Day 44. April 13, 1862.
44
This was not a minstrel-show land, after all…..
Sunday 13 1862
Quite a pleasant morning. It was somewhat cloudy and our chaplin gave a short discourse today which was not very long and it was warm in the afternoon and I hope the time may soon come that we may hear the gospel proclaimed every Sabbath.* Gen [illeg. looks like Rasenonanye] was in Winchester last night and tonight nothing new
*When and if Ephraim makes it out of the war, he may or may not attend church again, he may or may not discuss what he hears of the gospel again, he may or may not stick a Joker card in the Bible to mark off a place he left off & never went back to.
“‘We caught a rebel spy in our camp last week, disguised as a newspaper vender. Papers were found in his boots that convicted him beyond doubt, and he was hanged up by the neck, with very little ceremony.’” Sergeant Warren H. Freeman, Thirteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, U.S.A., letter to his parents, April 13, 1862. (Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference)
A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 28-29
“APRIL 13, SUNDAY.—Cloudy and damp. Received an invitation to attend divine service with the staff of General Shields. Rode out with General Banks and staff to the campground near Edinburg and there found the brigade drawn up in hollow square around a cart where sat two preachers and an officer looking like a gallows scene precisely, wanting the gibbet. At our approach the band played a hymn tune and the congregation sang. Dismounting, we took our stand within the circle, when the preacher arose and without any preliminary words commenced his sermon. The text was “Would ye be made whole.” He was a good-looking man and his discourse was addressed to the soldiery rather than the staff. His language was common and often ungrammatical, but his ideas were clear and manly. He had a subject, which was the power and beauty of self-control. The day before had been pay day and the usual amount of drunkenness and insubordination accompanied it. A prayer and thanksgiving for the Union victories in Tennessee followed the sermon. Then the old doxology was sung by the full congregation. During the ceremony General Banks in his regimentals stood a little forward in front of the preacher. Immediately beside him stood a boy about twelve years old, ragged and snub-nosed, in the most independent and critical attitude, devouring the General with his eyes, measuring him from top to toe, probably guessing how long it would take him to grow into a major general. The scene was American….”
The Civil War, A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville Shelby Foote P. 409
“Exuberantly grateful, McClellan wired on April 13: “We shall soon be at them, and I am sure of the result.”
Lincoln had heard him say such things before; they were part of what made the Young Napoleon at once so likable and exasperating. The President knew by now not to put much stock in such expressions, which after all only meant that McClellan was feeling good again. Lincoln himself was not. The past week had been a strain, in some ways harder than the strain which had followed defeat on the plains of Manassas. His sadness had deepened, along with the lines in his face, though he still kept his wry sense of humor. A country editor called at the White House, claiming to have been the first to suggest Lincoln’s nomination for President. Lincoln was busy, but when he tried to escape by saying he had to go over to the War Department on business, the editor offered to accompany him. “Come along,” Lincoln said. When they got there he told his visitor, “I shall have to see Mr. Stanton alone, and you must excuse me.” He turned to enter, but then, perhaps considering this too abrupt, turned back and took the editor by the hand. “Goodbye,” he said. “I hope you will feel perfectly easy about having nominated me. Don’t be troubled about it. I forgive you.’”
Bloody Engagements: John R. Kelso’s Civil War John R. Kelso Edited by Christopher Grasso P. 45-48
“Here I learned that my house had been burned soon after my departure on my former trip; that nothing had been saved from the flames; and that the rebels had threatened to burn the house of any one that gave my family shelter. Though this news did not surprise me very much, it did trouble me very greatly. I could not sleep for thinking. Besides the sufferings of my family, I deeply felt the loss of my neat little home, my library, my pictures,– many of which could never be replaced–, of my own writings, and of many other things. Hitherto, I had been making war from motives of pure patriotism alone. I now felt that, from this time on, a new, less noble, but a no less powerful feeling would control my conduct. That feeling was an intense desire for revenge,– a desire which, intensified by additional wrongs, became at last with me an all-absorbing passion which nothing but blood could ever appease.
