Fairfax City Adopts New Seal Minus Confederate Soldier, British Lord

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Fairfax City Council voted unanimously during a Tuesday night public hearing to adopt a new city seal. The new seal replaces one containing depictions of a Confederate soldier and a British lord with no direct connection to the city.

The new seal features the image of Fairfax City Hall in a blue, white and yellow triangle shape, surrounded by six white dogwood flowers and the words "City of Fairfax Virginia." A white banner with the motto "Fare Fac," which means "Speak do," sits below the city hall image. Below that is the date 1805, signifying the founding of the Town of Providence that would become the town and later the City of Fairfax.

Fairfax City resident Douglas Schauss, who was the only person to speak at Tuesday's public hearing, told the council he wasn't sure why the city seal needed to be changed.

"I don't think that it would be wise to try to change history here in the city," he said. "The seal means something. It means that we're proud of the city, as far as I feel, and that erasing the two figures on the current seal, I think it's misguided and shortsighted."

Schauss went on to criticize the council, saying that it shouldn't get into "woke ideology and woke politics."

"History is not the plaything for political narratives," he said. "It should be used as a tool to teach our children and other people in the city about our history."

Like the proposal to rename 14 city streets with associations to slavery, the Confederacy and the "Lost Cause," the idea of changing the city seal originated from the "Connecting Fairfax City For All" initiative, which the city council started in January 2021.

Related: Confederate Street Renaming Receives Input From Fairfax City Residents

The city council had kicked off the process in 2020, when many jurisdictions began to examine racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. The City Council's aim was to re-evaluate the way the Civil War was represented in the city.

A Stakeholder Advisory Group was established with the purpose of "engaging in dialogue about issues regarding the City’s historical past and its current issues regarding equity, inclusion, and social justice in order to make recommendations to City Council to shape the desired future in alignment with Council’s goals of building an inclusive community.”

In its final report, the group recommended that the city discontinue the then current seal and revise it "to remove elements that do not reflect the city’s values and to retain elements that do reflect city values."

While the group approved the seal's shape, motto and dogwood flowers, it recommended that the seal not contain any historical individuals or representations. In particular, it recommended eliminating:

• "Confederate Soldier, John Quincy Marr. The city seal should not honor Confederate figures.
• "Lord Fairfax. The British Lord has no direct connection to what is geographically now Fairfax City. In addition, the current image is historically inaccurate."

Starting on March 1, the City Council began reviewing different versions of the new seal. Over subsequent work sessions, city staff presented updated versions based on council feedback, with the final version presented Tuesday night for council members to vote on.

Related: Confederate Street Renaming Vote In Fairfax City Deferred To July 12

The City Council set aside $200,000 in its Fiscal Year 2023 Budget to fund the implementation of the seal, which appears on the wall behind the council members' seats in city hall and on the backs of chairs in council chambers.

The city seal will also need to be updated wherever it appears in the city, including on CUE buses, city flags, the city's official letterhead, and patches worn by city police and firefighters. The new city seal will go into effect Jan. 1, 2023.

Originally, the council was to vote on the Confederate street renaming proposal, but that was pushed back to July 12.