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Myths About Confederate Monuments: An Honest Look at Their True History
The Facts Are More Troubling Than You Realize
The past several years have seen an increasing debate over the place of Confederate monuments in our national life and history. It is a debate that has only intensified as many of those monuments have been removed from parks, town squares, courthouse lawns, and other public spaces, particularly across the South.
You probably know the arguments of each side, as they haven’t changed much in the more than 150 years since the war ended. Those in favor of the monuments say they are an important part of American and Southern history and should be preserved. Those opposed see them as blatant symbols of racism covered with a thin veneer of history.
In many arguments of this type the actual facts usually lie somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. That’s not the case here, however. Ironically, even tragically, the side with the flawed viewpoint is flawed precisely because of the revision of history these monuments represent.
Before debunking some of the myths surrounding these monuments, let me say that I am a Southerner. I grew up in a newly post-segregation Texas that was still coming to grips with being on the wrong side of the civil rights issue. Though we revered the…