Reaching home late in the evening, I found that my family, furnished by neighbors with a few clothes and blankets, had taken shelter in a little hovel that stood on a distant part of my farm. The cheerful fortitude with which I found my wife bearing her wrongs and her misfortunes made me very proud of her and rendered her dearer to me than ever. She now began to appear a heroine in my eyes,– my ideal, a second Mima, and my love, always intense, began to assume for her the form of adoration. Henceforth, she would be my guiding angel. I would try to be worthy of her.– try to make her proud of me. The thought of her would give me comfort in time of sorrow, strength in time of temptation, and courage in time of danger. Oh! why did she, afterwards, blight her own life and mine by driving from her so true a devotion!
In one or two days more, a large portion of Frémont’s army began to pour through our town on their way to Springfield. They made a splendid appearance. The loyal people were jubilant. They believed that their trials were over. Many, even, who had been afflicted with the secession mania, now, all at once, began to exhibit symptoms of loyalty. Several Union men who had been plundered by the rebels now proceeded to collect the value of their several losses, real or imaginary, from the wealthy secessionists of the county. I helped make some of these collections. We had no doubt that Frémont, with his magnificent army, would sweep all the rebel forces west of the Mississippi before him to the Gulf. What were our disappointment, chagrin, and dismay, then, when, a few days later, we learned that Frémont had been removed from the command of this army, and that the troops, in a demoralized and half mutinous condition, were in full retreat before a comparatively feeble force of the enemy, and that, too, without having fired a single gun. The enemy, exasperated by the advance of this army, and emboldened by its disgraceful retreat, would now wreck their insatiate vengeance upon the forsaken and helpless Union people, men, women, and children, who were left behind. For me, I could scarcely believe that we were being thus so nefariously betrayed by the friends we had trusted,– by the government we had loved, and for which we had freely offered our lives and all else we possessed. And yet it was only too true.
Why the fatal mistake– the atrocious crime, rather, of removing Frémont at that time, and of recalling his army, was committed, and who was responsible for that crime will probably never be made satisfactorily known to the world. My own opinion is that the whole thing was a wicked conspiracy, concocted by ambitious men high in authority at Washington, to crush Frémont, of whose rising prestige they were jealous. These men knew that Frémont was an ambitious man and that he had his eyes upon the presidency of four years ahead. They know, too, that, if left alone, he would be likely to sweep the rebellion west of the Mississippi out of existence. They knew, further, that the glory of such a campaign would give him a prestige which would almost insure his election and the election of his friends to places now occupied or coveted by the conspirators. They knew, finally, that their own base personal interests would be best promoted by cruelly and treacherously crushing him just as they did. To them, these base personal interests were worth far more than were all the fond hopes that were crushed in our bosoms, by their wicked actions, all our homes that were thus given up to plunder and to flames, all the hundreds of loyal lives that were thus sacrificed.
Be all this as it may, however, the terrible fact was staring us in the face that we were abandoned to the mercy of an infuriated and relentless foe. Union women and children, with scared faces, crowded the road sides and eagerly questioned the last stragglers of the retreating Federal army. When all were gone, a terrible and un-namable dread began to prevail. Some who had been foremost to seize rebel property, now hastened to give it back, and, with white lips, to beg pardon for what they had done. They were now willing to do any thing, however mean and cowardly it might be, to win rebel favor and rebel protection. Some even renounced their pretense to loyalty and insolently declared themselves, henceforth, on the side of the rebellion. One, to whom I had always been a friend, and to whom I had done many favors, told me that he was going to seize upon my farm immediately; that it would now be confiscated, and that he meant to have the first claim upon it. He did this, as soon as I was gone, taking my chickens, my potatoes, my corn, my farming implements, &c. Most of the loyal people, however, both men and women, in this time of trial, displayed a truly noble heroism. Many of them determined to take their families and flee away for safety. I determined to remove my family. I did not dare leave them behind. I feared that, upon their defenceless heads, the enemy would wreck their vengeance against myself.”
