To erect a suitable Monument to their memory

[Andersonh1]

We hear a lot of accusations today that Confederate memorials that dot the Southern landscape are "monuments to white supremacy", placed there "to intimidate the black population", and therefore they are racist and should be removed.

As I found out when I looked into these accusations about Silent Sam, the Confederate memorial formerly located on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill until a mob tore it down, those accusations are at odds with the documentation, which was not difficult for me to track down. The majority of it is online and digitized. A quote about whipping a black woman, made by Julian Carr, is cited as evidence that Silent Sam is a racist statue, and said quote is repeated over and over again in story after story about that particular monument. Yet when I found the list of speakers for the dedication of Silent Sam, I discovered there were six speakers that day, and one introductory speaker, for a total of seven. I found five speeches in their entirety, and two partial copies. Julian Carr's quote, the one said to "reveal all" about Silent Sam, is the only portion of any of the dedication speeches that mentions race. None of the other speakers have anything to say about it. This leads to the obvious question: why is only Julian Carr quoted, and why only the two or three paragraphs it took to share his anecdote? Is it dishonesty on the part of various writers, in cherry-picking that quote? Is it laziness, a lack of interest in doing the research to get the full context of the day? Are most of these journalists and columnists perfectly happy to accept Carr's quote as telling the story and see no need to dig any further?

If they got Silent Sam so wrong, and they did, what about all the other hundreds of Confederate monuments? I have no faith that we're getting the truth about them any more than we got the truth about Silent Sam, and I've been trying to collect what paperwork I can find on these monuments to see what the people who put them up actually had to say about the purpose and meaning was. A lot of it is out there, digitized and available for anyone who wants to take the time to go look.

So I want to post some of what I've found here. If, as Viper suggests, it falls on deaf ears, so be it. Who knows who might browse this forum, lurk a bit, and learn something?

 

[Andersonh1]

Title: A Brief History of the Ladies Memorial Association of Charleston, SC
From its Organization in 1865 to April 1, 1880
Together with a roster of the Confederate Dead interred at Magnolia and the various City Church-Yards
H. P. Cooke & Co., Printers, 52 Broad Street, 1880

https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofla00ladi/page/n3/mode/2up

A brief prefatory note says that the goal was to prepare a list of the Confederate dead buried at Magnolia, and that was expanded to include those in various city church yards. "Correspondence was accordingly entered into with officers and prominent members of the several city churches, and a notice to all relatives and friends of the dead was published in the newspapers soliciting information. Numerous replies were received..."

After a quote by the Rev. J. L. Girardeau from Memorial Day 1871, we are given various pieces of correspondence related to compiling the history of this association and various officers over the decade and a half it had been in existence. The association was formed in 1866, and "... Its primary object was to take care of the Graves of the Confederate Dead, who were buried in Magnolia Cemetery, and to erect a suitable Monument to their memory."

These ladies marked the individual graves as best they could, which was an expensive undertaking. The State legislature donated about a quarter of the funds and some marble and granite that had been intended for the building of the new State House but was not needed. Over 800 headstones were created this way. The ladies also worked hard to recover and re-inter as many of the dead from Gettysburg that they could find and identify.

So what about the monument?

Having thus done honor to the individual dead, it was resolved that a suitable monument should be erected in memory of all who fell; and the President was authorized to take the necessary steps for its accomplishment.

-------

The Monument has been appropriately placed in the midst of the graves of those whose death it commemorates. It is plain and unostentatious, but neat and appropriate. As it is a memorial of a lost cause, it should not be a triumphal memorial. Placed in the City of the Dead, and near the entrance, the sight of it cannot fail to call back the memory of the sad history which it commemorates. A splendid monument in the city would be only an ornament to be gazed on with listless and indifferent eyes; and, instead of being a memorial of the dead, would be only the object of cold, art criticism.

Its proper place, therefore, is just where it is, in the midst of the silent slumberers, whose deeds, and whose failures, it is designed to keep alive in the memories of the people.
​

How did these ladies raise the money?

