Ideas for Washington, from the drawing room floor (WaPo 2013)
By John Kelly
September 13, 2013
... The Civil War may have been over for 58 years, but in 1923 something still rankled certain white Southerners: Americans just didn’t understand the affection that flowed between slave owners and their slaves.
Nowhere was that truer, they thought, than with the loyal black women who lovingly raised white children. And so in 1923 the Washington, D.C., chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy persuaded the U.S. Senate to approve a resolution in favor of erecting a monument in memory of “the faithful slave mammies” of the South ...
“No class of any race of people held in bondage could be found anywhere who lived more free from care and distress,” said the North Carolina congressman who introduced similar legislation in the House.
Critics begged to differ. One African American artist suggested a different design: a black servant holding a white baby by a shirttail while standing atop a washtub. The legend read: “In grateful memory to one we never paid a cent of wages during a lifetime of service” ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/ideas-for-washington-from-the-drawing-room-floor/2013/09/13/0d00ea3e-f5f9-11e2-a2f1-a7acf9bd5d3a_story.html
hattip: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/10-confederate-memorials-still-stand