Viriginia Workers Find 19th Century Time Capsule at Robert E. Lee Statue

Workers at the former site of a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia, discovered a time capsule from the 19th century last week.

Experts had long suspected that a time capsule was hidden somewhere in the site, but only now do they believe that they have finally found the storied artifact:

“They found it! This is likely the time capsule everyone was looking for,” Virginia’s Governor, Ralph Northam, tweeted on Monday along with images of the box.

Northam noted that although the box was first discovered last week, conservators have not planned to open it quite yet.

Experts were on the hunt for a copper box filled with objects left by a group of Richmond’s past residents, organizations and businesses. The time capsule had been described by a 1887 article in the Richmond Dispatch. The article described the artifacts as being relics of the Confederate army.

Another more contemporary article from Richmond Magazine, published in 2017, claimed that the capsule contained a singular artifact related to President Abraham Lincoln.

The American Civil War and Juneteenth

The state of Viriginia had decided to remove the Robert E. Lee Monument in 2020 in response to a nationwide movement decrying statues that memorialized the Confederate army. The Virginia Supreme Court finally decided to allow Governor Northam to remove the statue in 2021 which led to the unearthing of the time capsule.

The removal of many Confederate statutes over the course of 2020-2021 was also part of a push to recognize Juneteenth–the celebration to commemorate when enslaved people in Texas discovered that they were free, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation– as a federal holiday.

President Joe Biden officially made the day a holiday on June 18, 2021.

Juneteenth marks the day that US Army General Gordon Grainger finally reached enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas, telling that the American Civil War was over and they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, enacted two-and-a-half years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln.

For the more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas, General Granger’s order didn’t instantly release them from their chains; many slavers suppressed the news to the people they enslaved.

The day now more widely represents the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans across the US following the Civil War and its violent aftermath, and is the oldest nationally-recognized commemoration of slavery’s end.

Parades, festivals, concerts, family gatherings, church services and other community events are hosted across the US, but Juneteenth has remained an unofficial national holiday.

Until now it has not been celebrated on the federal level, whereas the Fourth of July – which marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 – is recognized nationwide just a few weeks later.

Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. It spread across the South and became more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on a food festival.

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, it was eclipsed by the struggle for postwar civil rights, but grew in popularity again in the 1970s with a focus on African American culture.

As of 2020, Hawaii, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states that do not recognize Juneteenth, according to the Congressional Research Service.