From Subscriptions and Donations...$4,377 06
Donation from State......................... 1,000 00
From Entertainments.....................$1,943 10
Less expenses for Hall.
etc ...........................................225 00 1,718 10
Interest on City Stock .....................1,233 23
Interest on Deposits and Loans ..........251 15
From Collections Memorial
Days ....................................................$2,117 31
Less expenses, ....................................$305 40,
including carriage
hire and stationery,
$63 83....................... 369 23.................1,748 08
From Raffles and Sale of Marbles, etc..........45 00
Total amount received ............................$10,373 22


The remainder of the book is a list of the known dead, and a few letters discussing the construction of the monument.

 

[Andersonh1]

The South Carolina Monument Association
Origin, History and Work
with an account of the Proceedings at the Unveiling of the Monument to the Confederate Dead
and the oration of Gen. John S. Preston

The News and Courier Book Presses 1879

This particular booklet opens with an editorial from the Charleston News and Courier entitled "South Carolina's Dead".

The secret history of what is commonly called " the Secession movement " in South Carolina will, it is probable, never be written. It is useless, indeed, to attempt to separate what sprang from honest conviction from that which had its root in ambition and pride of place. Nor would there be any profit in seeking to determine the extent of the public opinion in the State opposed to going out of the Union. It is sufficient to know that South Carolina did withdraw from the Union of States formed by her and her twelve sisters
well-nigh a century before. It is sufficient to know that South Carolina did her part as one of the Confederate States, placing more soldiers in the field, under the Southern Cross, than her people had cast votes in electing delegates to the Secession Convention, and losing in service more than twelve thousand of her children, whose names are on the record. More than seventy thousand South Carolinians, musket or sabre in hand, attested their faith by their works.
​

A short history of the South Carolina monument Association is given. After it was clear that the war was lost, one duty remained to the women of the state:

One duty still remained— they must now guard the precious dust of the martyred dead of their State, and erect a monument which should perpetuate the memory of the slain and convey to the latest generations the record of the undying fidelity of the people of South Carolina, to truth, justice and liberty.
​

So this monument speaks to the dead, but also has a message to convey to future generations. It's standing on the South Carolina State House grounds to this day, and I've been there a number of times. The Association wrote a constitution for their organization, which among other things, states the purpose of the memorial:

This Association shall have for its object the building of a monument, in the City of Columbia, by the women of the State, to the memory of the South Carolinians who fell in the service of the Confederate States.​

Officers are listed, and the appeal the association made to raise funds is included next.

Women of South Carolina, there needs no urgent appeal t-o your sympathies in a cause so sacred as that which we now undertake. The great tide of adversity, which has swept over our unhappy land, has hitherto stifled effort in this direction ; but not, therefore, have our hearts ceased to beat for the glorious dead. Scarcely is there one among us whose thought does not, on the first mention of our object, turn at once, with loving affection, to some grave which this monument is intended to honor.

Mothers, widows, sisters, daughters, whose hearts thus cling to the soldier's grave, let us then unite with an earnest, loving effort in this holy duty. Let even our lisping little ones be brought to give their mite to its accomplishment; that, thus impressed upon their minds, they may never forget to love and honor the memory of those who battled and fell in our cause. If a lost cause, even, therefore the more holy. Even, therefore, does it become the more incumbent upon us to bring this great sacrifice of pure purpose and heroic deed, that homage and veneration which the world pays only to success.

With the wish that all who have shared in a common sorrow may share also in the privilege of raising this testimonial to our lost heroes, the annual subscription for membership is put at the lowest point practicable, that thus it may lie within the means of those who, having little to give, have still the right, through tears and suffering, to join us in the fulfillment of this most sacred duty.

To all others—men as well as women, old and young—to all who cherish the name of Carolinian, and cling with a fond love to whatever is left to us of our " good old State," we would say, give to us freely according to your means ; give generously; give gratefully to the memory of those who gave their lives for us.
​

According to the newspaper report of the unveiling, 15,000 people attended from all over the state. There was a massive military/veteran presence and that is described in great detail. Both the prayer offered at the ceremony and the Governor's speech dead with memorializing the dead soldiers. Gen. John Preston, the keynote speaker, praised both the fallen soldiers and the women who raised the funds and saw to it that the monument was created and installed.

