This fall, the Canal Quarter’s changing leaves have been rivaled in their ubiquituousness by two hues: the pleasantly nonpartisan purple and green of Anne Little’s campaign signage, and the calming creamsicle of her opponent in the upcoming Ward 2 City Council election, Joy Crump.
The signs dot yards in roughly equal numbers, affording the casual observer indications of a close race. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to take a walk anywhere around here without spying displays for both candidates inside the same block.
But nowhere do they coexist, corrugated cardboard frames anchored side by side, save for the front lawn of a red-brick house in the 1900 block of Fall Hill Avenue.
This is the home of Harold Bannister.
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When he answered the door on Monday afternoon, Bannister quickly understood this columnist’s pitch.
“The only house with both in the whole city, right?” he said, nodding and gesturing for me to take a seat on his porch.
I’d been working up the nerve to knock on his door for a week now, eager to find out what would motivate someone to make a physical showing of support for local political rivals in the current, less-than-congenial climate.
“Both of them are good people,” he said, noting Crump’s experience as a local business owner and Little’s community outreach work with Tree Fredericksburg. “So either one is going to, both of them will serve the city well, and it’s going to be a toss-up because both of them, I think, bring the same criteria to the city. So, I can honestly say that I endorse both of them.”
Turns out, Bannister himself served on City Council in the late 1990s, during which time he formed a robust appreciation for civility in local politics. He remembers congratulating Billy Withers, who defeated him in his re-election bid in 2002.
“He won, unfortunately. And I was there to congratulate him because the day after my term was over, he picked up the mantle and kept going,” he said. “Like I said, he’s not an enemy. He was a neighbor.”
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To hear Bannister tell it, Fredericksburg’s very resiliency lies in its ability to overcome division.
“Think about our history,” he said. “We’ve been a divided city for damn near a hundred years. The only city that got sacked by Northern and Southern troops at the same time, but yet the residents survived.”
Then, he referenced a more recent example, asking if I remembered a situation that unfolded in the late 1980s or early 90s. I told him that such recollections were highly unlikely to form in utero and even less so in an existential void.
“I got shoes older than you, friend,” Bannister shot back with a laugh. He digressed.
Apparently, at one point, there was talk of eliminating the city’s school system, which would mean students in Fredericksburg would’ve been absorbed by neighboring Spotsylvania or Stafford counties.
“Everybody kept saying, ‘Hey, it’d be more cost-effective to consolidate our schools with somebody else,’ but we would have lost the uniqueness of our city,” he recalled. “Our school system is a testament to how the city has been able to survive. No matter how hard things are, we look out for our neighbors.”
Bannister, 61, sees on the horizon a similarly dire situation — “a lot of pain” — amid SNAP cuts and with such a large population of furloughed federal workers in the city.
“And I’m hoping that when this election is over, we will find that solution and that the two candidates, Joy and Anne, will be part of that coalescence of the community, regardless of who becomes the victor,” he said.
At its core, there’s a simple explanation as to the duality of the house of Bannister: Harold is voting for one candidate; his partner, the other.
“I think our votes probably nullify each other. That’s the sad thing about it,” he lamented.
Over the past couple of months, he’s fielded a steady stream of inquiries from neighbors. After all, he’s attended events and taken photos with both candidates.
After all, he’s endorsed both candidates.
“Everybody keeps saying the same thing: ‘How are y’all a divided house? Which one of y’all is divided? Which one’s going the other way?’ I’m not going to give anybody any indication. But, like I said, I believe that either one of those two would be ideal people.”
