not
aware of the voting rights pioneers living in
their midst (Bland 1998; Sanders 1997). Further,
the local schools and history museum offered
scant information about the Civil Rights Move-
ment more generally. In response, the activists
created a museum that celebrates this local
history and seeks to make a positive impact in
the lives of youth (Benn 1991; Jackson 1997;
Sanders 1997).
The museum has a decidedly vernacular air
to it, the result of a largely volunteer staff and
folk exhibits that feature, for example, plaster
cast imprints of marchers' feet and partici-
pants' recollections scrawled on 'post-it' notes.

Additionally, the museum offers a guided driv-
ing tour of Selnia. The tour highlights borh the
past and present condition of African Ameri-
cans in Selma. Guides make it a point to take
tour groups to one of several black-owned
restaurants in town and, if time allows, encour-
age participants to stay overnight in Selma.
The overall impressiion is of a small-town mu-
seum that valorizes local knowledge associated
with the past and future of the voting rights
struggle.
ln promoting the museum, memorial ac-
tivists used symbolic accretion to commemor-
ate the Movement's presence on and through
Selma's memorial landscape. Appropriately,
the Voting Rights Museum is housed in an old
cotton warehouse near the foot of the Pettus
Bridge, enshrined as the site of the 'Bloody
Sunday' police riot. Drawing on the building's
history and the heritage of share cropping in
the area, the museum's motto reads, 'The
hands that picked cotton can pick presidents'.
Around the corner from the museum is the
Dallas County Courthouse to which demon-
strators marched in an effort to register for the
vote. Nearby, plaques and story boards along
King Street introduce visitors to the role played
in the Movement by local churches and the
George Washington Carver housing project.
The proximity of the Voting Rights Museum to
these three sites constitutes a subtle instance of
allied accretion. Memorial activists have ap-
pended their version of events on to the popu-
lar but heretofore informal memorial landscape
associated with the Movement. Traces of anti-
thetical accretion are present as well via the
quiet confrontation between the museum and
bridge's allusions to Confederate veteran Ed-
mund Pettus. in tandem with the powerful
juxtaposition presented in the museum's motto,
this antithetical accretion increases the sym-
bolic gravity of the museum's site. In all of
these instances of symbolic accretion, the loca-
Symbolic accretion and commemoration 427
tion of the museum serves as a subtle device to
lay claim to the memorial landscape. No small
measure of the museum's success is due to the
way it has fixed the signs and symbols of the
Movement on to a landscape otherwise domi-
nated by a heritage of whiteness.
Although the museum has its critics—some
have called it divisive and alleged the improper
use of state funds—its impact on the city's
economy has not gone unnoticed (Benn 1996;
Richardson 1997; Williamson 1999). Assessing
the economic impact of the museum, local
chamber of commerce president Jamie Wallace
described Civil Rights tourism as the single
most important 'product' that the city has to
offer (Wallace 2001). In fact, tax receipts asso-
ciated from tourism have become the city's
largest source of income and the museum is the
major factor in this growth (Cothran 1999).
For instance, a comparison of lodging tax re-
ceipts shows a considerable change since the
museum opened its doors. During 1997, the city
collected $230,000 in lodging taxes compared
to slightly less than $87,000 ten years earlier
(Benn 1995). When measured for the fiscal year
1997-98, lodging taxes increased 52 per cent
over the previous fiscal year (Alabama Depart-
ment of Revenue 1998). While visitor brochures
present the city as a centre of both Civil War
and Civil Rights tourism, the museum draws
the majority of visitors to Selma (Crossroads
Visitor Information Center 1998).
The Forrest affair
It would be inaccurate, however, to conclude
that the Civil Rights Movement dominates
Selma's memorial landscape or has somehow
removed all vestiges of traditional Southern
history. In fact, as discussed in the introduc-
tion, neo-Confederate memorial activists have
been very busy (Leib 1995; Webster and Leib-
428 Owen j . Dwyer
2001). Primary among them has been the
League of the South, a nationalist organization
with the avowed goal of reconstituting the
Southern Confederacy. Among its poUtical ac-
tivities, the League promotes a theological in-
terpretation of the US Civil War, casting the
Confederacy and its members as Christian war-
riors who fought valiantly against the secular,
capitalist North—a position that is gaining in
popularity among nco-Confederate groups
(Sebesta and Hague 2002).
