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That is what Jim Crow was about. It was a continuation of the old racial hierarchy. Granted, racism was everywhere in the USA. The South just had a system basically like Apartheid.
One thing about Jim Crow in the South, very few things were based on reason. Most certainly wasn't based on right and wrong, or in the interests in human rights. It was about power and control.
The times they are a-changing, & this time for the better:
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The statue of Robert E. Lee that has towered over New Orleans since 1884 is coming down. A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Landrieu administration has the right to move three Confederate monuments, including the Lee statue.
The result of the court fight was predictable, and it was the right outcome. Of course the city should be able to move the monuments, which were put up after the Civil War as an act of defiance against the very notion of racial equality.
As jazz trumpeter and New Orleans cultural ambassador Wynton Marsalis wrote in 2015: "In the heart of the most progressive and creative cultural city in America, why should we continue to commemorate this legacy?"
...We have no formal role in the process. Our goal is to bring New Orleanians together, the way that we have always come together: through creative self-expression in the streets. Surely, all of us -- artists, musicians, writers, historians, preservationists, entrepreneurs, gardeners, old liners, new timers -- can come up with a fitting tribute to our beloved, inclusive city. In so doing, we can show our fractured nation how people of all backgrounds can rally around a common purpose. Mr. Marsalis offered one idea for replacing the Lee statue based on the world's response after Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches.
The people have decided to take the statues down, & it's only common sense to continue to let them decide.
It is a long time coming that the statue comes down. It should have never been erected in the first place. I think one reason some might be afraid to take the Lee statue down is because few could imagine what would go up in its place. Or at least someone whom they feel represents them. I'm speaking of those who want the statue to stay. Those who want it taken down are aware of why they want taken down, they make no bones about it, and they likely know who they might want to put up there in the first place. This is what likely scares those who want it to stay. Having a Confederate statue is a throwback to a backwards time. Some persons may want that. Others may not know what they want.
I watched an episode of "Whicker's World". British journalist Alan Whicker went to Paraguay, a nation in which has a past checkered with dictatorship and rulers who didn't last long in office. A major hero of the nation was Francisco Solano Lopez(not to be confused with a Catholic friar from the 17th century). He was the President of Paraguay from 1862-1870. He plunged Paraguay into a war with three different nations, that would decimate most of the male population. The population went from 525,000 to 221,000. Out of that 221,000, women outnumbered men 8 to 1. Despite plunging the country into economic, political, and demographic ruin, he was given a place of honor, particularly during the Stroessner regime of the 1960s. Revisionist history.
I say this because some comparisons can be made. The South started a war it couldn't win. It was driven into severe ruin. And yet, Confederate soldiers find a place of honor. So does revisionist history. Only instead of a dictator doing this, it's done by individuals who cannot admit defeat, cannot admit that the Confederacy was wrong for what it did, or that the Confederacy waged war for the wrong reasons.
That's an excellent piece, thanks & respect for linking it here. A short 10 or 11 paragraphs yet so powerful in expression:
Confederate monuments shouldn't have gone up, must come down
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...They were wrong. And they deserved the public's rebuke even way back then. The people who lived in New Orleans during the Civil War and in the subsequent decades should have condemned Lee and Davis and Beauregard for their participation in that war. They should have condemned slavery as an institution. But they took the opposite view of things. They reviled those men who helped preserve the Union. They reviled those people whose emancipation was brought about by the Civil War. They chose to honor men who not only wanted to preserve slavery but expand it.
Now is the time that their error, their benightedness, their unquestioning devotion to white supremacy and African inferiority gets corrected. The New Orleans City Council, in December 2015, voted 6-1 to remove from public property monuments celebrating Lee, Davis and Beauregard and a fourth monument celebrating the white supremacists who attacked the city's integrated police force in 1874. ...
The poll clearly says 72% do not favor removing confederate statues...
Oh we are still beating this old horse with repeat arguments... hip hip hooray!
Well, the CD people don't represent the City of New Orleans, so it isn't up to you or even those who side with removing those statues. City of New Orleans will decide.
That's an excellent piece, thanks & respect for linking it here. A short 10 or 11 paragraphs yet so powerful in expression:
Confederate monuments shouldn't have gone up, must come down
No problem. One might think that given what the Confederate cause stood for, they would have come down sooner. Part of this goes back to another post I made, comparing this to honoring a President that plunged Paraguay into ruin.
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