Confederate Women's Monument (NCDCR) |
What to do with three century-old Confederate monuments that dot North Carolina’s Capitol grounds in Raleigh: Leave them be? Add context? Move them to the Bentonville battlefield?
A study committee of the North Carolina
Historical Commission has received passionate opinions on all three options
from an online portal (more than 5,100 comments thus far), a public hearing
last month and letters from historians and groups.
Michele Walker, a public information
officer for the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, said
the full commission is expected to receive a final recommendation from the
committee by May.
The online portal
will close at midnight Thursday (April 12). The committee, in a recent
conference call, also noted it had requested and received comments from two experts on Civil War
monuments: Yale history professor David Blight and Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center. The call also mentioned comments filed on behalf
of the North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Picket requested copies and
here is a summary of each position:
David
Blight: ‘Relocate but do not lose the lessons’
“Wide public consciousness about the nature and place of
commemoration in our culture seems to be popping up everywhere. And widespread
uses and abuses of "identity" are also a fact of our time. In periods
of bewildering change many people feel or believe themselves to be threatened.
We are also experiencing a lack of confidence in basic, important institutions.
Hence, we live in an era of lots of grievance and resentment -- appeals to
tradition and appeals against it.”
Blight suggested that any community addressing such a
choice about monuments create a good deliberative process, act and think with
humility and “learn more history, lots more, before acting … About the origins and meaning of
monuments at their inception, over time, and now. And all of us need to
remember to try to learn some history other than what we may call ‘our own.’
“Having said
this: It would seem that those monuments to the Confederacy are as public a
statement as can possibly be made about who and what North Carolina was and is.
If it is possible to move them to a prominent place that would allow their
interpretation as part of Southern, American, and North Carolina history, it
would seem to me a good idea. But don't erase them from the landscape. Replace,
but learn. Relocate but do not lose the lessons. ..."
N.C. SCV: State hiding behind a fig leaf
The organization’s opposition to relocation doesn’t touch
on the emotional arguments associated with Confederate monuments. Rather, it
argues a 2015 state law prohibits the removal of them and that this effort does
not meet any exceptions to the law.
Confederate Soldiers Monument |
“The State’s proposal to move the statues to Bentonville
is not a proposal to move them to an equally prominent place,” it argues.
“Instead, the State is using the Bentonville battlefield as a fig leaf to allow
it to move the statues to a remote location to get them away from politically
inconvenient protests. That might be good politics but it is illegal.”
The SCV brief argues the state should hold activists accountable for damaging monuments -- rather than move the memorials: The Confederate Women's Monument (1914), the Confederate
Soldiers Monument (1895) and
the Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument (1912). Wyatt was the first North Carolinian
killed in the Civil War.
“There is no legal avenue to remove these statues. The
law is clear and unambiguous. For this to continue to be a country made of laws
and not of man, the Commission must deny the petition to remove the statues.”
Sheffield
Hale: Context, context, context
The Atlanta History has been a proponent of contextualization – through marker panels, web pages or smartphones -- and
understanding of the symbolism of Confederate monuments.
In his letter, Hale said the 2015 North Carolina law does
“not restrict how the history of monuments can be interpreted and presented ….
There are legally viable strategies for onsite interpretation of monuments that
is more inclusive of the history and sensibilities of a broad spectrum of the
population.”
He argued those involved in the debate over such
memorials should have a respectful discussion, humility and openness.
Sheffield Hale |
Hale argues the three Capitol memorials are of the “Lost
Cause” variety – the idea that the South achieved a moral victory while denying
the role of slavery as the primary cause of the war. Such thinking suppressed
racial equality, he writes.
Whether the monuments stay or are moved, Hale told the
study committee that North Carolina must find a way to provide proper context.
“Historical context to these monuments must acknowledge slavery as the primary
cause of the Civil War and explain how monuments promoted the myth of the Lost
Cause and the practice of Jim Crow segregation. If the state of North Carolina
is unwilling to create this context, I am of the opinion the monuments should
be removed to a warehouse.”
A
little background on the issue
Gov. Cooper’s administration last fall
filed a petition calling for relocation of the memorials. Questions soon arose over whether the
North Carolina Historical Commission has the power to order relocation.
Wyatt statue (NCDCR) |
Walker said about 60 people
spoke at the March 21 public hearing in Raleigh. According to media reports,
many spoke against moving the memorials. “It was fewer than we anticipated, but
we had some unusually wintry weather that day which likely accounted for the
lower turnout,” said Walker.
She said the committee will
make a recommendation and the full commission will vote on its final action,
both in public settings. “I cannot speak for them, but I’m sure they will take
the recommendation of the committee very seriously when making their final
decision.”
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