Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
The 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War is in 2011, and what better way to commemorate the culmination of inter-state fighting and the subjugation of an entire race of people than a series of spectacular events spread across the Deep South.According to the Sons of Confederate Veterans:
"We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be known," said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons." Our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence."
This sentiment is intensifying as the momentous milestone in American history approaches. From Alabama to Atlanta and Charleston to Virginia, these protectors of the 14th amendment are defiantly spewing their white-washed propaganda in television ads scheduled to air next year.
"All we wanted was to be left alone to govern ourselves," says one ad from the group's Georgia Division.
There may be those ignorant or naive enough to swallow that lie without noticing the bitter taste; however, the NAACP, among other organizations, plans to protest some of the festivities.
The events include a "secession ball" in the former slave port of Charleston ("a joyous night of music, dancing, food and drink," says the invitation), which will be replicated on a smaller scale in other cities. A parade is being planned in Montgomery, Ala., along with a mock swearing in of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.
"I can only imagine what kind of celebration they would have if they had won," said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP.
Randolph said he was dumbfounded by "all of this glamorization and sanitization of what really happened." When Southerners refer to states' rights, he said, "they are really talking about their idea of one right: to buy and sell human beings."
It is extremely ironic that the 50th anniversary of the Civil War coincided with the Civil Rights Movement, while the sesquicentennial occurs during the Tea Party's rise to influence.
The comparisons between the two movements have been both inevitable and misleading. While the Civil Rights Movement's sole motivation was to ensure - through passive resistance - the equality and true freedom of African Americans, the Tea Party has advocated for the repeal of the 14th amendment.
Though slave owners were forced to end slavery by the 13th amendment, Dixiecrats passed Black Codes, which required freed slaves to be "apprenticed" to "employers" and punished any brave souls who attempted escape.
It has become glaringly obvious that "states rights," then and now, is code for ensuring that prejudicial and racist attitudes are allowed to inform policy that cannot be modified by the federal government. Any celebration of the bloodiest battle fought on American soil is only an admission of that fact, albeit cloaked in taffeta and mint julips.
Jeff Antley, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Confederate Heritage Trust, is organizing the secession ball in Charleston and a 10-day re-enactment of the Confederate encampment at Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the war were fired on April 12, 1861. He is vocal in his support of the Confederacy:
"Many people in the South still believe that [secession] is a just and honorable cause. Do I believe they were right in what they did? Absolutely," he said, noting that he spoke for himself and not any organization. "There's no shame or regret over the action those men took."
No shame or regret?
No shame in whipping grown men in front of their children ... and then beating them as well?
No shame in raping black slaves and keeping the "bastards" born from the unholy unions as property?
No regret that "mammies" often had to breastfeed their white slaveowners children while their own went hungry?
No regret that the ramifications of slavery can be seen in the racial, educational and occupational disparities infesting the South to this very day?
In its secession papers, Mississippi called slavery "the greatest material interest of the world" and said that attempts to stop it would undermine "commerce and civilization."
What these papers left out is that it only undermined these things for slave owners, because they would be forced to pay for labor that by their calculations should be free.
I was born in Jefferson Davis Hospital in Natchez, Miss., one of the most influential and wealthiest slave-trading posts in the South.
I remember passing by the street sign dedicated to Isaac Franklin, one of the most notorious slave traders in history, and driving by the Forks-in-the Road, hearing the stories about the slaves who were sold and bartered there.
I also remember being a small girl peering at the gorgeous antebellum homes, immaculate lawns and swaying magnolia trees - mere seconds away from the abject poverty many black citizens in Natchez find themselves in. I wanted to be Scarlet O'Hara and longed for the gowns, beaus, dancing and the sheer luxury that was the old South.
Until my dreams were interrupted by the harsh reality that I would have been a slave in the field or in the kitchen - a grand lifestyle unattainable for the daughter of a field Negro. My story better reflected in "The Wind Done Gone" than "Gone With the Wind."
That ingrained, tangible evidence of the historical inferiority of black citizens can be seen every day in our southern cities. The Civil War is commemorated with tours of plantations, and the Ole Miss Rebels, with subpar schools for predominately minority districts and harsher prison sentences for African-American men. It is celebrated each time affirmative action is treated as a handout and just the thought of reparations considered a joke.
"We don't know what to commemorate because we've never faced up to the implications of what the thing was really about," said Andrew Young, a veteran of the civil rights movement and former mayor of Atlanta.
It was about power, pride, greed and frantically holding on to a lifestyle maintained by the sweat and tears of slaves. There were many African Americans who died fighting for the Confederacy because they felt they had no choice, no voice.
If there is to ever be an accepted acknowledgement of the Civil War, it must be solemn, respectful and honestly recount the entire sordid story. We cannot allow it to become a revisionist occasion, scrubbed clean of the slaves blood dripping from each battle.