If, as we move from this horrendous 2020 into a more hopeful 2021, we are committed to racial justice, we must do more than state our support for Black Lives Matter and other groups standing for racial and social justice. We must find ways to serve that commitment with action. Keeping the menhaden net wheel where it currently stands on the main Lewes Historical Society campus rather than removing it (scheduled for Jan. 31) would be such an action.
There is a back story to the controversy around the wheel’s placement. On Nov. 23, the LHS received a letter from the City of Lewes notifying them that in order to place the wheel where it currently is, the LHS needed approval from HPARC. However, review of the zoning definitions indicates that such approval is not necessary, as this property does not have an (H) designation, a designation that means that approval for a project on a piece of property must be granted by HPARC. Thus, there was and is no legal requirement either for approval of that placement or for the removal of the wheel; nor was there a particular procedure that needed to be followed before it was brought to the campus.
Nor is the wheel’s placement a matter of favoritism. Putting it on the LHS main campus is an action that helps lift Black people to their rightful place in Lewes’ history. The sad irony is that we have to highlight the “Black” part of that history because it has never been recognized or celebrated the way white history has been. The wheel’s presence makes the story of Lewes’ history a truer and richer one.
The wheel is big, an extraordinary piece of wood design that aligns with the other wood structures on the campus. It had to be big, given the work it did. Standing inside of it, African American men walked to turn it, and sang as they walked. The turning of the wheel allowed the fishing nets to dry for the next day. As Tom Brown said in another article for the Cape Gazette, “The net reel is an historical monument to the physical labor of untold African Americans who formed the backbone of the menhaden fish industry. This was the economic engine that powered Lewes for over 50 years in the 20th century.” This was also a time when Black people earned enough to own property and build homes, another feature of more equal status with white people. Black people were vibrant members of Lewes society; Lewes had a Black mayor. Yet now, as Alicia Jones pointed out in her Nov. 19 letter, there are few Black people walking the streets of Lewes, and fewer yet who own homes in town. We all lose from this lack of diversity.
Black Lives Matter is a cry of outrage that Black lives have never mattered. Our national history and our community’s history are replete with evidence of that fact. 2021 should become the year when Black people are acknowledged as equal members of our society, when their contributions to our local and national history are celebrated as being as vital as those of white people, when they can live and work in any community with the dignity and respect afforded white people, when our actions, big and small, work against the soul-degrading racism that has hurt and continues to hurt all of us since our nation’s founding.
-
A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.
To submit a letter to the editor for publishing, send an email to newsroom@capegazette.com. Letters must be signed and include a telephone number and address for verification. Please keep letters to 500 words or fewer. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. Letters should be responsive to issues addressed in the Cape Gazette rather than content from other publications or media. Only one letter per author will be published every 30 days. Letters restating information and opinions already offered by the same author will not be used. Letters must focus on issues of general, local concern, not personalities or specific businesses.
