Stone-Faced Ghosts of the Confederacy

[struggle4progress]

In front of nearly every courthouse .. in the South, you will find a Confederate memorial ... One of the few acts at Appomattox that moves so many white Southerners to emotion was the generosity of permitting Gen. Robert E. Lee and his officers to depart with their side arms. It was technically a gallant gesture but arguably Grant’s unconscious acknowledgment of what we now know: that the war didn’t end but would merely be engaged on other battlefields ...

Building these memorials was the work of the Ladies’ Memorial Associations. Being largely widows’ work, it happened under the radar ... All the noisy arguments for white superiority were replaced by sober talk of states’ rights and the majesty of our Constitution. These faces are the beginning of the most impressive revision of American history in American history ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/stone-faced-ghosts-of-the-confederacy.html

[Cartoonist]

1. So what's to be done?

As a white northerner, I consider the Confederacy to be a group of treasonous racists. Their flag has no place where decent people assemble.

One of the thoughts running through my mind came into focus. ISIS is busy destroying statues and buildings they don't like. Would removing these statues and other Civil War relics be more of the same?

I remember when all those statues of Stalin became available because no one wanted them. Perhaps one day America will no longer want these statues. Or maybe the Sun will burn out first.

[marble falls]

2. That's quite a rogues gallery you've posted there. US/Confederate war criminals everyone of them.