It is built by these mourning women of a conquered people, and here to-day they dare to dedicate it to the memory of men who devoted themselves to a cause which they lost, and are thereby branded by the world as traitors to Truth and to Liberty. Yes, these dead soldiers, to whose patriotism, valor, virtue, honor and truth ; these pure and holy women, with tears of pious gratitude, arc dedicating this consecrated testimony, stand to-day, and in memory, before the world, as defeated and degraded traitors. Their land has been desolated, their " Cause " proclaimed infamous before the nations of the earth ; and yet these chaste women come here, and in the light of the sun of Heaven, and invoking with holy and solemn rites, God's own very presence, consecrate these names to the admiration, the gratitude, and reverence of their children.

-------------

Women of South Carolina, these are the men to whose valor you dedicate this monument. They are your fathers, your brothers, your husbands, and your sons. Are you justified in building this monument, and moistening it with proud and sacred tears?

​

The article continues:

The ceremonies having been concluded the Washington Artillery fired the salute of the day with their full battery which they brought up with them from Charleston. Eleven guns were fired in quick succession from the central drive in the Capitol Square where the battery was stationed. The immense multitude, which could not have numbered less than ten thousand persons, then began to move towards the centre of the City, and as the sun sank beneath the Western horizon the magnificent monument erected by Carolina's noble daughters to Carolina's heroic dead was left to the silent watching of the stars ; and as the marble soldier stands alone in the gathering shades of the evening, gazing wistfully towards the setting sun, we will endeavor to give some idea of the great work which the ladies of Carolina have accomplished.
​

 

[5fish]

Nothing here changes the narrative:

and erect a monument which should perpetuate the memory of the slain and convey to the latest generations the record of the undying fidelity of the people of South Carolina, to truth, justice and liberty.

The fallen they speak of were traitors. Who took arms aginst your country...

a suitable monument should be erected in memory of all who fell;

If they pull all the Confederate monuments and statues and put them in cemeteries. I would be for it; for if those memorials were meant for the dead then they should be with the dead. Here in O-town(Orlando) we move our confederate monument to a cemetery and all were happy.

give gratefully to the memory of those who gave their lives for us.

They were traitors they were not giving their lives for anyone but for slavery...

dedicate it to the memory of men who devoted themselves to a cause which they lost

Yes, a false cause a cause that wanted to enslave our fellow African-Americas... and tear our Consitution and nation to pieces

the magnificent monument erected by Carolina's noble daughters to Carolina's heroic dead

Everyone is delusional, they were traitors, not some freedom fighters they fought to enslave their fellow man...

 

[jgoodguy]

Text of speech.
ttp://blogs.lib.unc.edu/uarms/index.php/2013/05/silent-sam-turns-100/

My comments

The speech is focused on politics.

The whole Southland is sanctified by the precious blood of the Student
Confederate soldier
Their sublime courage has
thrown upon the sky of Dixie a picture so bright
and beautiful that neither defeat, nor disaster,
nor oppression, nor smoke, nor fire, nor devasta-
tion, nor desolation, dire and calamitous, and I
might with truth add, the world, the flesh nor the
Devil has been able to mar or blemish it. The
tragedy of history falls to record anywhere upon
its sublime pages anything comparable to it. All
time will be the millenium of their glory.​

..
What is going on in 1913 than needs to be sanctified? Jim Crow and the elimination of any rights for blacks. So Mr Carr is using the deaths of the students to further his political beliefs of racism and White Supremacy.

Or is it suggesting that the cause they fought for was sanctified?
This is not a funeral speech, but a political one.

Lost Cause

This noble gift of the United Daughers of
the Confederacy touches deeply and tenderly the
heart of every man who has the privilege of
claiming the University of North Carolina as his
Alma Mater. It is in harmony with the eternal
fitness of things that the Old North State's
daughters of to-day should commemorate the heroism
of the men and youths whom the mothers and sisters,
the wives and sweethearts of half a century ago
sent forth to battle for the South. As Niobe wept
over her sons slain by Apollo, so the tears of our
women were shed over the consumated sacrifice of
their loved ones. And as the gods transformed
Niobe into a marble statue, and set this upon a
high mountain, so our native goddesses erect this
monument of bronze to honor the valor of all those
who fought and died for the Sacred Cause, as well
as for the living sons of this grand old University.​

.
Lost Cause.

