If You Think Racism’s Over — That’s Nottoway to Think.

 “If You Think Racism’s Over — That’s ‘Nottoway’ to Think.”

Joyce Licorish

The Burning of Nottoway and the Divided Grief of a Nation

When flames devoured the opulence of the Nottoway Plantation—a towering relic of
antebellum grandeur—what exactly did we lose? Some mourned the destruction of a “historic treasure.” Others exhaled, quietly, or even audibly, as if the earth itself had finally begun to reject the whitewashed weight of a past too long romanticized.

But make no mistake: to celebrate or grieve the burning of Nottoway is not just about bricks and mortar—it’s about memory, morality, and the myth of progress. Because if you still think racism is over, well… that’s Nottoway to think.

A Monument to “Heritage”—or Human Horror?

Let’s be clear. Nottoway was never just a “beautiful estate.” It was a forced labor camp dressed in Greek Revival columns. While tourists sipped sweet tea on its balconies, the spirits of over 150 enslaved men, women, and children haunted the soil beneath. The same soil where Black bodies once bled, broke, and toiled to finance the luxury now reduced to ashes.

Calling Nottoway a “loss of culture” is like lamenting the fall of a concentration camp as a blow to German architecture. You don’t mourn the structure—you mourn the souls. And if you mourn the structure more, ask yourself: why?

Two Americas, Still

The reactions to Nottoway’s fiery fate have split along familiar lines. Some have called it “arson against history.” Others have whispered that it was long overdue—if not divine judgment, then karmic correction.

This divide reveals the same moral fracture that has always haunted America: one that values whitewashed nostalgia over Black truth. Some see plantations as “wedding venues” and “storybook mansions.” Others see tombstones that never got inscribed.

This is why the idea that we live in a post-racial society is laughable. The pain of the past is still being rented out for photo ops. And we dare call it “heritage.”

The Fire Didn’t Start in the Walls

The truth is, the fire didn’t begin with Nottoway. It started in every school textbook that called slavery “a labor system.” It started with every tour guide who skipped over the slave quarters to get to the chandelier room. It started with every policy, every denial, every eye roll at reparations, every call to “move on.”

Nottoway burning wasn’t the end of something—it was a symptom. A warning flare. It forces us to confront what we protect, what we preserve, and what we’re still too afraid to dismantle.

What Should Burn Next?

No, not more buildings. But the ideas they represent.

Burn the myth that history is neutral.

Burn the silence around America’s original sins.

Burn the polite indifference that lets racism be repackaged as “heritage.”

Because if we don’t…

That’s Nottoway to heal.

Joyce Licorish Novelist and author of The Forgotten Timepiece