To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, “Treason in defense of slavery is no virtue.” The Confederate leaders, whose monuments are the latest event in the news-cycle of stupidity, were traitors, and their reason was racism. Sure, some of us were taught the revisionist history that the Civil War was about economics (an economy built on slave labor) or states’ rights (the right of states to allow slavery).
The fuss about the “monuments” to traitors overlooks the fact that most of the so-called monuments were erected way after the war, while Southern whites were busy re-establishing their supremacy over their former slaves. By Jim Crow laws. By total segregation. By lynching. About 4,000 blacks were lynched (at least 4,000 — many of these murders were not recorded). The great states of Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas and Florida were the leaders in numbers, but lynchings took place throughout the South — and some in the North.
The extreme Southern racists were the original American terrorists.
The monuments to Southern “heroes” were to remind African-Americans that the whites were in charge — and don’t you dare think about voting, or even sitting in a “white” chair, or drinking from a “white” fountain. Or looking at a white woman. If you do, we will lynch you. The “monuments” were, and are, symbols of oppression, not bravery.
The statutes belong in a museum of racism and treason, not on proud public display.
Our current president has, of course, no grasp of history, thus no understanding of how most of these “monuments” came about. That’s why he has no problem defending them.
But Trump is also defending the marchers in Charlottesville, Va., hundreds of racists who carried torches and chanted “Jews will not replace us” and the Nazi slogan “Blood and Soil” among other insults to Jews, LBGT people and African-Americans. Two weeks ago he was encouraging police to violence. Last week he all but embraced Nazis.
So goes life in Munich on the Potomac.
MARK PAINTER served as a judge for 30 years. He is the author of six books. Contact him: letters@citybeat.com.
This article appears in Aug 16-23, 2017.