A thin line of gray 'gainst the legions of blue.
They broke it, the thousands, the might of a nation,
Hurled back the weak line in its pitiful plight;
The deeds that had challenged a world's admiration,
Went down 'neath the pall of a pitiless night​

Lost Cause

On every battlefield they gave good account of
themselves, and with their life-blood they sealed
the compact of patriot and hero.
I regard it an eminently appropriate to refer
briefly at this point to the magnificent showing
made by our state in the military service of the
Confederacy.​

Lost Cause

And I dare to affirm this day, that if every
State of the South had done what North Carolina
did without a murmur, always faithful to its duty
whatever the groans of the victims, there never
would have been an Appomattox; Grant would have
followed Meade and Pope, Burnside, Hooker, McDowell
and McClellan, and the political geography of
America would have been re-written.​

Anti Reconstruction Lost Cause

It is not for us to question the decrees of
Providence. Let us be grateful that our struggle,
keeping alive the grand principle of local self-
government and State sovereignty has thus far held
the American people from that consolidated despot-
ism whose name, whether Republic or Empire, is
of but little importance as compared with its
rule.​

White Supremacy

The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely
takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant
to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the
four years immediately succeeding the war, when
the facts are, that their courage and steadfastness
saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the
South--When "the bottom rail was on top" all over
the Southern states, and to-day as a consequence,
the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found
in the 13 Southern States -- Praise God.​

Even the whipping incident is political saying the Yankees approved.

I can keep on, but it is obvious that the speech is political in service to a racist and White Supremacy viewpoint and by implication the monument.

 

[Andersonh1]

These reactions are interesting. When I read both of those documents, the thing that struck me was the lengths these women went to in order to remember their dead, and it touches my heart. It genuinely does. I'm not so wrapped up in politics and "the narrative" that I can't empathize with these women who had lost loved ones and wanted them honored and remembered.

More to follow soon. It's amazing just how much information is out there, digitized and waiting to be found.

 

[Andersonh1]

The Ladies Memorial Association of Montgomery Alabama
Its Origin and Organization 1860-1870
Compiled by Marielou Armstrong Cory
Montgomery Ala. Printing Company
April 1902

https://books.google.com/books?id=6JpPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

From the opening of this booklet, words to live by when researching history: "No important fact has been chronicled without going to the prime sources for the first and best proof, and no pains has been spared to verify the memory of those who are living by a resort to written or printed records."

You will find a rose-colored reference to race and the post early in this booklet, so the writer does indicate her mindset with this statement that I doubt many of the slaves would agree with: "Happiest of all were the slaves, whose laughter-loving lives and easy days and devotion to the whites are a Paradise Lost to many of their luckless descendants."

A good portion of this booklet deals with the establishment of places to care for wounded and then old Confederate soldiers after the war. It takes a few pages to get to the accounts of how the historical societies were formed, but once we arrive at that point, the motivations will become apparent.

At a preliminary meeting of citizens held yesterday at the Capitol, I was instructed to inform the public that
to-night at 7 o'clock a meeting of all interested in the subject will take place in the Representative hall of the Capitol for the purpose of organizing an association to preserve the historical facts in relation to the late war and to build a monument to the dead of Alabama. All who take interest in the objects of the meeting, ladies and gentlemen, are invited to be present. The sacred duty of preserving the memory of our gallant dead is one which will command the devotion of all who lament misfortune and applaud virtue. Let the meeting to-night be so attended as to prove that the people of Alabama are willing to leave their deeds to the vindication of history and their memory to posterity.

------------

Resolved, That the use of the hall of the House of Representatives be tendered for this evening to the citizens of Alabama, who desire to form an Historical Association to perpetuate the memory of Alabamians who have died in the service of the country."—(House Journal, 1865-66, p. 41).
​

This particular passage is telling when it comes to motivation. They want to leave politics and arguments over the cause of the war out of it, and just remember the "heroic dead."

The committee finds it unnecessary, too, to mix with the griefs and duties of the occasion the slightest allusion to the origin of the struggle in which so many have found graves. We wish to preserve the recollection of our heroic dead, unmixed with bitterness.

