Contention has arisen between opposing views on Confederate monuments in South Carolina. The monuments in question depict southern leaders and historical events surrounding the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Some suggest that monuments and statues of the Confederacy depict Southern heritage and should serve as a cautionary tale of a sordid U.S. history. While others belive that elevating and erecting statues and monuments to people who owned slaves, fought for the Confederacy, and gave their lives to preserve slavery sends the wrong message. Statues symbolize glorification, a depiction of something larger than life. For many, especially Black Americans, the Confederacy was the personification of their subjugation, dehumanization, rape, torture, and death. Symbols and icons of this time period are painful to observe and can serve as a reminder that systemic racism is still present in the world today.
The question arises of whether it is more important to preserve a gruesome history as a warning to future generations by depicting Confederate leaders and slave owners in monuments or to draw attention to the revolting history of slavery and racism in the United States by erecting monuments to Civil Rights activists like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Is it possible to remember the past and avoid repeating it without appearing to glorify the hate of the past?
Those who support monuments to Confederate leaders believe that the past cannot be changed and should not be hidden or subjected to censorship. They are a stark reminder of our mistakes and will forever be part of our present and future. However, the very definition of a monument is "a statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a famous or notable person or event." If the idea was not to glorify slavery and white supremacy, a monument dedicated to the Confederacy would be counteractive.
Racism and bigotry are still embedded in the fabric of present-day society. The history of Redlining, police brutality, and harsher sentences for minorities, is evidence that the effects of slavery persist.
Preserving the Confederacy through statues and symbols was never meant to be admonishing or a teachable moment. Unknown to many, these monuments' sponsors were not inclined to acknowledge the Confederacy's mistakes but an attempt to exalt the South's undying will.
After the Civil War and up to the early 1900s, southern secession history was comprehensively rewritten. According to David W. Blight, Ph.D. and Yale University professor on American history, the South revised their history and fashioned a narrative that "…they were fighting to hold back the massive industrialization of America, they were trying to preserve rural agrarian civilization."
Due to this revising, the intentions of sponsors of these southern monuments followed the same line of thought. According to Karen Cox, historian of the University of North Carolina, the United Daughters of the Confederacy sponsored several monuments of Confederate personalities, "…to prepare future generations of white Southerners to respect and defend the principles of the Confederacy."
Clearly, these monuments' very intention was to glorify the South and its principles. It shows continued opposition to the ethics and morality of what America is today.
The monuments, statues, and symbols of the Confederacy, slavery, and racism are not a celebration of Southern heritage nor a lesson against repeating history. They are more like the roots of white supremacy and white nationalism attempting to creep their way back into society under the disguise of a hood.
