Stone Mountain Confederate Fun
Having spent some of my formative years as a Yankee living in South Carolina, I can tell you that the Civil War is not dead. No, no, my friends, it is alive and well. If you haven't lived or spent time in the South, you might not know this, but it's true.
I was reminded of this yesterday when my grandparents stopped by. Despite being nearly 80, they still spent a lot of time traveling around the country visiting friends and lovely historical landmarks such as Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. Last night they were showing us some pictures of their visit to this "Eighth Wonder of the World" (according to the brochure).
The main attraction of Stone Mountain Park is a gigantic Confederate Memorial carving featuring Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis on horse-back. (The brochure didn't say Confederate President--just President. Hmmmm.)
On the front of the brochure was a large photo of a happy African-American family in the skyride that takes visitors 825 feet up to get a better view of the carving. Hmmmm. Does anyone else think this is in bad taste? What are they doing? Celebrating their oppressors? "Hey, honey, let's take the kids to see those fellas that would have kept us in chains. It'll be a fun day!"
Yes, I can just hear the white Southerners who created this bit of propaganda--"We're gonna put this family on the cover. Look how happy they is. Them black folk loved President Jefferson Davis. Nobody liked Lincoln. Them slaves knew they had it good. We was good to our slaves, but that Lincoln done got ev'rybody riled up about bein' free and NOW look at 'em! Nothin' but drugs and pimps and bling, bling. Well, we're gonna show them Yankees! Show 'em all the happy, well-adjusted blacks who knew what a good thing they had. Black folk celebratin' the Confederacy! We shoulda won that war."
Celebrating the progressive, integrated culture of the 19th century South.
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3 comments:
Wow, talk about being propogandized. Yankees love to smear the good men of the South along with the wicked. (I'm surrounded up here in CT)
The winners write the history books so we don't hear which country was the first on this continent to outlaw the evil slave trade (The Confederate States of America - it was in their constitution). This was half a century after the first state in the U.S. to do so (Virginia). In the Antebellum South anti-slavery organizations outnumbered those in the North five to one.
I could go on but this is just enough to show that disregard for the truth and lack of discernment show how you can call evil good and good evil. That's propoganda!
Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson were some of the best men this country ever produced; slandered by you only for the reason that they valued their loyalty to Virginia more than their loyalty to the Union. I'm quite sure you haven't the slightest idea of their opinions of African Americans or slavery.
Dan, I was just going to let this slide, but I feel like I would be doing an injustice by not addressing what you said.
The facts are that the South outlawed ONLY the importing of new slaves from Africa, not the internal trade, nor the existence of slavery. The North didn't have the same issues of slavery and so needed no such laws.
The reason there were more abolitionist groups in the Confederate states was because that's where they were needed. Not only that, but the mere number of groups does not indicate the number of people who believed slavery was wrong. Could not two groups in the north have more members than ten groups in the south?
Yes, the main issue in the Civil War was state rights vs. federal rights, but the main "right" that the Southern states wanted to keep was slavery. No matter how you want to spin it, that became the bottom line. To one degree or another, that is what those men were fighting to defend.
I did not appreciate the tone of your comment, and the personal attacks you made. Nor do I appreciate your defense of the Confederate leadership. Your point is well taken--and I certainly agree--that the winners write the history and so we should be cautious in that, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong.
Ben, I simply was making the point that you can't denigrate all people of a geographic area for the sins of their neighbors. There were good men in the South fighting against the bad laws. (Perhaps mt thesis should have gone first?)
I'm not sure what you mean by my personal attacks.
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