“This glorification of States Rights Doctrine—the right of secession, and the honoring of men who represented that cause, fosters in the Republic, the spirit of Rebellion and will ultimately result in the handing down to generations unborn a legacy of t Continue reading NO TAXES FOR CONFEDERATE MYTHS
Tag Archives: confederate battle flag
LEST WE FORGET
“Lest we forget” – That inscription is carved into the stone foundation upon which a bronze Confederate soldier stands, fully armed, at the entrance to the public building where my County Commissioners meet. A century and a half after the Civil War, it’s time to free this young man, probably a draftee forced to fight for the long defunct Confederate States of America. And it’s time
to move ahead in creating the future of the United States of America. “Lest we forget”, the outcome of the Civil war was preservation of the Union, our nation, and it’s flag to which we pledge allegiance. The failed purposes of the Confederacy included breaking that Union – treason.
Some argue that we can’t (or shouldn’t) change history. Certainly they are correct that facts and events of history are what they are. We fought a long and bloody civil war. Its events are well documented. The statue was placed to honor the memory of Randolph County veterans who served the Confederacy. Those are facts of history that we couldn’t change even if we wanted to.
There’s more to our history than a list of events and dates. The war arose from a conflicting sense of right and wrong – values – regarding slavery, economics and national unity. Today our decisions about whom and what our government will officially honor are based on the values of today’s Americans. Change is part of our history, as it is for every nation and civilization.
When Rome became a Christian empire, it replaced the statues of Greco-Roman Gods with statues of saints and old-testament figures. They didn’t change the facts of their history or the mythology of Roman Gods. They did change who was honored in public buildings.
When Germany lost World War II, the Allies took down many Nazi era statues and symbols. The Germans removed the rest from places of honor but they relocated some and re-interpreted their history. German schoolchildren are required to visit museums and learn the horrors of Nazi rule – lest they forget.
The slogan “Lest we forget” comes from a Rudyard Kipling poem about the military conquests of the British Empire. Its original meaning in the poem is similar to the maxim “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” We should keep that meaning in mind today.
Here in North Carolina, the majority of citizens voted against secession. In Randolph County, the reported vote was 2579 against secession and only 45 in favor! They did not want to dissolve the Union or join the Confederacy. But in order to preserve slavery, the basis of their wealth, legislators seceded from the union and joined the Confederacy – overruling the will of voters.
Then the Confederacy created a military draft. North Carolina provided more soldiers than any other Confederate state. North Carolina’s Governor, Zebulon Vance called the conflict “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”. There were so many draft resisters and deserters in Randolph County that the Confederacy imposed martial law. If our statue represents a Randolph County soldier, there’s a good chance that he was a draftee, not a volunteer.
Surely there were many Tarheel soldiers who fought courageously for the Confederacy, as German soldiers did for the Third Reich. Today’s values judge that their sacrifices were on the wrong side of history – in support of slavery and in absolute opposition to the proposition that “…all men are created equal.” Confederate statues and battle flags are part of our history but they don’t belong in places of honor financed and maintained by the governments of free people.
Blood has again been shed over white supremacy, and it should come as no surprise to see Confederate battle flags waved by people shouting Nazi slogans such as “blood and soil”. White supremacy ideology was suppressed but now its advocates parade on our streets carrying clubs reminiscent of the axe handles distributed by racist governor Lester Maddox of Georgia. Our President’s election campaign was eerily similar to George Wallace’s nationalist/racist campaigns in 1964 and 1968. Both railed against polite (politically correct) conversation and both helped unleash pent-up racist rage.
We may never be totally rid of supremacists, but our government should not honor their ideas with statues, license plates and flags. Lest we forget, issuing license plates with Confederate battle flags and honoring Confederate heroes on public property is honoring both white supremacy and treason against the United States.
Making Racism Visible
Today I am publishing word-for-word nine responses to last week’s column about “Silent Sam” because they reveal white supremacist beliefs that persist in our community and nation 150 years after our Civil War. I’m doing this for two reasons.
- We can deal effectively with racism only after it is visible.
- Our best hope to successfully deal with racism lies in developing personal acquaintances and friendships with people of other races – bonds strong enough to tolerate frank discussion of personal experiences.
Maybe a few readers will share this with friends and use it to begin a dialogue. If so, I would be pleased to know about your experience doing that.
I must add that there were readers who agreed and others who did not and who made civilized responses. What follows are only the ones written from a white supremacist perspective.