This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War Bruce Catton P. 70-73
“Camp life was taking on its own routine. The big conical Sibley tents, each one large enough to house an entire squad, dotted the meadows, set off by crude charcoal signs: “Bull Pups,” “Bengal Tigers,” “Wild Cats.” At dawn the camps rang with a rhythmical, tinny clangor as the men took the unground coffee beans that made up such an important part of their rations, put them in tin pails, and ground the beans by pounding them with musket butts. Sutlers set up their tents near the company streets, selling indigestible pies, gingerbread, and candy, and it was noticed that hungry boys who patronized them lost appetite for army hardtack and bacon, came down with digestive upsets, and trailed off on sick call. Stray colored men, somehow escaped from bondage, began to filter into the camps, and many of these were pressed into service as company cooks. It was learned that surplus coffee from the army ration was as good as money, and soldiers used it to buy Dutch ovens, potatoes, vegetables, and chickens for these cooks to use.
The colored people were beginning to influence men’s attitude toward war. Most of these western regiments had very little anti-slavery sentiment as such. They had enlisted to save the Union or because being young, they had had a special receptivity to the drums and trumpets and cheering crowds, or perhaps just plain for fun, and the peculiar institution had meant nothing much to them one way or the other. Yet here they were, in what they considered to be the South, and there were colored folk all about them; and it began to seem that in the great fight to put down disunion these colored folk were allies pathetically eager to help, very useful on occasion. Company E of the 33rd Illinois remembered a tour of duty in Missouri when a collection of rifles and a handful of Confederate recruits had been rounded up on somebody’s plantation. Unable to think of anything better, the company commander had equipped the plantation’s slaves with the rifles and had them march the captives back to camp, only to draw a stiff reprimand from army authorities, who castigated him for doing “what the President of the United States had not seen fit to do—liberate and arm the slaves.” The prisoners had been released and the slaves had been sent back to servitude, and Company E still felt that there was something about the deal that was not quite right.
Runaway slaves would come into camp, and the men would try to hide them—moved, apparently, by nothing much more than sympathy for men who had found every man’s hand against them. It was official policy at that time to return all fugitives to their lawful owners, and in most detachments the policy was enforced. Little by little the soldiers began to feel that returning fugitive soldiers was helping the rebellion; they objected to it, and some outfits were brought almost to mutiny by the orders, although under ordinary circumstances the men were as ready as any to draw the color line. Slowly but surely the idea began to dawn: these slaves are on our side, and in a state where people keep both Union and Confederate flags and display the one which on any given day seems most likely to be advantageous, these men with dark skins are the ones we can count on as friendly.
Not that the colored people got much out of it. The soldiers felt themselves to be immeasurably superior to all people whose skins were not white, and they had much pride of race. The 77th Illinois laughed at a group of officers who, touched by feelings of romance on a moonlight evening, went to the handsomest mansion in town, stood beneath its windows, and sang sentimental serenades very prettily (encouraged by handkerchiefs and scarves waving from opened windows) until their wind gave out; after which a colored maid came to the front door, thanked them for their effort, and said she was “sorry de white folks weren’t at home to hear it.” A Wisconsin soldier moodily confessed in a letter home: “The black folks are awful good, poor miserable things that they are. The boys talk to them fearful and treat them most any way and yet they can’t talk two minutes but tears come to their eyes and they throw their arms up and praise de Lord for de coming of de Lincoln soldiers.” This same Wisconsin boy admitted that he was greatly surprised to find that none of these slaves had ever heard any of Stephen Foster’s “colored” songs.
