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Re-righting History: A New Take on Confederate Monuments - Coggle Diagram
Re-righting History: A New Take on Confederate Monuments
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Examine whether the removal of confederate monuments is an attempt to re-right or re-write history.
Examine whether these monuments represent heritage or hatred.
Question what role, if any, these monuments played in the marginalization of African Americans.
The Lost Cause narrative:
Depicts the south as a paradise that was destroyed by northern aggression;
Pre-war slavery as a benign institution;
Minimize the brutality of the plantation system (slaves were happy and loyal);
Asserts that the south fought for the preservation of their “States’ Rights”
Southerners were as such not rebels or traitors but rather patriots who were defending the 10th Amendment.
Edward A. Pollard, a journalist, who is considered to be an early historian of the Confederacy. His book The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates (1866) is a seminal work in the development of The Lost Cause.
Mildred Lewis Rutherford, the historian of the United Daughters of the Confederacy wrote a phamphlet "A Measuring Rod for Textbooks" (1920), urged libraries to write 'unjust to the south' on every book in their library that doesn't measure up to their standard narrative.
Popularization of the Lost Cause and the erection of monuments was primarily the work of confederal memorial associations. Namely the United Daughters of the Confederacy (established in 1894), the Sons of Confederate Veterans (1896) and the United Confederate Veterans (1889).
Orthodox view > keep Camp
Robert K. Krick, was born in California in 1943.
Civil War Historian, lecturer, Leading preservationist and renowned expert of several battlefields in Virginia, battlefield tour guide
Krick is a stong proponent of the preservation of these monuments. In fact, he is a firm brliever that past figures should not be judgeby today's values.
"[those calling for removal are] zealots eager to obliterate any culture not precisely their own, destroying monuments in the fashion of Soviets after a purge, and antiquities in the manner of ISIS."
– Confederate Statues and Memorialization, University of Georgia Press, 2019, p.125-126
Revisionist view
A symbol of past crimes and a tool of oppression
Peniel Joseph African American Historian. Born October 5, 1972 in New York to a Haitian immigrant mother.
He is a professor of history at Tufts University and founding director for the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD).
Opposes those who argue that ought to stay up because of their historical value
He calls for understanding the specific historical context of Confederate monuments in America.
He argues that "these monuments are un-American"
"Getting rid of those symbols is really honoring the best of our history and not trying to somehow scrub or efface that history."
"Why America is wrestling with Confederate monuments," Aug 25, 2017 (
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/america-wrestling-confederate-monuments
)
Transnational view
David Olusoga. Born: January 1970 in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and British mother. migrated to the UK in 1974.
Award-winning British historian, writer, broadcaster, presenter and film-maker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester.
Confederate monuments were erected for cynical reasons that have little to do with history or heritage. were principally created to silence marginalised voices rather than commemorate events past.
History is plastic and ever-changing while statues are fixed and inflexible.
Looks to Germany for answers. How Germany dealt with the Siegesallee statues when they became symbols of Imperial Germany (removed from public spaces in 1947)
David Olusoga, "Set in Stone?,"
Where Strangers Meet: Arts and the Public Realm
, ed. Claire Doherty, The British Council, 2017.
Map compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center reveals 1,747 Confederate monuments across America, mostly concentrated in the south
Why Are There SO Many Confederate Monuments? - PBS
https://www.pbs.org/video/why-are-there-so-many-confederate-monuments-avuxxy/
Confederate General Robert E. Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed the building of Confederate war monuments
“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated ... in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment.”
– Robert E. Lee to Thomas L. Rosser, 13 Dec. 1866
W.E.B Du Bois (Born1868, Massachusetts; D: 1963, in Ghana)
American sociologist, professor of history, civil rights activist, and author
One of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
"Today we can best perpetuate [Robert E. Lee's] memory and his nobler traits not by falsifying his moral debacle, but by explaining it to the young white south. What Lee did in 1861, other Lees are doing in 1928."
– W.E.B. DuBois, “The Crisis,” March 1928.
Trump echoes Krick
“They’re tearing down statues, desecrating monuments, and purging dissenters. It’s not the behavior of a peaceful political movement; it’s the behavior of totalitarians and tyrants and people that don’t love our country.” – President Donald J. Trump, 2017
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6itd4x
America Inside Out Series 1 - National Geographic
"The Declaration of Immediate Causes which May Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union," published on 24 December 1860, stated that “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world.”—Mississippi Secession Convention
since 2015, over 110 Confederate monuments and symbols have come down, but there are still over 1,700 Confederate symbols displayed in public spaces. That includes:
780 monuments, more than 300 of which are in Georgia, Virginia or North Carolina
103 public schools and 3 colleges named after Confederates icons
80 counties and cities named for Confederates
9 observed state holidays in five states such as Confederate Memorial Day
10 U.S. military bases named in honor of Confederate leaders
No consensus has emerged over what to do with Confederate monument: whether they should remain in place, or be removed from public spaces.
Polls show a decided split along racial and party lines, with whites and Republicans largely supportive of preservation. Democrats and minorities were more likely to support removal.
