Amid a growing controversy over the names of buildings on the University of Richmond campus, college associates joined students and a national and local audience Tuesday night in an online discussion on how to approach Confederate memorials, the history they represent and healing from that history.

The hourlong discussion, hosted by UR’s Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, was the first in the multi-part, multi-college “Journeys to Justice” series on social justice issues set to run through April 23.

While Tuesday evening’s discussion was slated to focus on the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, the ongoing backlash around the university’s decision to keep two building names tied to a slave owner and a staunch segregationist — the Rev. Robert Ryland and Douglas Southall Freeman, respectively — colored much of what was covered.

“How can we move people to think beyond myths and consider the whole of us, not just part of our society?” asked Dr. Lauranett L. Lee, a historian and UR visiting lecturer. “How can we tell a story that is truly more inclusive and truly speaks to where we have been and where we are going?”

Dr. Lee, who co-authored reports on the Westham slave burial ground located on UR’s campus, led the discussion with Brian Palmer, an award-winning freelance journalist whose work appears in the Richmond Free Press and who is a visiting assistant professor of journalism at UR.

Much of the discussion and the questions raised by the audience focused on the disparities present in Richmond’s history, from the lack of memorials to women to the lack of care given to African-American cemeteries compared to Confederate burial grounds. Participants also questioned the narrative built around the Lee statue’s unveiling in 1890 and how protests around the statue and in Richmond last summer were met with an outsized show of force by police.

When it came to rethinking these memorials, Dr. Lee and Mr. Palmer suggested approaching future monuments as icons to ideas and values rather than to people and using communal moments of music, poetry and dance as a way to build new, inclusive narratives.

They also pointed to the idea of treating memorials as an end product of a greater effort to address the damage wrought by injustice, alongside changes in education and in-depth public discussion. Speakers also stressed the need for those in positions of power to look at challenging times as opportunities to engage community concerns, instead of conflicts in need of management.

“Yes, there is a parallel African-American narrative, but it’s the narrative of Richmond,” Mr. Palmer said. “In order to create the dominant narrative, you had to remove Black people. Douglas Southall Freeman was part of that process to manage us into particular positions.

“What if you stopped managing? What if you started embracing?” he continued. “It may mean that you lose certain kinds of your power, but you gain a new power, a new legitimacy with the people. That, to me, is just tremendously powerful.”

The series continues at 6 p.m. Friday, March 26, with the online panel “Border Stories: Immigration and Humanitarian Work” hosted by the Harvard University Center for Public Service and Engaged Scholarship.

Details: https://engage.richmond.edu/events/journeystowardjustice.html