By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, February 15, 2006

A kind of Civil War reenactment is underway in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. A proposed statue of Frederick Douglass, the county's most famous native son, would be located near a Confederate memorial on the courthouse lawn. And to the dismay of some residents, the memorial to Douglass would be bigger.

Renowned sculptor Ed Dwight, at the request of a group of local activists known as Fred's Army, has come up with a preliminary design that takes up nearly a fifth of the courthouse lawn and would render the Confederate memorial little more than a pigeon perch by comparison.

Battle lines have been drawn.

"The policy adopted by the county is that any new statue would not exceed the proportions or dimensions of other statues," Philip C. Foster, a member of the Talbot County Council, told me. "And anyone who didn't die in a war would not be acknowledged as greater than those who did."

The Confederate memorial, 13 feet high and erected about 1913 in honor of "the Talbot Boys," is the only statue on the courthouse lawn. The cherubic-looking soldier holds a Confederate flag. The initials C.S.A., for Confederate States of America, are engraved on the pedestal.

Veterans groups and others have argued that the courthouse lawn is "hallowed ground" and should be reserved for war veterans. And they insist that race is not an issue, which, to a certain extent, is true. Fred's Army is racially mixed. And one or two black residents are said to have sided with those who oppose placing a statue of Douglass on the lawn.

But the notion that a memorial to an influential statesman and anti-slavery activist should be no greater than what is, in effect, a monument to slavery, is heavily freighted with race. And the objection that Douglass was not a war veteran discounts his role in the deadly struggle for racial equality.

"I don't concern myself with the Talbot Boys, except to say that if there can be a statue that represents what the Confederacy stood for, then we should be able to have a statue that represents what Douglass stood for," said Moonyene Jackson-Amis, a member of the City Council in Easton, the county seat, and a self-proclaimed "soldier" in Fred's Army.

The memorial would be a landscaped mini-plaza, about 35 feet long and 25 feet wide, with a border of bronze panels that depict various periods in Douglass's life. At the center would be a bronze statue of Douglass standing, on a pedestal, as high as the Confederate statue: 13 feet.

In 2004, the County Council voted 3 to 2 in favor of having a statue of Douglass at the courthouse. Foster cast the deciding vote. But his support is no longer assured.

Asked about Foster's concern that the proposed Douglass memorial might be too large, Jackson-Amis replied: "The only guideline we received was that the memorial could not be over 13 feet tall, no higher than the Confederate statue. We abided by that. Now they seem to be backpedaling."

There are numerous references to Douglass in Talbot County. If you drive along Route 303 in northeastern Talbot, you'll come to a marker noting the spot where he was born a slave on Feb. 14, 1818. A cabin used to be just off the road, but it's long gone. All that remains is a clump of trees.

During a recent Black History Month program in Easton, historian Bernard Demczuk told the audience that the absence of a monument to Douglass in Talbot was no accident.

"Black history was, essentially, 'disrecognized' in many rural areas," he said. "This phenomenon of the invisibility of black history is a Southern-styled, genteel form of white supremacy . . . as a legacy of slavery."

The Confederate memorial includes the names of Talbot residents who fought under the Stars and Bars even though Maryland remained in the Union. The first name on the list is Adm. Franklin Buchanan, a former commandant of the Washington Navy Yard, who defected to the Confederacy and fought for the South as a naval commander during the Battle of Mobile.

"He was a slave owner, a wealthy plantation owner, whose house is not far from here," Demczuk said. "Buchanan invited Jefferson Davis [the president of the Confederacy] to his plantation to recuperate after the Civil War. This guy was a major traitor, and to have his name at the top of a monument in Talbot County is an insult."

Not having a monument to Douglass even more so.

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com