We desire a pall dropped upon the past except so far as their patriotic devotion is to be recorded. The grave of a hero is sacred everywhere—the impulses which prompt to its veneration are indifferent to neither friend nor foe. The Englishman, full of the thrills which accompany the memory of Waterloo, bows in reverence to the tomb in which reposes the ashes of Napoleon. The child reads on the monument which marks the resting place of Wolff and Montgomery lessons which inspire to public virtue and self-sacrifice in the cause of his country.​

This particular monument received money from the state of Alabama.

Ist. Resolved, That the Legislature of the State be memorialized by a standing committee of three persons to be appointed by the President of this meeting, to appropriate the sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000) out of any moneys in the State treasury not otherwise appropriated, as a basis of capital upon which to begin the erection of a monument on the Capitol grounds, with the inscription : "Alabama honors her sons who died in her service."​

The booklet then moves towards the efforts of the women themselves. Like the women of South Carolina, they had begun to collect remains to return them to Alabama, and to raise money for that purpose. They were concerned that Alabama was not providing for this. "We hear of no commission or agent being sent to the battlefields to remove the remains of our beloved sons from the desecration of the ploughshare. Other states are rendering to their dead the pious rites which their remains should receive, but Alabama is permitting the graves of those who laid down their lives for her to be lost forever under the ploughed soil." So they took the job upon themselves, and from there the job grew to raising funds to renovate and care for the graves of the Confederate dead.

The battle is over, but the dead are unburied. They are lying where they fell in the valleys of Virginia and Tennessee. Their bones are bleaching beneath the sun and the storm beside those of the beasts of burden. The ploughshare is striking them from the soil which their blood sanctified. It is true that a single hand here and there is extended to gather their ashes into consecrated ground, where the pious pilgrim may read in a single line the melancholy history of their glory. But a single hand is unequal to the task. To you, daughters of Alabama, comes once more an appeal to help us bury our dead!​

The vast majority of this book speaks to the need to properly bury and memorialize the dead of Alabama, so it should come as no surprise when that is given as the reason for erecting monuments to these men. One was proposed for the Soldier's Cemetery:

Dr. Cox submitted the plan for erection at Soldiers' Cemetery in honor of Confederate dead buried there, the marble work of which should not exceed |700 in cost. Plan adopted and immediate erection of the monument was authorized.​

With the death of the first vice president of the memorial association, we get the following paragraph:

Mrs. Phelan lived long enough, though, to see her most cherished wishes realized; for during the first four years this Association accomplished a work unparalleled in history. The dead upon all the fields of battle were properly interred; a monument and chapel in the cemetery were completed; eight hundred graves were marked with head-boards, and the beautiful Memorial Day custom was firmly established. For the completing of all objects many thousand dollars had been expended. It was a glorious, marvelous record, a fit emblem of our Southern womanhood.
​

And then we get back to the monument at the capitol, which the ladies helped complete with their fund-raising.

Anyone who examines this short history should come away with no doubt as to what the purpose of the Ladies Memorial Association of Montgomery Alabama actually was.

 

[jgoodguy]

The Ladies Memorial Association of Montgomery Alabama
Its Origin and Organization 1860-1870
Compiled by Marielou Armstrong Cory
Montgomery Ala. Printing Company
April 1902

https://books.google.com/books?id=6JpPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

From the opening of this booklet, words to live by when researching history: "No important fact has been chronicled without going to the prime sources for the first and best proof, and no pains has been spared to verify the memory of those who are living by a resort to written or printed records."

You will find a rose-colored reference to race and the post early in this booklet, so the writer does indicate her mindset with this statement that I doubt many of the slaves would agree with: "Happiest of all were the slaves, whose laughter-loving lives and easy days and devotion to the whites are a Paradise Lost to many of their luckless descendants."

A good portion of this booklet deals with the establishment of places to care for wounded and then old Confederate soldiers after the war. It takes a few pages to get to the accounts of how the historical societies were formed, but once we arrive at that point, the motivations will become apparent.

