No escape

Reminders of the past are abundant in Richmond. This cannon in the median strip on Monument Avenue is just east of the Jefferson Davis monument and marks the spot where a large earthwork for the inner line of defense of Richmond was constructed in 1861.

I can't think of many American cities other than Richmond -- with the exception, perhaps, of Washington -- where the past is still so much with us.

I think that's a good thing.

The constant reminders of Richmond's history keep us in touch with both the greatness of our past and our terrible mistakes. There are lessons to be learned from both, and knowing the differences today, perhaps even especially today, are important.

A visit to St. John's Church on Church Hill brings to mind in tangible form the important role Richmond played in the battle to separate ourselves from British rule. It's impossible to see the interior of this unimposing, yet charming, house of worship without imagining Patrick Henry and his "Give me liberty, or give me death" clarion call to the Virginia Convention in 1775, as he sought to persuade the Virginia House of Burgesses to deliver Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War. Among those who sat in the pews, listening, were Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

A drive down Richmond's (and perhaps the nation's) grandest residential boulevard, Monument Avenue, calls to mind vividly the South's tragic effort to dissolve the union that had been so dearly won almost a century before. When the avenue's monuments were erected, they resonated far differently than they do now. Today, a century or more later, we no longer celebrate the Lost Cause memories that comforted a defeated people. Instead, those magnificent statues of men such as Stuart, Davis, Jackson and Lee -- the latter being one of the finest works of public art on view anywhere -- remind us that times change and wrongs can be righted, that lost causes are not always considered by history to be noble causes, despite the mantle of nobility their proponents might then have worn.

The past is inescapable in odd ways here in Richmond. When I go to the grocery store on Brook Road, just north of the city's limits, I'm confronted by a carefully tended remnant of the breastworks that protected Richmond from Union General George B. McClellan's forces, bent on seizing the Confederate Capital.

This leftover bit of temporary fortification, now a mound covered by lush, green grass and evergreens, is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and stands in a parking lot in front of a Martin's Food Market. Yes, just imagine that for a moment, and you'll know what I mean when I talk about Richmond's unfailing history lessons.

Now, with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War upon us, the reminders are even more present. Just after Richmond fell, Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad visited Richmond's still smoldering ruins, on April 4 and 5, 1865. Among the stops he made were the White House of the Confederacy, the State Capitol and Libby Prison.

And, yes, there is a historical marker that offers details of Lincoln's tour.

And as if those monuments, buildings, and markers were not enough, word came yesterday that Steven Spielberg will film his biographical drama "Lincoln" in Richmond this fall. Based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the movie is expected to be released in 2012. Keep your eyes peeled and you might spot Academy Award-winning actors Daniel Day-Lewis (Abraham Lincoln) and Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln).

William Faulkner, the revered Southern writer, put it succinctly in his 1951 book "Requiem for a Nun." His character Temple Drake, who first appeared as a college student in his novel "Sanctuary," is now a grown woman with a child and is coming to grips with her own turbulent history. Faulkner wrote:

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."