In Selma, Civil Rights and Civil War com-
memoration demonstrate an uncomfortable
symmetry with advances in one seemingly
prompting advances in the other, and with
instances of accretion occurring regularly. The
recent controversy surrounding the Forrest
monument is a case in point. Unveiled in Octo-
ber 2000, the bronze bust of Forrest sits atop a
five-ton granite base inscribed with milestones
from his military career and sundry Confeder-
ate insignia, among them a colour reproduction
of the battle Hag (Figure 3). Erected by a group
calling themselves the 'Friends of Forrest',
some of whose members are active in the
League of the South, the monument was placed
on the grounds of a city-owned antebellum
house museum—in the midst of a predomi-
nantly African American neighbourhood. In
accreting their monument on to the grounds of
the antebellum museum, the Friends of Forrest
stressed the historical connection between For-
rest and the house, noting that it served as a
military hospital during the Civil War. Resi-
dents of the area, however, objected to the
placement of the monument on public property
in the middle of their neighbourhood. Addi-
tionally, opponents criticized the omission of
any reference to Forrest's pre-War career as a
slave trader, his command role during the War-
time massacre of black Union troops and his
post-War association with the Ku Klux Klan
(KKK).
Funds for the monument were privately
raised—notably with little involvement from
the older, more established Confederate mem-
orial groups, i.e. the United Daughters of the
Confederacy (Wallace 2001). The dedication
ceremony included prayers and speeches by
members of the League of the South and other
nco-Confederate groups. The tenor of tbe
meeting is suggested by the comment of a city
policeman assigned to the event's security de-
tail who described it for the local paper as 'a
Klan meeting without the hoods' (quoted in
Gettleman 2000).
Significantly, the monument was erected only
a week after Selma's first black mayor, James
Perkins, Jr, bested the city's previous mayor of
thircy-six years, Joe Sniitherman. Like his
political mentor George Wallace, the late gov-
ernor of Alabama, Smitberman was a political
survivor. Coming into office a few months
before the Voting Rights March in 1965,
Sniitherman opposed the Movement. In the
wake of its victory, however, he adjusted with
the times and managed to stay in office in a
black majority city. The stark contrast between
Smitherman's defeat—attributed to his
advanced age and the militant opposition of
local civil rights oi^anizers to an unprecedented
tenth term—and the Forrest commemoration
attracted national attention. The media
presented the twinned events—Smitherman's
defeat and the subsequent emplacement of
the Forrest monument in the midst of an
African American neighbourhood—as evidence
that the more things changed in Selma,
the more they stayed the same. A local
resident, quoted in the New York Times,
echoed the media's portrayal of the situation:
*You lose control of your city government
and a week later you put up a statue to a
Confederate general? How Southern. These
heritage guys are basically saying what a lot of
people around here feel: The fight goes on.
 Symbolic accretion and commemoration 429

Figure 3 The monument to General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA, after being relocated to the
city cemetery. Old Live Oak in Selma, Alabama.
430 Owen } . Dtvyer
The war never really ends' (quoted in Gettle-
man 2000).
Energized by Perkins' mayoral victory, the
city's civil rights community rallied against the
Forrest monument. They were divided, how-
ever, as to how to remedy the situation. Some
argued for antithetical accretion via a plaque or
mural in the style of the Liberty Monument
that would disclose Forrest's role in oppressmg
African Americans. Their intent was to under-
mine the narrow interpretation of Forrest by
bringing the monument into close proximity
with a powerful counter-narrative that ex-
plicitly raised the issue of racial oppression.
Those in favour of antithetical accretion be-
lieved that placing Forrest in a broader context
would effectively expand the narrower in-
terpretation of his career. Other opponents of
the monument, however, were more concerned
with its placement on public property in a
black neighbourhood. They favoured the out-
right removal tif the monument to the ceme-
tery's Confederate memorial. In so doing, they
sought to confine commemoration of the Con-
federacy to the city cemetery, in effect opting
for allied accretion at a location already
identified with the Lost Cause.
The Friends of Forrest countered that the
location of the monument on public property-
had been approved by Smitherman two years
earlier—albeit without any input from the ma-
jority black city council. Further, they argued
that the racial composition of the surrounding
neighbourhood was irrelevant—in the process
implying that raising the issue of race was
divisive. They defended the monument's focus
on Forrest's military career as a matter of
choice and noted that he had voluntarily re-
signed from the KKK—albeit in anticipation of
a federal law making membership illegal. This
narrow focus on Forrest's military exploits cor-
responds to the claim by neo-Confederates
more generally that their cause is one of 'heri-
tage not hate'. In keeping with this rhetorical
position, Forrest was presented as a military
hero who defended the Southland against in-
vaders—a focus that sought to place his role in
oppressing African Americans beyond consider-
ation. Finally, they argued that the placement
of the monument at a former field hospital and
antebellum home was a more appropriate place
tor a war monument than a cemetery (DeMo-
nia 2001). Importantly, the house museum of-
fered an opportunity for allied accretion. Given
the confrontational bearing of Forrest aligning
his monument with the genteel ambiance of the
house museum offered activists a way to deflect
attention away from less savoury aspects of
Forrest's career and the implicit challenge his
monument posed to the African American
neighbourhood.