At a preliminary meeting of citizens held yesterday at the Capitol, I was instructed to inform the public that
to-night at 7 o'clock a meeting of all interested in the subject will take place in the Representative hall of the Capitol for the purpose of organizing an association to preserve the historical facts in relation to the late war and to build a monument to the dead of Alabama. All who take interest in the objects of the meeting, ladies and gentlemen, are invited to be present. The sacred duty of preserving the memory of our gallant dead is one which will command the devotion of all who lament misfortune and applaud virtue. Let the meeting to-night be so attended as to prove that the people of Alabama are willing to leave their deeds to the vindication of history and their memory to posterity.

------------

Resolved, That the use of the hall of the House of Representatives be tendered for this evening to the citizens of Alabama, who desire to form an Historical Association to perpetuate the memory of Alabamians who have died in the service of the country."—(House Journal, 1865-66, p. 41).
​

This particular passage is telling when it comes to motivation. They want to leave politics and arguments over the cause of the war out of it, and just remember the "heroic dead."

The committee finds it unnecessary, too, to mix with the griefs and duties of the occasion the slightest allusion to the origin of the struggle in which so many have found graves. We wish to preserve the recollection of our heroic dead, unmixed with bitterness.

We desire a pall dropped upon the past except so far as their patriotic devotion is to be recorded. The grave of a hero is sacred everywhere—the impulses which prompt to its veneration are indifferent to neither friend nor foe. The Englishman, full of the thrills which accompany the memory of Waterloo, bows in reverence to the tomb in which reposes the ashes of Napoleon. The child reads on the monument which marks the resting place of Wolff and Montgomery lessons which inspire to public virtue and self-sacrifice in the cause of his country.​

This particular monument received money from the state of Alabama.

Ist. Resolved, That the Legislature of the State be memorialized by a standing committee of three persons to be appointed by the President of this meeting, to appropriate the sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000) out of any moneys in the State treasury not otherwise appropriated, as a basis of capital upon which to begin the erection of a monument on the Capitol grounds, with the inscription : "Alabama honors her sons who died in her service."​

The booklet then moves towards the efforts of the women themselves. Like the women of South Carolina, they had begun to collect remains to return them to Alabama, and to raise money for that purpose. They were concerned that Alabama was not providing for this. "We hear of no commission or agent being sent to the battlefields to remove the remains of our beloved sons from the desecration of the ploughshare. Other states are rendering to their dead the pious rites which their remains should receive, but Alabama is permitting the graves of those who laid down their lives for her to be lost forever under the ploughed soil." So they took the job upon themselves, and from there the job grew to raising funds to renovate and care for the graves of the Confederate dead.

The battle is over, but the dead are unburied. They are lying where they fell in the valleys of Virginia and Tennessee. Their bones are bleaching beneath the sun and the storm beside those of the beasts of burden. The ploughshare is striking them from the soil which their blood sanctified. It is true that a single hand here and there is extended to gather their ashes into consecrated ground, where the pious pilgrim may read in a single line the melancholy history of their glory. But a single hand is unequal to the task. To you, daughters of Alabama, comes once more an appeal to help us bury our dead!​

The vast majority of this book speaks to the need to properly bury and memorialize the dead of Alabama, so it should come as no surprise when that is given as the reason for erecting monuments to these men. One was proposed for the Soldier's Cemetery:

Dr. Cox submitted the plan for erection at Soldiers' Cemetery in honor of Confederate dead buried there, the marble work of which should not exceed |700 in cost. Plan adopted and immediate erection of the monument was authorized.​

With the death of the first vice president of the memorial association, we get the following paragraph:

Mrs. Phelan lived long enough, though, to see her most cherished wishes realized; for during the first four years this Association accomplished a work unparalleled in history. The dead upon all the fields of battle were properly interred; a monument and chapel in the cemetery were completed; eight hundred graves were marked with head-boards, and the beautiful Memorial Day custom was firmly established. For the completing of all objects many thousand dollars had been expended. It was a glorious, marvelous record, a fit emblem of our Southern womanhood.
​

And then we get back to the monument at the capitol, which the ladies helped complete with their fund-raising.

Anyone who examines this short history should come away with no doubt as to what the purpose of the Ladies Memorial Association of Montgomery Alabama actually was.

