Imagine if you worked in New York’s Financial District, and every day, you had to walk by a statue of one of the people who flew the planes into the World Trade Center. Hey, that would be a part of our history, too, right?
Perhaps, one of these days, someone will blast the bas-reliefs of Davis, Lee, and Jackson off the face of Stone Mountain.
I’m sure Tannerite is legal in NC…
“The Center for the Study of the American South recognizes that removing the statue will not, by itself, erase attitudes of white supremacy, eliminate racial violence in our society, provide equal protection to immigrants who enter lawfully, or redress the other injustices that are standing in the way of our nation’s progress,” the center said. “Removing a toxic symbol from our campus, however, will free the University of North Carolina to fulfill its promise to facilitate research, knowledge, ideas, and frameworks that do address these problems. Taking Silent Sam down opens the door for reconciliation and will allow UNC to declare itself a true home for all.”
I’m glad to see the young people take on racism and let it be known their generation isn’t going to put up with it, especially in N. Carolina. But the history lover in me would like to know if this was a statue of an non-specific CSA soldier or one of a particular officer. Doesn’t matter, just curious.
That is the ugliest bas-relief I have ever seen, the art work is pitiful, just awful. It should be sand blasted not only for CSA memorial reasons but also for how bad it is. The park it’s in is quite nice though.
I live 30 miles from Chapel Hill and I know plenty of white folks in the south are very racist(saw another big confederate flag on US 1 between Raleigh and Southern Pines like one on I95 near Benson NC) but like I’ve said before, when traveling for work, co-workers from up north, and in article like the one below, a lot of white folks that live above the mason dixon line pull for the stars and bars team.
It’s time for us white people to be doing this. If criticism comes, so be it.
From the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Sam :
[quote]A bronze image on the front of the memorial depicts a young student
dropping his books as he looks up to answer a call to duty. On the base
of the statue, a woman representing the state of North Carolina is
depicted calling students to fight for the Southern cause even if it
means leaving their studies.
Similar to the sculpture [John A.] Wilson created of an unarmed Union soldier Daniel A. Bean, Wilson created a “silent” statue by not including a cartridge box on the Confederate soldier’s belt so he cannot fire his gun.[8] Like the Daniel A. Bean sculpture, Wilson used a northerner—Harold Langlois, a Boston man, as his model.[7]
Wilson created a series of similar statues called the “Silent
Sentinels.” All were created in the North and then displayed in the
South. Like these other statues, Silent Sam is positioned to face north towards the Union, rather than towards the Confederacy.
… the purpose of this statue was clearly stated at its 1913 dedication.
In his now controversial dedication speech, industrialist and former
Confederate soldier Julian Carr emphatically praised the student-soldiers and soldiers of the Confederate army for their wartime valor and patriotism.
However, he also notes towards the end of the speech his belief
that “The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of
what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon
race during the four years immediately succeeding the war…their
courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in
the South.” “The four years immediately succeeding the war” refers to
the terrorization of blacks and white Republicans by the Ku Klux Klan, which worked to restore the dominance of whites in the south. [/quote]
The article doesn’t suggest any particular soldier was the intended representation.
Statues to the Confederacy are treasonous. They killed hundreds of thousands of brave U.S. soldiers and sailors, and were dedicated to the destruction of the U.S.A., and that’s a fact. Celebrating Confederates is not a “heritage” or “sentimental” act… it’s a promotion of slavery and racism and fear and oppression. With 350 years of southern family heritage, I know what I’m talking about.
What would have happened if the South had won?
Two nations?
Or would they have taken over the entire U.S. claiming it as their own?
I think the latter.
Take 2016 for example…
Thank you for looking that up and posting. It should have been included in the article because the context is particularly important here. Appreciate you doing that as I would have gone down a rabbit hole of no return doing it myself and I need to get on with my day.
Heh. None of the trains would fit the width of track used in the rest of the country, and it would have taken an extra half-century to engineer a working transportation system. Canada and Mexico would have taken over the West and its resources, and the USA would not have won the Spanish-American War, WWI, nor WWII.