The Nathan Bedford Forrest Equestrian Statue has been dubbed the ugliest statue in America by some late night talk hosts and is a daily sight for me as I drive past it quite often on I65. It has been used in national media for the controversies around Confederate icons. Nathan Bedford Forrest is known as a Confederate General who murdered his slaves rather than set them free and founded the KKK.
The Background on the Confederate Flag, Memorials and Monuments Debate
Although the American Civil War ended over 150 years ago, the legacy of this time in history remains immortalized throughout much of the country. Monuments, parks, and statues named after prominent members of the Confederate States are scattered across the South and Confederate flags fly in public; and while many people feel that these are important reminders of history and an ode to Southern and even personal family heritage, they are increasingly viewed by others as a glorification of white supremacy and slavery. As such, cities have begun to remove many of these memorials in an effort to make the public space feel more welcoming to citizens of all demographics. However, this action has been met with significant opposition. With the stakes escalating around this highly contentious issue, the questions remains: which side is right?
Pro-Removal of Confederate Symbols
Why do so many in the south seem sympathetic to Confederates and white supremacist / Neo-Nazis and yet claim to be super patriotic and Christian at the same time? It feels like a hypocritical concept to hold. Not only did we have a World War against Nazis but the Civil War was literally the Confederates committing treason against the United States. President Andrew Johnson pardoned all confederates for treason which would suggest that they had indeed committed treason.
Robert E Lee waged battled against the United States, fired on US forts. What are other societies in the world in which the villains or traitors are held in esteem as the nation’s heroes?
Where are the statues and monuments to King George III, the Red Coats that fired on upon us? The monuments to the Japanese for Pearl Harbor, the Nazi’s who fought against us? Only the Civil war era do we have a high esteem and reverence for the service of traitors.
The Civil war and the Confederacy is part of our history no doubt and so is the other wars too but they should be taught in school and museums and not revered as heroes with statues and monuments on public land such as courthouses and town squares.
History isn’t written by the honest, it is decided by the victors, the Union / United States won. If it was written by the honest, there would monuments to Indian tribes we stole land from and murdered, to the Irish and the Catholics who early settlers hated, where are the monuments to those who endured slavery? Our nation was built with the blood of many but we seem to view Confederate era was the most worthy for some reason to have statues and monuments built too compared to ther wars fought.
The Confederate monuments promote racism, white supremacy, and treason. When the South Carolina Articles of Secession speak of offenses by the federal government and the northern states, they speak of three specific things: (1) The election of a President hostile to slavery (Lincoln) (2) harboring runaway slaves, and (3) intending to abolish slavery completely, by force if necessary.
Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America in his Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861 said speaking of the Union Consitution:
“They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind — from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just — but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails.
There is already precedent for such icons being removed. Germany saw that acknowledging Nazi landmarks glorified the history of white supremacists. They purposefully demolished nazi landmarks and paved over Hitler’s bunker so there would not be a memorial. Removing the icons aka the statues, monuments in America also would help accomplish similar goals.
Why are there no monuments to James Longstreet? who was Lee’s most trusted general, in the aftermath of the war he advocated reconciling with the former enemy and worked in political coalition with the newly freed citizens? So if monuments are about heritage and history and the noble cause then why aren’t there statues of Longstreet.
If a statue or monument goes against American values, it should not remain standing in a public square, courthouse or the similar place as that gives the person and their actions approval in doing so.
Most of these monuments were not erected right after the Civil War. In fact, all the way to 1890 there were very few statues or monuments dedicated to Confederate leaders. Most of them were built much later.
1861-1865: Civil War.
1865-1875: Reconstruction Era.
1875-1895: Reconstruction Era ends. Lynchings skyrocket. Blacks are steadily disenfranchised, allowing Southern whites to enact Jim Crow laws. In 1896, Jim Crow is cemented into place when the Supreme Court rules it constitutional.
1895-1915: With blacks disenfranchised and Jim Crow laws safely in place, Southern whites continue their campaign of terror against blacks. This era features continued lynchings, the growing popularity of “Lost Cause” revisionist histories, a resurgence of white supremacy organizations like the KKK, and the erection of Confederate statues and monuments in large numbers.
1915-1955: Jim Crow reigns safely throughout the South.
1955-1970: The civil rights era starts after the Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that Jim Crow laws are unconstitutional. Southern whites mount massive and violent resistance, and start putting up Confederate monuments again.
Yes, these monuments were put up to honor Confederate leaders and soldiers. But the timing of the monument building makes it pretty clear what the real motivation was: to physically symbolize white terror against blacks. They were mostly built during times when Southern whites were engaged in vicious campaigns of subjugation against blacks, and during those campaigns, the message sent by a statue of Robert E. Lee in front of a courthouse was loud and clear. The law was not on the side of the blacks.
