Szakos Questions Relevance of Confederate Statues
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MONROE Mattie Rice’s father rarely spoke of his service in the Civil War, with one exception: the time he saved the life of his master’s son.
Her father, Wary Clyburn, was a slave in the Confederate Army. And this week, the 89-year-old Archdale woman asked Union County commissioners to support a public marker honoring 10 local men, including her father, eight other slaves and a free black man, who served the Confederacy and much later received small state pensions.
“This would be a great honor for us,” she quietly but firmly told the board.
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Virtually no black men fought for the South, historians have said.A lie.
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest had slaves and freemen serving in units under his command. After the war, Forrest said of the black men who served under him, "These boys stayed with me.. - and better Confederates did not live." Articles in "Black Southerners in Gray," edited by Richard Rollins, gives numerous accounts of blacks serving as fighting men or servants in every battle from Gettysburg to Vicksburg.
Professor Ed Smith, director of American Studies at American University, says Stonewall Jackson had 3,000 fully equipped black troops scattered throughout his corps at Antietam - the war's bloodiest battle. Mr. Smith calculates that between 60,000 and 93,000 blacks served the Confederacy in some capacity. They fought for the same reason they fought in previous wars and wars afterward: "to position themselves. They had to prove they were patriots in the hope the future would be better ... they hoped to be rewarded."
The U.S. region that was invaded and conquered doesn’t have much use for condescending outsiders, but most have warm hearts and will laugh at your corny jokes. And they’ll take your poll, though they may or may not answer honestly, depending on whether they’ve had their biscuits and cheesy grits that day.
Which is to say: There are lots of ways to be smart and lots of ways to be dumb, and it would appear that the South does not have a monopoly on the latter category.
There have been some excellent letters written to Director Rawls about what flags to fly. Mark Vogl's was one of them. Mark wisely wrote, "Sir, the Confederate naval ensign is a globally recognized symbol of the South. The value of its public relations presence is immeasurable." Marks observation is extremely practical in inarguable. The rest of his letter was just as excellent.
The Museum of the Confederacy is about a country that only existed during a time of warfare. The United States never recognized the national government of the Confederate States of America (CSA) or the national flags of the CSA. The flags they saw were the flags of the Confederate armies. It seems rather schizophrenic that a museum of the Confederacy does not seek to promote these flags or seek the counsel of the living sons and daughters of actual Confederate veterans.
Rawls has had a long and antagonistic relationship with the sons and grandsons of Confederate veterans as well as the organization known as The Sons of Confederate Veterans, and this dysfunctional relationship is not likely to improve. There is no compromise that we can make that will satisfy those who hate us and do not believe in the Cause for which our ancestors sacrificed their homes, their wealth and their lives.
A few years ago the SCV Virginia Division's Executive Council invited Rawls to meet with them and discuss the MOC. Rawls used profane language with us and showed us no respect. As a man he lacks the integrity, dignity and insight that is expected from a man in his position. It is clear that he does not respect in any manner the descendants of Confederate Veterans. He is not the first MOC director who has shown us this sucky attitude. I do not believe this condition is likely to improve or change in today's Marxist culture.
THE ANSWER IS for each SCV Division to have its own organizational office in EACH Confederate State, and have that office physically associated and connected to a Confederate Museum depicting the the history of the CSA and the war as it was fought in and as it affected that particular State. Without this we must just sit back and learn new ways to whine like of our reconstructed condition would indicate.
We must gain control of our cultural and political destiny and the opportunities that are still open to us. We must stop whining about what others say about us and do to us. To achieve this demands our serious and substantial commitment and funding by our national SCV organization and each SCV State Division. How about it? As THE descendants of our Confederacy we do not have to tolerate having yankee's, their carpetbagger agents and our own reconstructed scallywags controlling such matters as important as how the CSA will be represented and remembered in our own States ! We need some major big money to step forward in EACH State to get this project moving forward !
Always for true freedom and liberty.