Assuming that a subgroup of white supremacists and anti-black takes on a task, it is reasonable to assume that the racism and white supremacists ideology will infuse that task. After all, there were no monuments to the victims of slavery in that time period. Racism and white supremacy were the societal norm.

 

[Andersonh1]

Assuming that a subgroup of white supremacists and anti-black takes on a task, it is reasonable to assume that the racism and white supremacists ideology will infuse that task.

Why?

So when they went to the grocery store, they did so with racist reasons? When the wife cooked dinner for her family, it was done so with racist ideology "infusing that task"? When they picked out clothes for the day, racism dictated their clothing choice? When they picked out ice cream on a hot day, was the flavor choice made with white supremacy in mind?

This is what i expected someone to say, because it's how so much of this history is analyzed these days. "They were white supremacists, therefore everything they did was racist." I'm sorry, that's simplistic nonsense. Many things motivate people to take action, and all motivations are not all in play for all actions. It is perfectly reasonable to allow that even in a society where white supremacy is the accepted norm that people can act out of other motivations. A simple understanding of human nature will tell us that, and the written documents where their reasons are spelled out in black and white underlines the point.

After all, there were no monuments to the victims of slavery in that time period.

When the goal is to honor the war dead and remember them, how exactly were 'victims of slavery' to be included in that goal? Explain that to us.

 

[jgoodguy]

This is what i expected someone to say, because it's how so much of this history is analyzed these days. "They were white supremacists, therefore everything they did was racist." I'm sorry, that's simplistic nonsense. Many things motivate people to take action, and all motivations are not all in play for all actions. It is perfectly reasonable to allow that even in a society where white supremacy is the accepted norm that people can act out of other motivations. A simple understanding of human nature will tell us that, and the written documents where their reasons are spelled out in black and white underlines the point.

Truth is often simplistic.

When the goal is to honor the war dead and remember them, how exactly were 'victims of slavery' to be included in that goal? Explain that to us.

War dead, dead to keep slavery intact.

 

[jgoodguy]

So when they went to the grocery store, they did so with racist reasons? When the wife cooked dinner for her family, it was done so with racist ideology "infusing that task"? When they picked out clothes for the day, racism dictated their clothing choice? When they picked out ice cream on a hot day, was the flavor choice made with white supremacy in mind?

Were not grocery stores segregated? Yes they were even to black groceries in black areas and white in white areas.
Did the wife cook any ethnic dishes or standard white man's fare?
Clothing stores and Ice cream were segregated so the choices were racially determined.

 

[Andersonh1]

War dead, dead to keep slavery intact.

Not what they said or believed, as those who rail against the "lost cause" so often remind us.

 

[Andersonh1]

Were not grocery stores segregated? Yes they were even to black groceries in black areas and white in white areas.
Did the wife cook any ethnic dishes or standard white man's fare?
Clothing stores and Ice cream were segregated so the choices were racially determined.

You're really reaching here.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

This thread is totally going off the rails...

Get back to the topic and let the info provided inform.

Spoken as unofficial mod and axe-wielder .

 

[Viper21]

You're really reaching here.

Some folks see racism, & virtue signals in everything.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Some folks see racism, & virtue signals in everything.

And many ignore the traffic signals... of the time to come.

 

[Viper21]

And many ignore the traffic signals... of the time to come.

Not really. Some of us are trying desperately to avoid it. One fellar predicted it over 70yrs ago......

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell 1984

 

[O' Be Joyful]

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell 1984

Respectfully,

Your possible reading of that text is different than mine. And I have the book, not to insinuate that you don't have it.

 

[Viper21]

Respectfully,

Your possible reading of that text is different than mine. And I have the book, not to insinuate that you don't have it.

I believe Mr Orwell had an amazing vision into the future. While I don't agree with everything he wrote, I'm still impressed with much of his foresight.

The Thought Police, have been building ranks for awhile now.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

I believe Mr Orwell had an amazing vision into the future. While I don't agree with everything he wrote, I'm still impressed with much of his foresight.

The Thought Police, have been building ranks for awhile now.

You do understand that he was a socialist do you not? As well as a reformed communist.