No one should think that these statues were meant to be somber postbellum reminders of a brutal war. They were built much later, and most of them were explicitly created to accompany organized and violent efforts to subdue blacks and maintain white supremacy in the South.
A history defined by the brutalizing effects of slavery and the authoritarianism of Jim Crow segregation. It’s a history that casts a very long shadow over not just the South, but the entire nation. It’s this darker, more brutal past, that made the South’s Confederate statues possible. Those monuments, like the Confederate battle flag, helped to galvanize white opposition to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Where statues to Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson or J.E.B. Stuart represent monuments to men who fought to entrench the racial divide between black and white Americans, civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. worked to breach that divide.
Still, more than a few white Southerners actively worked to prevent integration and stop the prospect of future generations mixing and marrying across the color line. During the 1950s and 1960s, most white Southerners saw the world through the lens of what the journalist Robert Sherrill called “scrotum sociology.” Sherrill’s provocative phrase sought to highlight the obsessive paranoia that whites (both men and women) had with idea of young black boys raping white girls in public schools following the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.
These memories remain alive in the minds of millions of Americans, both black and white. In her recent book on public school desegregation (“Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle”) journalist Kristen Green, a former reporter at The Times-Dispatch, highlights how some of the patriarchs of white society believed to their dying days that closing the county’s public schools was the right thing to do if it meant preventing black boys from taking sexual liberties with white girls.
To say Confederate statues mean different things to different people is as misinformed as it is willfully ignorant of the history that led to their erection. So, it is in America’s museums and historical societies we can overcome this misguided view and learn about the heritage these Southern men bequeathed to the modern United States. The secessionist fight to perpetuate slavery, to monumentalize their racist cause, is a story that can teach generations of Americans some important historical lessons about the moral wrong of slavery, the folly of racism and the demagoguery of Jim Crow segregation.
A compromise could be to remove memorials and statues to Confederate generals, whiles leaving monuments that honor the grave sites of both sides. However, these monuments are on side of history. We allow confederate monuments to exist say from a historical view they following the morals of their time. We fail to see is this the white perspective and only one side of it, abolitionist societies were formed in the 18th century. We fail to see that to blacks slavery was immoral, so by allowing the monuments to stand we legitimize one side and de-legitimize another.
Perhaps, then, I should give the last word to John Mitchell, a former slave and the editor of the Richmond Planet. Mitchell wrote in 1890 what many Americans are thinking in 2015 when he editorialized on the unveiling of the Robert. E. Lee Monument in Richmond: “He (the Negro) put up the Lee Monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down.”
The time has come.
PS. Many GOP protesters also called out the alleged hypocrisy of those who want Confederate statues down but are apparently fine with the statue of Vladimir Lenin in Seattle and why isn’t that being protested. On 8/18/17 Seattle’s Democratic Mayor Ed Murray said a statue of Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin in the city should be taken down. While the Lenin statue is on private land and privately owned, the mayor said the case for its removal must still be made.
In the last few days, Seattleites have expressed concerns and frustration over symbols of hate, racism and violence that exist in our city. Not only do these kinds of symbols represent historic injustices, their existence causes pain among those who themselves or whose family members have been impacted by these atrocities. We should remove all these symbols, no matter what political affiliation may have been assigned to them in the decades since they were erected. This includes both Confederate memorials and statues idolizing the founder of the authoritarian Soviet regime. Both are on private property, but I believe the Confederate memorial at Lake View Cemetery and the Lenin statue in Fremont should be removed. We should never forget our history, but we also should not idolize figures who have committed violent atrocities and sought to divide us based on who we are or where we came from.
Anti-Removal of Confederate Symbols
The Declaration of Independence stipulates that it is the right of people to leave an unjust government. The Southern states seceded because they felt betrayed by the Northern states and the federal government who acted against their interest.
The monuments were erected by states or localities and not by the federal government. By that, the United States as a whole entity is not honoring the Confederates. Instead, it is descendants who are honoring their families and southern heritage by having these statues and monuments.
Taking down historical monuments because it doesn’t suit your beliefs is an act of intolerance associated with oppressive regimes. True tolerance means accepting that people today and in the past have different beliefs and finding ways to talk about them without having to accept everything that one person did when they were alive. Memorials are often erected to honor individuals or the events surrounding them and are often located in locations where they took place. They do not honor the ideologies those people carried.
The United States officially recognizes soldiers in the Confederacy as US veterans under the law. (U.S. Code › Title 38 › Part II › Chapter 23 › § 2306) so, therefore, they are not guilty of treason.
The children of the conquered Confederate people should be allowed to tell their stories of their forefathers and the manner of which they and their leaders sacrificed themselves for the Confederate cause and statues, monuments without being called racist.
Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) — insist that removing Confederate monuments would constitute a form of “cultural cleansing,”
Should we remove statues and monuments to George Washington and all the other forefathers who had slaves? Where does this cleansing end at? Should we get rid of personal artifacts handed down in the family now too?
My View
At first, I thought what is the big problem with all the Confederate statues? This felt like another outrage of the week from my liberal friends. It has felt like there has been constant anger over something for a year or more. See I grew up in Ohio and had a great great grandfather who was a Methodist pastor who fought for the Union army. He was happy he never had to use his sword to kill. The sword is still in the family. My family, as well as me, have an interest in civil war battlefields and history. I’ve been to many and even seen a reenactment battle twice. I’ve been in Gettysburg, PA and seen all the monuments and statues.
My initial thoughts were this is just history. The union won yes but if the North can have their monuments and statues then why can’t the south have theirs?
I have even talked to women of color and two of them are from the south and said they are more concern about the real racism they see than worrying about statues of people long dead.
Upon a swift rebuking from my liberal friends and checking my white privilege at the door, I dived into research afterward, I didn’t realize the timing of the statues and the racism of the day. I was blinded by the modern day progress in many ways that I didn’t realize how powerful the icons are. So I have decided that they are best in historical settings, an actual battlefield or grave site and not these monuments and statues do not belong at a courthouse or public parklands.
However, I feel my white liberal friends have become quite zealous in their mission to end racism online but I haven’t seen any action offline. Like I expected, the high energy anger has gone away just as fast and it came, I rarely hear anyone talk about Confederate statues anymore but for 2 weeks or so it was the most important task that needed to be done.
I’m glad statues are coming down in many areas but for myself, I don’t feel it will accomplish that much by getting rid of them. The white supremacist is still around and they seem to grow stronger the more people talk about removing statues. They were hardly in the news now they are back in the news every time liberals are talking about statues. In an ironic sense, it seems white supremacist lose their national news voice if we just leave the statues as is.
I have gone to a white supremacist rally and protested them, even though I feel that did next to nothing, I feel talking about it online accomplishes about the same level.
What can do that can concretely change racism?
In the Documentary ‘Accidental Courtesy,’ that I highly recommend watching, it is on Netflix as of 12/2017. Black Musician Daryl Davis Meets, Befriends KKK Members to Forge Racial Conciliation, “Accidental Courtesy” is the portrait of a man who has spent a lifetime pursuing an answer to the question, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Here is a black man who has achieved much more than any Facebook post/rant has done, many KKK members have left the Klan after his friendship.
Many of my friends have said that it is not fair for me to put the burden of reconciliation of people of color when it is up to white people to fix it. There has to be irony in that this man gets more backlash because of his tactics from Black Lives Matter and white liberals than even the KKK. That shouldn’t be. Showing kindness and understanding has allowed Daryl Davis to achieve a lot. What good does it do to talk about racism online with other people who agree with you and yet never allow someone to show up with disagrees with you?
What he is doing is working. None of my liberal friends have achieved even one white supremacist turning from their ways. You can punch a Nazi but that won’t change their view. You can yell at KKK people but it won’t change any minds.
The long, messy road of relationship can change even stubborn minds and all races should work together undo racism, the greater burden is on the shite race to undo our own racism and blind spots.
Thirty years of these meetings has left him hopeful, not hateful. His closet is filled with dozens of KKK robes and memorabilia given to him by those whom he has inspired to leave the Klan. Not because he demanded it, cajoled or threatened them. But, he says, because they learned from him.
“That’s right, I am a person of color,” Davis responds. “But I’m also an American and so is this man right here.” Suddenly he is defending an Imperial Wizard of the KKK.
We don’t need to respect what they believe but if we respect them enough to let them speak and they, in turn, should respect you to let you speak. Eventually, respect could deepen to change convictions. I think we should all try to befriend people on the other side, not just in this issue but also in religion and other issues, yelling at them at a rally won’t change their view, writing mean things on Facebook that only your friends will see won’t change things but a personal relationship will. It will take time, it will be messy but it has been shown that relationships are where change comes.
Hugs and love, yes I know world war two wasn’t won with hugs and love but if there is a chance of making a real difference maybe it should be considered. Facebook rants to the choir won’t change things, I feel removing Confederate icons would help but at a fraction of what other options would do.
Sources:
http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/guest-columnists/article_9875f60c-b9c7-5132-a3b0-17b7713cb390.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/us/charlottesville-klansman-black-man-meeting/index.html
http://www.kialo.com/should-the-us-remove-confederate-memorials-flags-and-monuments-from-public-spaces-2408/2408.0=2408.1