Four months of long and contentious meet-
ings of the city council ensued against a back-
drop of protests, counter-protests, vandalism
and a failed attempt to topple the monument
(Pressley 2000c). A committee formed to study
the issue recommended moving the monument
inside the antebellum house museum and
adding a plaque with a fuller account of For-
rest's career (Associated Press 2001). The rec-
ommendation satisfied neither party.
Opponents of the monument, while eager to
discuss Forrest's role in the KKK, continued to
call for the outright removal of the monument
to the cemetery (Pressley 2001). Supporters
claimed that it was 'intolerant' to insist that the
monument be moved and fought any attempt
to discuss Forrest's association with the KKK
(Pressiey 2000a, 2000b). In the wake of the
polarizing debate, and under subtle pressure
from Seima's business community to bring the
fracas to an end, city council rejected the pro-
posal to amend tbe monument and removed it
to the Confederate memorial at the city ceme-
tery, essentially opting for aUied accretion be-
tween the cemetery and the memories

associated with Forrest (Benn 2001). Pre-
dictably, the matter is now the subject of sev-
eral lawsuits. One of them, filed by the Friends
of Forrest, alleges discrimination on the part of
tbe city (Barnes 2001a). In response, the city
filed a counter-suit to cover tbe legal expenses
of defending itself (Barnes 2001b). Importantly,
however., what emerges from events in Selma is
a sense that while commemoration is marked
by a spirit of deliberate construction, tbe mem-
orial landscape remains duplicitous (Daniels
1989).
Conclusion
As a commemorative strategy, symbolic accre-
tion highlights the reciprocal condition of place
and memory. A host of scholars have persua-
sively argued tbat memory and meaning are
necessary conditions for the formation of
places (Bell 1997; Cresswell 1996; de Certeau
1984; Price 2000; Tuan 1977; Young 1993).
There can, in effect, be no memory-less places
since tbe process of producing a place requires
that a portion of space must be imbued with
meaning, however trivial it may be. Likewise, a
primary condition of enduring collective mem-
ories is the linkage of meaning with place
(Halbwachs 1980; Koonz 1994; Nora 1989).
One result of tbe mutually reinforcing con-
dition of place and memory is that all places
are memorials of a kind—in order to be
known, tbey must be memory-laden. This point
is exemplified by the monument at tbe Fayette
County Courthouse in Lexington, Kentucky,
that commemorates another Confederate cav-
alry officer, John Hunt Morgan. Here, mem-
orial activists—the United Daughters of tbe
Confederacy—sought to align their cause(s)—
remembrance of the Confederacy, white
supremacy, among others—with tbe cultural
autbority of the courthouse lawn. The result is
Symbolic accretion and commemoration 431
that symbolic accretion describes a process in
which memorial agents attempt to simul-
taneously promote some meanings and sup-
press others in a landscape that is literally
awash in memory. In Lexington, among the
narratives obscured by the focus on masculine,
white nobility is the fact tbat tbis lawn played
bost to the city's antebellum slave market, a
distinction that remains as of yet uncommenio-
rated on tbese grounds. By emphasizing the
constructed condition of memory—that com-
memoration is characterized by attempts to
condense and harden a layer of meaning above
all others—symbolic accretion calls attention
to the primal .struggle between remembering
and forgetting.
The memorial situation in Selma suggests
that all places are always already memorials of
a sort and that commemoration is fundamen-
tally a process of augmenting or disrupting
discourses associated witb a scene. The act of
commemoration can be understood as a type of
symbolic accretion whereby narratives are ar-
ticulated on and through a place, at once pro-
moting and dampening competing memorial
discourses. Symbolic accretion formalizes mem-
ory inasmuch as it calls attention to some
portion of tbe narratives associated with a
place. Heretofore anonymous or private land-
scapes are formally commemorated when
memorial elements are accreted on to them.
For instance, when .seeking to establish a for-
mal presence on Selma's memorial landscape.
Civil Rights activists changed the names of
streets and added plaques co Movement-related
buildings. In so doing, these activists accreted
the visible trappings of their cause to already
established landscape elements. Likewise, the
Forrest affair demonstrates tbe manner in
which neo-Confederates in Selma have at-
tempted to accrete their interpretation of the
past beyond tbe traditional bounds of the city
cemetery. While these efforts have failed thus
432 Owen f. Dwyer
far, Selma's memorial landscape is full of po-
tential sites for the formal linkage of place and
memory via symbolic accretion.
