17 August, 2017
It was at the root of the great civil rights struggles and from that flowed the hate and violence we saw in Charlottesville, Virginia, last week. At the centre of the chaos in Charlottesville is the statue of Robert E Lee. That includes most, if not all, Confederate monuments in the state.
The city plans to remove the statue of Lee led to Saturday's "Unite the Right" rally, which erupted in violence, including the intentional ramming of a auto into a crowd of anti-racist demonstrators. Each of the 50 USA states picked two statues to contribute to the Statuary Hall collection. "Let us compromise and stay ahead of what we are seeing across the nation". Jackson earned his nickname, "Stonewall", at one of first major battles of the war when another general is said to have rallied his men by saying "There stands Jackson like a stone wall".
"The Confederacy is often associated with being a rebel, as in somebody who does not take to authority very easily".
A similar law in MS says statues, landmarks and memorials can't be taken off public property unless they block drivers from seeing the road or are put in another approved location.
Another Kentucky mayor, Lexington's Greg Fischer, said Sunday that the city's Commission on Public Art would review pieces throughout the city that could be interpreted as honoring racism and slavery. Sometimes, when the subject matter touched on noncontroversial topics, this was innocuous and even a positive form of social cohesion; but in the case of Confederate memorials, it was a purposeful form of social exclusion and a none-too-subtle extension of racist terror into the aesthetic and symbolic life of the community.
"This is not about the personality of an individual and his or her flaws", she said. I grew up in SC and have had my own history with confederate flags, as has my home state. "They won the battle over the peace". This is a result of a 150-year-old propaganda campaign created to erase slavery as the cause of the war and whitewash the Confederate cause as a noble one.
In turn, Confederate soldiers were portrayed as heroes for fighting with honor and courage in the face of overwhelming numbers on the battlefield - ideals that all Americans admire and respect.
Lee was vilified in the North during the Civil War only to be transformed in the decades afterward into a heroic icon of "The Lost Cause", admired by many on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. "Nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it".
There should be little controversy over the observation that the Confederacy fought for despicable, tyrannical, and yes, evil reasons.
While one can distinguish between the young men conscripted to fight for the Confederacy and the traitors who convinced or forced them to fight, there should no doubt that the "cause" for which they fought was pure nihilism, a state built upon the subjugation of fellow humans. Many ask, for example, how there can be any legitimate memorialization of a cause that embraced (among other values) slavery and a belief in African-American inferiority.
Speaking of southern gentlemen clubs, a group of six former Confederate soldiers started one after they lost the war.
"By and large, Americans couldn't agree on exactly how treasonous secession was", Emberton said. Davis was imprisoned for two years awaiting trial for treason. Among those paying his bail were prominent Northerners, including abolitionist Horace Greeley.
Some Chinese readers might have never heard of Robert E. Lee.
In Maryland, GOP Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday he would push to remove the statue of Taney from state land.
"What's next, burning books with offensive content?" wrote author Cheryl K. Chumley in a recent editorial in the conservative leaning Washington Times newspaper.
We also reached out to the local Sons of Confederate Veterans' chapter, which dedicated the statue back in 1966.
Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews addressed the incident in a news conference Tuesday.
"So, this week it's Robert E. Lee", Trump said. Washington was the only one of those who freed his slaves.