WARNING: Much of what follows is both racist and inflammatory. Continue reading Making Racism Visible
Silent Sam needs company
While walking across the University of North Carolina campus, I paused to see the controversial statue of “Silent Sam“, a memorial to students who joined the Confederate army. Some North Carolinians want it removed because it seems to celebrate the causes of racism, slavery, and rebellion against the United States. Others want to preserve it and similar monuments across the Tarheel state that recognize those who served the Confederate cause. They say that removing the monuments is tantamount to rewriting history. The argument raises two questions. What is the purpose of the statues? Why did we fight a civil war?
Julian Carr, a wealthy Civil War veteran who delivered the keynote speech at Silent Sam’s 1913 dedication, made it clear that the monument was erected to honor and perpetuate the cause of white supremacy. Here are a few of his words. “The present generation…scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the Anglo-Saxon race…the purest strain of the Anglo-Saxon is to be found in the thirteen Southern States — Praise God…One hundred yards from where we stand, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted…a southern lady…” Today, a century after the statue was erected, that speech is proudly displayed on the website of the Durham Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The reasons for the war are evident in the reasons for secession declared by the legislatures of Confederate states:
Texas: “…the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…”
Mississippi: “There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union…”
Southern state governments claimed slavery as a legitimate social structure that was vital to their economies and they saw the election of President Lincoln as proof that slavery would be ended in the United States. Underlying slavery and the war was greed that justified ownership of humans, theft of their labor, sale of their children and accumulation of wealth through brutality.
There are “heritage groups” (a polite description) who regularly honor their ancestors’ loyalty to the Confederacy at its monuments, making speeches and waving battle flags while dressed in Confederate uniforms. Siding with them this year, Republicans in North Carolina’s legislature made it illegal for local governments and state institutions to remove state-owned memorials; and they rejected repeated requests to stop issuing license plates featuring Confederate battle flags.
It is necessary to acknowledge history before we can rise above it. Rather than rewriting their Nazi past, Germans acknowledged the holocaust and other horrors of the Third Reich with new monuments alongside Nazi concentration camps and symbols. An alternative to moving Confederate memorials or preserving them would be to update them by adding a 21st century perspective. Americans should support victims of Jim Crow laws and descendants of slaves in creating monuments documenting the evils that the Confederacy fought to perpetuate and erecting them beside those of the Confederacy.
Some will deny the comparison of the Confederacy to Nazi Germany, but they have much in common. Eleven million people, six million of them Jewish, died in the holocaust. I can’t find an estimate of how many humans died as American slaves, but approximately four million were emancipated in the aftermath of the Civil War. Any estimate of the number who died during more than two centuries of pre-emancipation slavery would produce a count larger than the number of holocaust victims. Is slavery a fate better or worse than a holocaust death? I like to think that most humans would fight to avoid either one.
Now is the time to cease government sponsored glorification of the Confederacy, either by removing its monuments or by supplementing them with the values that we have learned in the century and a half since emancipation. Republican legislators have not yet taken away the authority of local governments and universities to create new monuments alongside old ones. We are the generation and now is the time for Americans to unite across lines of race and geography into one nation. If not now, when? If not us, who?
A victorious Union Soldier looks down in sorrow at fallen comrades
SHOULD OUR FUTURE BE A HOSTAGE TO HISTORY?
As of July 23, North Carolina law prohibits cities, counties and state institutions from relocating any state-owned monument, statue or “object of remembrance” even if it is on city or county property. Work on the bill began many months ago amidst growing public demand for removal of monuments to the Confederacy and racist heroes. Calls for removal of monuments have grown since the Charleston, SC murders. Rather than having open and intelligent discussion of the concerns, legislators made change nearly impossible by passing a law that denies local governments the authority to respond to the will of their citizens. Continue reading SHOULD OUR FUTURE BE A HOSTAGE TO HISTORY?
HOW RACISM LIES IN WAIT FOR US
A man in a uniform looked at me and said, “Son, you’ll have to gain three pounds to get into this man’s army.” It was in early 1969 that I was required to appear for a selective service physical examination. I walked through the examination center in my underwear along with John, a college friend who was scheduled for the same day.
John was next in the line where height and weight were checked. He was a good student, a big man, a capable athlete, and black. The same man (white) looked at him and said, “Boy, you’ll have to lose five pounds to get in this man’s army.” I could see my friend’s dark brown face turning red; and feared how he might respond to being called “boy”. He paused, looked back at his antagonist, and replied, “Yessuh Boss” then mock-shuffled away and laughed out loud. Continue reading HOW RACISM LIES IN WAIT FOR US