In the course of these struggles over Selma's
memorial landscape, some moments of the past
are favoured and others arc obscured but, as
recent events demonstrate, none are completely
erased or transcendent. As a heuristic for con-
sidering the production of memory, symbolic
accretion recognizes tbe ironic condition of
memorials. On the one hand, they are weighty
artifacts that appear to encase bistory authori-
tatively. On tbe other, the unhinged condition
of their meaning renders rhem fundamentally
indeterminate. It is tbis contrast between tbe
permanent and the fleeting that gives memori-
als their political value. Tbey at once bold out
the contradictory promise of remembering bis-
tory wbile in practice providing little mort tban
scant refuge from an onslaught of ongoing
interpretation.
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Abstract translations
Vaccrition symbolique et la commemor-
ation
Une controverse a fait eruption a Selma en
Alabama au sujet dc la campagne mence
derniert'ment pour commemorer la carrierc de
Nathan Bedford Forrest. Il fut un officier de la
cavalerie des forces confederees pendant la
Guerre de Secession et un membre fondateur
du premier Ku Klux Klan. D'une maniere gen-
erale, la controverse de Selma est emblematique
d'une situation regionale qui a evolue suivant
une forme selon laquelle les debats sur I'avenir
s'expriment en des termes relatifs au passe.
Compares aux autres moyens, les monuments
semblent plus porter confiance et etre durables.
Malgre ce semblanc d'un consensus et d'une
Constance historiques, les espaces publics de
cette ville sont Ic produit et le conduit des
questions politiques en cours. Le conflit actuel
met aux prises les militants en faveur d'un
monument commemoratif lie au mouvenient de
la defense des droits civils des minorites contre
les neo-confedcres. Compris dans le contexte
oil la promotion d'une tradition des droits
civils des minorites s'elargit a Selma et ou le
premier maire Afro-americain a etc recemment
elu, I'affaire Forrest met en relief l'utilite du
concept de l'accretion symbolique dans la com-
prehension des enjeux entourant la commemor-
ation d'episodes historiques antagonistes qui se
sont deroulees dans un meme lieu. L'accretion
symbolique decrit I'addition d'clements com-
memoratifs sur des monuments qui existent
deja. 11 semble que deux varietes d'accretion
symbolique coexistent ^ Selma, Tune alliee ct
l'autre antithetique. Plus generalement encore,
l'acte de commemorer peut etre un processus
d'accretion en soi, compte tenu que des espaces
prealablement anonymes sont reconnus
formellement en y greffant des elements com-
memoratifs.
Mots-clefs: souvenir, accretion symbolique,
commemoration, lieu.
Acrecidn simbdlica y conmemoracidn
Hay controversia en Selma, Alabama sobre los
recientes esfuerzos a conmemorar la carrera de
Nathan Bedford Forest, un oficial de caballeria
Confederado y socio fundador de! Ku Klux
Klan originario. En terminos generales la con-
troversia en Selma es emblematica de un mod-
elo regional duradero en que contlictos sobre el
futuro se expresan en terminos del pasado. En
comparacion con otros medios, los monumcn-
tos parecen ser fieles y duraderos. A pesar de
esta apariencia dc consenso y estabilidad his-
toricos, los espacios publicos de la cuidad son
producto de, y conducro para, la politica en
curso. En el conflicto actual los activistas de
memoriales asociados con el Movimiento de
Derechos Civiles se ven enfrentados a los neo-

Confederados. Interpretado en el contexto de la
creciente promocion del patrimonio de Dere
chos Civiles y la eleccion redente del primer
alcalde americano africano que ha cenido la
ciudad, el asunto Forrest destaca la utilidad del
concepto de acrecion simbolica para mejor en-
tender las complejidades de conmemorar histo-
rias antagonisticas en el mismo lugar. Acrecion
simbolica significa agregar elementos conineni-
orativos a memoriales ya existcntes. La situa-
Symbolic accretion and commemoration 435
cion en Selma sugiere dos tipos de acreci6n
simbolica distintos; aliada y antitetica. En t6r-
minos generates, el mismo acto de conmemorar
piiede ser entendido como un proceso de acre-
cion en el sentido de que espacios, hasta aliora
an6nimos Hegan a ser reconocidos formalmente
por el injerto de elementos memoriales.
Palabras claves: memoria, acrecion simb6lica,
conmemoracion, lugar.