THOSE MONUMENTS

Aside from the recent domestic terrorism we should have an appreciation of the issues leading to the Civil War and the meaning of the numerous memorials now present in many locations including “northern cities”.

If one were to “google” the history of the memorials and the display of the Confederate flag one would learn that there were few if any monuments to Confederates until the 1890s when the last Civil War veterans had passed away.

The monument buildings lasted into the early 20^th century and were an expression of an outburst of white supremacy in the “Jim Crow” era that began after the end of the Reconstruction period during which blacks had obtained a large degree of civil rights including that of voting. Jim Crow segregation laws had been passed by states and municipalities in the South since the 1880’s and these laws lasted sheer through to the 1960’s.

The Lee statue in Charlottesville was erected in 1924 more than 50 years after the end of the war.

The displaying of the Confederate flag revival began in the 30s when there was a surge in racist and religious bigotry fueled by such as Reverend Coughlin. Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg a Hitler worshiper and embraced by the isolationist block in central and MidwestUSA.

Despite the common belief that "the Confederate flag" has remained in uninterrupted use since the end of the Civil War, its use was mostly limited to historical movies, like Gone with the Wind. Its revival in the 1950s and 1960s was to show opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, starting with Senator Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats in 1948. Racism played a major role in its new popularity. (Wikipedia)

Gordon Rhea wrote in 2011 that: “It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals: 'that the negro is not equal to the white man'.
The Confederate flag, we are told, represents heritage, not hate. But why should we celebrate a heritage grounded in hate, a heritage whose self-avowed reason for existence was the exploitation and debasement of a sizeable segment of its population?”

In the 1990s many Southern state legislatures attempted to allow the use of the Confederate flag as a part of its political and civic heritage as they consider it a part of the American history and do not view the flag as a representation of racism or any form of superiority. (Wikipedia)

Today we frequently see the flag displayed in the north often on a car antenna by those who had no relationship with the Confederate. It can only be a white supremacy gesture.

The  next blog should be about the causes of the Civil War. Rational comments are always welcomed even in disagreement.