Michael Paul Williams’ Pulitzer-winning Times-Dispatch columns
Explore Michael Paul Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning columns chronicling Richmond’s reckoning with Confederate monuments, school names and other symbols of white supremacy — and challenging the city to confront the history and legacy behind them.
(7) updates to this series since Updated
The original opponent of the Robert E. Lee statue issued a stern prophesy after the monument was erected in 1890.
We should have known this day was coming, because they knew this day was coming.
Christopher Columbus survived multiple voyages across the high seas. But his Richmond statue met an inglorious end at the bottom of a Byrd Park lake.
When a crane raised the 17 1/2 foot bronze statue off the granite pedestal, the weight of Richmond history became more bearable. But there's much heavier lifting to be done.
Hanover County appears intent to live on in infamy as the Prince Edward County of the 21st Century.
The moral arc bending toward justice is visible from Hill Monument Parkway, a North Side street named for the Confederate general.
Statues to the Confederate president, generals, soldiers and sailors have fallen by the wayside.
"If the court is stripping away rights, why would it stop at a woman's body autonomy?"
A week after the murder of George Floyd, Richmond police tear-gassed peaceful protesters at the Robert E. Lee monument.
"Someday in a more enlightened future, we will have a memorial day commemorating school children lost to mass shootings," writes columnist Michael Paul Williams.Â
"This sort of denial characterizes so much of the political right's approach to problems, from racism, to gun violence, to climate change to the existential threat to our democracy," writes columnist Michael Paul Williams.Â
Before the pandemic, the Fourth of July celebrations of Niya Bates were downright panoramic, with trips to Albemarle County’s Pantops Mountain for an 180-degree view of nearly a dozen fireworks shows from as far away as Wintergreen and Greene County.
Hosts Kelli Lemon and Michal Paul Williams of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch catch-up on recent news: the Jefferson Davis statue was unveiled at a Richmond, Va., museum in it's 2020 state, complete with pink paint and a toilet paper noose by protesters, Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Juneteenth holiday was celebrated.
"The traumatized survivors of these shootings are done with 'thoughts and prayers,'" writes columnist Michael Paul Williams.
Podcast hosts Michael Paul Williams and Kelli Lemon talk with Devon Henry, owner of Team Henry Enterprises, a Black-owned firm that was contracted to take down the Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, Va.; Richmond, Va.; and several other cities.
In this episode, Kelli Lemon and Michael Paul Williams talk with Wes Bellamy, former vice mayor of Charlottesville and former member of the Charlottesville City Council. Bellamy was a central figure during the Unite the Right rally and the removal of two of that city's Confederate monuments. He recalls the taunts and intimidation rally organizers showed toward him leading up to the rally.
In this episode, Kelli and Michael Paul are talking with Dr. Wes Bellamy again. Dr. Bellamy, former vice mayor of Charlottesville and former member of the Charlottesville City Council, recalls the events immediately before, during and after the deadly Unite the Right Rally in 2017.
"He was a gamechanger on and off the court," writes columnist Michael Paul Williams.Â
America, when it comes to the sins of its history, has lacked a "never again" moment.
Co-hosted by Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Michael Paul Williams and Kelli Lemon, After the Monuments captures the zeitgeist of a nation struggling to move from symbolic to substantive change on racial issues.
During this special series of After the Monuments, Kelli Lemon and Michael Paul Williams talked with folks who were involved in or nearby the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the finale of the series, Kelli and Michael Paul recap what they heard from guests and share feelings of their own just a few days before the five year anniversary of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
Columnist Michael Paul Williams: "As a salesman of history curricula, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has a credibility problem."
In this episode of After the Monuments, Kelli and Michael Paul review some of the racially sensitive stories in the news, including what Richmond, Va., police reported as a thwarted mass shooting; sensitive documents found at former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence; and with the retirement of Serena Williams, Kelli and Michael Paul reminisce on Richmond native Arthur Ashe and others who used their position in sports to promote a social message.
"The death of Queen Elizabeth II should be viewed less as the end of a era than the beginning of a serious conversation about unatoned sin," writes columnist Michael Paul Williams.Â
The relationship between Black and Jewish communities, an historic Civil Rights Movement alliance that has frayed in recent decades, took another hit at the hands of two African-American celebrities with a huge social media following.
