Fredericksburg Begins Process To Address Institutional Racism

FREDERICKSBURG, VA — The Fredericksburg City Council approved a response and recovery plan Tuesday in response to calls for reforms to address racial inequality and race discrimination. The three-phase plan is expected to guide the city council and city administration into early 2021.

Under the plan, the Fredericksburg City Council will focus on the theme of persistent racial inequality. The three phases are the immediate phase, the intermediate phase and the strategic planning phase. The city is taking these steps largely in response to protests that have rocked Fredericksburg and other parts of Virginia.

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a movement across the nation, including in Fredericksburg, calling on leaders to address systemic racism. Fredericksburg has witnessed several protests attended by residents filled with anger and defiance. Some of these protests were met by the use of tear gas by the Fredericksburg City Police and the neighboring Stafford County Sheriff's Office.

Fredericksburg, in line with the rest of Virginia, has a centuries-long history of institutional racism that continues to have an impact on the city's Black residents today. Only in recent decades has the city begun to address this history of systemic racism.

Given this long history of institutional racism, the distrust of the city's government and police force remains strong, with Black residents still experiencing racial profiling by the city police department and sheriff's offices in surrounding counties.

Recent statements by Fredericksburg city officials attributing the anger among Black and white residents to "bad actors" from outside the city or a "lack of familiar faces" are reminiscent of how local officials during the Civil Rights era would portray attempts to bring equality and justice to their cities and counties as the work of "outside agitators."

Martin Luther King Jr., who had an extremely low approval rating among white Americans when he was assassinated in 1968, was often labeled by segregationist sheriffs and city officials in the South as a bad actor trying to stir up trouble among the Black population in Southern towns.

Fredericksburg's response and recovery plan calls for reforms to address racial inequality and race discrimination. In the immediate phase, the plan, over the next three and six weeks, would continue its "incident response phase" of emergency management. This phase includes continuing to focus on safety for protesters and the public as the top priority.

The intermediate phase, which the city hopes will end by late August, will be characterized by a wind-down of emergency response activities and the turn toward emergency recovery activities, according to the plan.

"The important work of this phase is to continue to generate actionable proposals for the community’s work over the next biennium," the plan says. "This phase will likely include a special session of the Virginia General Assembly in August, which will include legislative proposals for criminal justice reform. This phase may begin earlier than end of June if emergency response phase ends earlier than expected."

In the "strategic planning phase" of the process, starting in September, the city council plans to hear from its community stakeholders through a series of “whole of community” meetings. The council plans to use the theme of racial equality to tie together its priorities for the next biennium and generate a draft statement of its Vision, Desired Future States, and Actions for community review.

The accomplishments of strategic planning phase "will lay the groundwork for the longer-term City Council and community response to manifestations of racial inequality throughout the City," reads the response and recovery plan approved by the city council.

RELATED:

• Fredericksburg Official Blames 'Bad Actors' For Angry Protest
• Fredericksburg City Manager Lifts Curfew 2 Days Early