I have taught history (both world and American) in a public high school, here in the south for twenty years. I also grew up here in North Carolina, and have been witness to a steady diet of racism (sometime overt, but always systemic). And there are monuments to the confederacy all over the south. In North Carolina, most Confederate monuments were placed many years after the conclusion of the Civil War.And it is way past time to take all of them down.
Wanting to preserve the idea of the "Lost Cause," racist whites often raised private donations, and erected these monuments to confederate leaders during the era of southern segregation and lynching. (According to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Lynching in America, more than 4,000 black people were publicly murdered in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950.) This is the same time period the vast majority of our confederate monuments were erected as attempted enduring symbols of white supremacy.
This was a tragic mistake.
The southern white men who created the Confederacy literally did it to create a a nation of white supremacy. The leaders believed that the central flaw of the United States of America was its foundation on the belief of human equality. Seriously. The idea that all men are created equal was simply too much to handle for southern white leaders...
Wanting to preserve the idea of the "Lost Cause," racist whites often raised private donations, and erected these monuments to confederate leaders during the era of southern segregation and lynching. (According to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Lynching in America, more than 4,000 black people were publicly murdered in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950.) This is the same time period the vast majority of our confederate monuments were erected as attempted enduring symbols of white supremacy.
This was a tragic mistake.
The southern white men who created the Confederacy literally did it to create a a nation of white supremacy. The leaders believed that the central flaw of the United States of America was its foundation on the belief of human equality. Seriously. The idea that all men are created equal was simply too much to handle for southern white leaders...
So to make sure that their beliefs of white supremacy, and their ability to own African-American humans would not be threatened, they abandoned the USA. And though there are certainly a myriad of reasons for which young men fought on both sides of the ensuing awful war, the explicit cause of the creation of the Confederate States of America is shameful.
Don't just take it from me, the Vice President of the Confederacy explained it to anyone who would listen. In the Cornerstone speech (delivered in Savannah in 1861), Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens explains this belief as directly as possible: {in reference to the US Constitution} "Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. 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 {Confederate} is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
After the Confederacy was destroyed, and its capital Richmond burned by the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln visited the torched city. He was greeted by freed slaves as an emancipator. They fully believed that Lincoln and this civil war had won them their freedom as human beings. There was no talk of state's rights...
So there is a reason that when confederate monuments are removed, we see the rising ire of modern white supremacists (as in Charlottesville, VA in 2017). These hate-filled zealots recognize these monuments as the glorification of white supremacy ideology. All the more reason to take them down.
History is important to shaping our understanding of our world. I believe that it is important so that we can use the past as a well of inspiration from which to grow. So, understanding what came before can help propel each of us to higher ground...
But there is a difference in remembering the past, and glorifying it. Monuments to men who abandoned the United States of America to uphold slavery is not an act of education. If it is education that we value, let us increase our funding, resources, and training to our teachers, museums, and writers. But these monuments to the confederacy need to come down, as they represent a poisonous belief of white supremacy that goes against the very essence of human equality.
We are better than this. I was fortunate enough to visit several cities in Germany a few years ago, as part of a program of North Carolina teachers, with Go Global NC. There I saw first hand how the Germans deal with their own problematic past. There are no monuments to Nazi leaders in the country, instead, there are monuments to the people who stood up to Nazi oppression. It remains punishable by law to utilize Nazi symbols in the country. And yet, we were also able to tour Dachau, a fully preserved Nazi concentration camp. But this horrific place was not placed on a pedestal at the center of a city, or held up as an example of pride. It was hidden away, and functions as a museum dedicated to the idea of "Never Again." It includes tours that place these terrible events in context, and the grounds are full of anti-racist art installations and literature. It is both moving, and educational.
We can do this with the scars of our past. We are not perfect, but we can strive to improve. Now is the time to take a stand against white supremacy. Take down Confederate monuments.
Don't just take it from me, the Vice President of the Confederacy explained it to anyone who would listen. In the Cornerstone speech (delivered in Savannah in 1861), Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens explains this belief as directly as possible: {in reference to the US Constitution} "Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. 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 {Confederate} is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
After the Confederacy was destroyed, and its capital Richmond burned by the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln visited the torched city. He was greeted by freed slaves as an emancipator. They fully believed that Lincoln and this civil war had won them their freedom as human beings. There was no talk of state's rights...
So there is a reason that when confederate monuments are removed, we see the rising ire of modern white supremacists (as in Charlottesville, VA in 2017). These hate-filled zealots recognize these monuments as the glorification of white supremacy ideology. All the more reason to take them down.
History is important to shaping our understanding of our world. I believe that it is important so that we can use the past as a well of inspiration from which to grow. So, understanding what came before can help propel each of us to higher ground...
But there is a difference in remembering the past, and glorifying it. Monuments to men who abandoned the United States of America to uphold slavery is not an act of education. If it is education that we value, let us increase our funding, resources, and training to our teachers, museums, and writers. But these monuments to the confederacy need to come down, as they represent a poisonous belief of white supremacy that goes against the very essence of human equality.
We are better than this. I was fortunate enough to visit several cities in Germany a few years ago, as part of a program of North Carolina teachers, with Go Global NC. There I saw first hand how the Germans deal with their own problematic past. There are no monuments to Nazi leaders in the country, instead, there are monuments to the people who stood up to Nazi oppression. It remains punishable by law to utilize Nazi symbols in the country. And yet, we were also able to tour Dachau, a fully preserved Nazi concentration camp. But this horrific place was not placed on a pedestal at the center of a city, or held up as an example of pride. It was hidden away, and functions as a museum dedicated to the idea of "Never Again." It includes tours that place these terrible events in context, and the grounds are full of anti-racist art installations and literature. It is both moving, and educational.
We can do this with the scars of our past. We are not perfect, but we can strive to improve. Now is the time to take a stand against white supremacy. Take down Confederate monuments.
Comments