By June 1861, four more states had seceded. Because our textbooks and monuments are wrong. However, that the monuments were placed at all shouts to the world of America’s capacity for forgiveness. Adams, descendant of two presidents and heir to a fierce antislavery tradition, was the Civil War commander of the African-American 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan applied the same tactics of total warfare against Native Americans for two decades after the Civil War that they used in marches across Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley. But on a national level, few Americans then wanted to commemorate those who lost the fight to maintain slavery. Like most good myths, it had a greater purpose: to show the families of the defeated that they were once again as fully American as the victors. The leaders often portrayed on them remind some of Americans’ capacity for hate. So did participants of the Unite the Right rally. The latest battle over the Confederate flag isn’t happening where you’d expect, The Tulsa Massacre: A century later, the city’s historic Black Wall Street faces erasure by White developers, Kamala Harris: The Black women who paved the way, George Floyd’s America: Examining systemic racism through the lens of his life, Resources: Understanding racism and inequality in America, Full coverage: Race & Reckoning | Newsletter: Subscribe to About US to read the latest on race and identity. Today’s defenders adopt the same logic. County … In the debate over the Confederate flag, we have to dig deeper, and we have to find not political rhetoric, but compassion, and then perhaps we can find a healthier way to integrate this flag in American consciousness. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in the … It was not until decades later that something else emerged that prompted the country to pine for Confederate monuments and other symbols: black political progress. Steve … by Harold Meyerson. Nevertheless, Adams predicted that Robert E. Lee would someday rightly have a statue in Washington, as Oliver Cromwell, “the traitor, the usurper, the execrable murderer” of King Charles I, already had one in Westminster. They held on to these symbols precisely because they do understand the history. Robert E. Lee is my relative. https://www.foxnews.com/us/statue-monument-vandalized-torn-down-protest In effect, these monuments and symbols already do the work of erasing history — the very thing their defenders now accuse protesters of doing by demanding their removal. These symbols serve one primary purpose — to honor figures of the past who upheld an undemocratic vision of America. Relying on a logic that mirrored the thinking of Southern slaveholders, many defenders then pointed to Southern “pride,” “heritage” or “culture” and the need to “preserve history” in an attempt to explain away the attachment to these racist icons and historical figures. These old Confederate monuments remind us that we are capable of both tremendous magnanimity and horrendous folly. In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the American Historical Association(AHA) said that to remove a monument "is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history." The early 20th century witnessed a widespread campaign to erect Confederate monuments and statues. Shouldn’t we consider purging all of their monuments from the public square? Within only a matter of years, it was defeated. Every symbol of the Confederacy — flags, monuments and statues and the names of Confederate soldiers on military bases — upholds white supremacy. … One More Confederate Monument to Destroy: The Electoral College. The recent uprisings following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and Rayshard Brooks have reignited an old debate about the significance of Confederate monuments. Southern defenders of Gen. Robert E. Lee point to his pre-war condemnation of slavery as an evil institution and note that he freed his slaves in 1862 before the Emancipation Proclamation. On June 8, the city began removing a monument that … Several major Army bases were named after Confederate soldiers then, too, including Fort Pickett, Va. (1942), named after Major General George E. Pickett, and Fort Rucker, Ala. (1942), named after Confederate officer Edmund Rucker. During the 1940s, the Confederate flag became a more prominent feature in public spaces, coinciding with African Americans’ efforts to expand their political rights during and after World War II. Indianapolis, Ind. It also undercuts the argument of those who now claim they only want to preserve history. A 35-foot-tall monument to Confederate soldiers in Garfield Park in Indianapolis was … The words "Black Lives Matter" spray painted on a monument to former Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Va. June 25, 2015. The building of the Confederacy — based on long-standing ideas of white supremacy — began long before the Civil War. It represented everything white slaveholders desired — a nation where black people would forever be in chains, toiling day in and day out on the plantation to line the pockets of white southerners. In the days following the massacre, images surfaced on the Internet showing Roof posing with the Confederate flag as he spouted white supremacist rants on his social media accounts. However, it was beginning to move toward a path for freedom and democracy for all. As the nation underwent even more significant political changes during the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of new Confederate monuments, statues and symbols were erected. That claim may make for good rhetoric, but it obscures one crucial fact: Confederate monuments, as well as Confederate-named Army bases, are modern inventions meant to distort history and celebrate a racist past. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8, Copyright © 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved, The Right Way to Remember the Confederacy, Biden Unveils Plan to Curb Covid-19 in His First 100 Days, The U.S. Rejoins the Paris Climate Accord: What’s Next. And they function as a balm for white supremacists who long to return to a period when Americans regarded black people as property. In Richmond, for example, a Confederate heritage group installed a monument of Davis in 1907. The mere idea that Lincoln might end slavery — even though he made no such promise in 1860 — terrified Southerners who wanted to maintain their way of life. Confederate statues and statues of other historical figures, including slave traders and Christopher Columbus, are being toppled throughout the U.S. … Is it possible going forward that this nation might respect history (with all of its inherent flaws, indignities and inequities) and forgo the tragic march toward political correctness? Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced his intention to remove his state’s most prominent statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which … Gordon remains, but Confederate statues across the southeast are falling, including the court-ordered removal of a 112- year-old obelisk from the Decatur square June 12. His statues can’t come down soon enough. During the Jim Crow era, as African Americans asserted their political authority and demanded an expansion of citizenship rights, white supremacists responded with acts of violence and intimidation. Destroying Confederate Monuments Betrays History To erase a flag is to erase history. It should be respected, not sanitized. The whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, Keisha N. Blain is an associate professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and author of the multi-prize-winning book, "Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom. The new nation that emerged out of the Civil War in 1865 was no perfect union. Most of the memorials to Confederate leaders and soldiers were placed from around 1895 to 1915, when surviving veterans of the Civil War were passing on, and the war itself was passing from living memory. Gens. The widespread growth of Confederate monuments and statues — and the practice of naming military bases after soldiers who had fought against the U.S. Army — coincided with periods of political transformation in the United States. The monument to Confederate Colonel Francis S. Bartow was erected after First Manassas but was destroyed before or during Second Manassas. The creation of Confederate statues, the reappearance of Confederate flags and the Confederate naming of Army installations worked in tandem with the growth of the Ku Klux Klan to send a clear message that black people would never be accepted as full citizens of the United States. ... For anyone who still wonders why Confederate monuments need to come down, let me refer you to a famous line from the great bard of the white South, William Faulkner. The memorial landscape of our history is itself a history. Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Don’t destroy the Confederate statues (“No rush to find homes for Baltimore’s Confederate monuments,” Sept. 27). We also know that most of America’s founders from the South were slave owners who codified slavery in the Constitution. The Coronavirus Is Mutating. The memorials were encouraged by national political leaders as a means of telling the children of Confederate soldiers that their fathers weren’t traitors but patriots who nobly sacrificed for a failed but honestly held vision of what America should be. We know this because the woke mob isn’t just going after Confederate statues; it’s going after monuments and namesakes that span from Christopher … As in Germany, all Confederate monuments should be removed. Defenders of the memorials are the ones trying to forget the past. Amid a national uprising for racial justice and a deadly pandemic that’s disproportionately impacting Black, Latinx and Native communities, President Donald Trump is promising lengthy prison sentences for anyone who destroys or dismantles a monument to a slave-owning president or leader of the Confederacy. The current debate so far has failed to note the implications of when these monuments were built and, more important, why. Five years ago this week, white supremacist Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and mercilessly gunned down nine black parishioners. A crowd gathers at the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis after it was pulled down off of its pedestal on Monument Avenue in Richmond, VA., on June 10, 2020. Confederate statues shouldn’t be vandalized, but they should go. The Confederate States of America was therefore a product of Southern slaveholders. The rise of these monuments was a concerted effort among white supremacists to challenge black progress — and revise American history to do it. I’m black. “[Our new government’s] foundations are laid,” Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens explained in his 1861 Cornerstone speech, “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.”. Ideally, they should be removed by state and local governments, not demonstrators; if governments remove them, … The nation that Confederate President Jefferson Davis set out to build was inherently undemocratic: It aimed to exclude black people from the body politic. In these public symbols, white supremacists upheld the myth that the Confederacy was a noble cause, rather than a failed revolt to maintain slavery. Just the way these symbols have been used in recent years underscores their intended purpose in American society. For all its ambition, the Confederate States of America crumbled as quickly as it began. Roof knew this. At the end of the Civil War, those who chose to remember Davis and his “lost cause” pushed for the creation of memorials. In these divisive times more than ever, we had better listen to what they have to tell us. Watch: Amanda Gorman Reads ‘The Hill We Climb’ at Biden Inauguration, Trump Hints at Comeback as His Presidency Ends, Macy's coupon - Sign up to get 25% off next order, $20 off $200 during sale - Saks Fifth Avenue coupon, Save 25% on Quilted Puffer Vest for Start of the Year Sale at Old Navy, News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services. The Confederate flag isn’t just offensive. This will, of course, demand compassion—and in the end, loving forgiveness. The Confederate monument in downtown Huntsville was vandalized by protesters on June 9. If symbols associated with past injustices ought to be erased, what about monuments that honor Union heroes who participated in the slaughter of Native Americans? William C. Davis’s reflections about Confederate monuments and places named after Confederate leaders in “The Right Way to Remember the Confederacy” (Review, July 11) partly parallel those of Charles Francis Adams over 100 years ago (“Shall Cromwell Have a Statue?”). Not long after Lincoln’s election, seven states seceded from the Union, anticipating the end of the slave regime in the United States. Why do people believe myths about the Confederacy? It’s treasonous. They could be used as … This may be a myth, but it is what the Confederate leaders themselves believed. Honoring a revisionist history of the Confederacy is not only repugnant. If so, history’s intrinsic and valuable lessons may be lost forever to the ages, and we will almost certainly emerge a lesser people for it. A group of neo-Nazis who stormed the University of Virginia’s campus aimed to defend the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who led the traitorous army during the Civil War. 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