I read an Associated Press report today about the winds of social change that are blowing deeper into Alabama and are now in Macon County. The report is about the discussion to remove the UDC's Confederate soldier monument in Tuskegee from its long-time location in the plot of land downtown. I support the move.
As the great-grandson of a Macon County Confederate Army veteran of the Alabama 63rd Infantry Regiment or the "Boy Regiment" as it is known, I am well-aware of Alabama's roles in history. I am aware of his military history and that of the county in which he grew up after his father moved the family from Georgia in the early 1820's. I have read and never embraced the "Lost Cause" reasons, still repeated most loudly in Montgomery and most recently in Richmond as the statue of Robert E. Lee was proposed to be removed, and across the USA, for raising an army of rebellion in the first place. My ggf was drafted (conscripted) at age 17 and, like many men and boys of that day, probably had little clue as to what was going on outside his own neighborhood of plantations, much less nationally. Yet, they went. Many never came back. He did, and he went on to live his life with some dignity.
To my mind, there was only ever one reason to raise an army at all, and that was to perpetuate the highly profitable industry of chattel slavery; any real consideration of the inhumane nature of the industry was set aside for the most part. Out of that industry grew a social class system the English could only have hoped for in the early 1600s, a system that spawned todays strong winds of change.
I support the winds of change that are now blowing, but not necessarily for the same, immediate reasons from which they sprang, and I hope they don't fade anytime soon. I hope they will soon blow more strongly across Alabama, like a hurricane blowing in from Richmond on its way to Mississippi. Will they be strong enough to clean out the troubling legacy and sustaining culture of King Cotton and all the negative aspects of that culture? Will they get all Confederate statues and memorials moved to private land, or to cemeteries? Will they get the white supremacist State Constitution of 1901 thrown out and a new one written by a representative cross-section of newly energized Alabamians? Will they get the statue of Jefferson Davis removed from the former State Capitol building and placed on private land? Will the White House of the Confederacy become privately funded? Will the Confederate Veterans Home stop getting taxpayer funding? Time will tell, coupled with strength and direction of the blowing winds.
These winds are blowing for good reason, and relate to the coming-to-grips with a continuing story that has so many interlocking chapters its hard to get your mind around it (Its like reading Alabama's 1901 State Constitution with is over 900 Amendments, and about to be voted on again soon!). It's a history story that began long before Jamestown colony was even thought of by the 15th-16th Century English powerbrokers of their day. But it all came West, initially to Florida with the Spanish and then full-bore with the English to Virginia, when in 1619 (400 years ago last year) it landed on these shores.
For me, its time to write new and better chapters in America's ongoing story, chapters that live up to the high moral values and ideals of what American democracy is, or should be, all about.
That's my 2 cents worth for today.
As the great-grandson of a Macon County Confederate Army veteran of the Alabama 63rd Infantry Regiment or the "Boy Regiment" as it is known, I am well-aware of Alabama's roles in history. I am aware of his military history and that of the county in which he grew up after his father moved the family from Georgia in the early 1820's. I have read and never embraced the "Lost Cause" reasons, still repeated most loudly in Montgomery and most recently in Richmond as the statue of Robert E. Lee was proposed to be removed, and across the USA, for raising an army of rebellion in the first place. My ggf was drafted (conscripted) at age 17 and, like many men and boys of that day, probably had little clue as to what was going on outside his own neighborhood of plantations, much less nationally. Yet, they went. Many never came back. He did, and he went on to live his life with some dignity.
To my mind, there was only ever one reason to raise an army at all, and that was to perpetuate the highly profitable industry of chattel slavery; any real consideration of the inhumane nature of the industry was set aside for the most part. Out of that industry grew a social class system the English could only have hoped for in the early 1600s, a system that spawned todays strong winds of change.
I support the winds of change that are now blowing, but not necessarily for the same, immediate reasons from which they sprang, and I hope they don't fade anytime soon. I hope they will soon blow more strongly across Alabama, like a hurricane blowing in from Richmond on its way to Mississippi. Will they be strong enough to clean out the troubling legacy and sustaining culture of King Cotton and all the negative aspects of that culture? Will they get all Confederate statues and memorials moved to private land, or to cemeteries? Will they get the white supremacist State Constitution of 1901 thrown out and a new one written by a representative cross-section of newly energized Alabamians? Will they get the statue of Jefferson Davis removed from the former State Capitol building and placed on private land? Will the White House of the Confederacy become privately funded? Will the Confederate Veterans Home stop getting taxpayer funding? Time will tell, coupled with strength and direction of the blowing winds.
These winds are blowing for good reason, and relate to the coming-to-grips with a continuing story that has so many interlocking chapters its hard to get your mind around it (Its like reading Alabama's 1901 State Constitution with is over 900 Amendments, and about to be voted on again soon!). It's a history story that began long before Jamestown colony was even thought of by the 15th-16th Century English powerbrokers of their day. But it all came West, initially to Florida with the Spanish and then full-bore with the English to Virginia, when in 1619 (400 years ago last year) it landed on these shores.
For me, its time to write new and better chapters in America's ongoing story, chapters that live up to the high moral values and ideals of what American democracy is, or should be, all about.
That's my 2 cents worth for today.