It was the beginning of wisdom, perhaps. For this was not the land of Old Black Joe and My Old Kentucky Home, with gay darkies picturesquely melancholy over long shadows dropping on the plantation lawn, Uncle Ned hanging up the shovels and the hoe after a life of faithful service, Nelly Gray gone down the river to the tune of quavering male quartet vocalizing, Swanee River curling lazily south with the romantic sadness of a faint tug at the heartstrings. This was not a minstrel-show land, after all. These Midwestern soldiers had grown up knowing only the stage Negro—the big-mouthed, grinning, perpetually carefree Sambo who loved watermelons and possum, had peculiar gifts for wielding the razor (always on other Sambos, who did not much mind being slashed, having been born for it), and who liked to eat fried chicken and drink more gin than he could properly manage. Mr. Bones was out of his depth here, and there were emotional values under the surface that Stephen Foster had not quite touched; when Negro music was heard it had a wild quality and a jungle drumbeat, fit to be punctuated by the thudding of heavy guns and the cries of men desperately in earnest. This was real, there was a life force welling up here, and these illiterate men and women whose English was a queer gumbo of mispronounced words and faulty grammar nevertheless were actually trying to say something. This was not picturesque Sambo, faithful Old Black Joe, the grinning darky who was gay in the autumn sunlight; this was a man struggling to stand upright as a man should and to be master, as far as a weak mortal may, of his own destiny, a precious to him as to any white boy from Wisconsin farm or Ohio city. It was something nobody had been prepared for, and it was inordinately disturbing.
What the Westerners were beginning to run up against, indeed, was the inexorable fact that the Negro was going to have a controlling effect on this war for union… simply because he was there. His presence, ultimately, had been the cause of the war; the war could not be fought and won without taking him into account; when the settlement finally took place, he would have to be in it.
On the day after Bull Run, Congress had solemnly decreed that the war was not being fought to disturb “the established institution of the states,” and the radical Republicans had not ventured to object yet the solemn resolve was becoming a dead letter, for the established institution which the resolution had been designed to protect was being disturbed more and more every day and there was no way to avoid disturbing it. Freedom and union were bound up together whether man wished it so nor not; and freedom was not a word that could ever be used in a limited sense. It was an idea, not a word, and there was no way to keep the people who wanted freedom the most from absorbing the idea.
If it did nothing else, slavery gave Union soldiers the notion that when they were in slave territory they were in land that somehow was foreign. This was as true in the Army of the Potomac as in Kentucky and Missouri. Private Chase of the 1st Massachusetts Artillery—a man who worshipped McClellan and who did not believe that abolition had any rightful part in this war—was writing home at this time that Virginia was a fine country in which, if there was no war, he would like to live. Yet he felt compelled to add: “I think if they could have a lot of New England farmers settle here they could show them how to raise a heap of stuff.” The war, he admitted, was ravaging the Virginia countryside fearfully, but perhaps that was all for the best: hope when it was done it will be a permanent thing and the Question settled that there is such a thing as Union.’”
Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War David Silkenat P. 201
“Some soldiers took the lengthy cease-fire as an opportunity to converse with the enemy, most often by yelling across the expanse that separated them but occasionally by venturing into the no-man’s-land between the pickets. The most significant of these gatherings took place in the village, not far from the courthouse and the McLean residence, where Confederate and Union generals, most of them prewar acquaintances, awkwardly passed the time. “For the first time in four years prominent officers on both sides, who had not met, except in battle, during that time, mingled together,” recalled Union general John Gibbon. Although someone thoughtfully passed around a whiskey flask,” no one felt like talking much.” The small circle included Confederates James Longstreet, Henry Heth, John Gordon, and Cadmus Wilcox and Union officers Philip Sheridan, Wesley Merritt, and Edward Ord, some of the highest-ranking and best-informed individuals in either army. Privt to much of the correspondence between Lee and Grant, these men had a much greater sense of the negotiating landscape than almost anyone at Appomattox. Nonetheless, “all wore an air of anxiety,” Gibbon recalled, “though all seemed hopeful that there would be no further need of bloodshed.” Although Lee’s conference with Grant lasted less than two hours, “to those of us, who were waiting outside,” Gibbon noted, “the time dragged slowly along.’”
The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War Bruce Catton P. 202
“There were strange interludes now and then; facing each other at close range, week after week, the men of the opposing armies developed an odd sort of fellow-feeling for each other. One day the men in one Federal trench saw the Confederates opposite them standing on top of their parapet, looking toward them; they climbed into the open themselves and looked at their enemies; and when someone yelled across and asked the Rebels why they were standing up like that, the reply came back: “Because you are.” Then a lad in the 11th Wisconsin cried impulsively: “I’m going down into the ravine and shake hands with them Rebs.” He ran downhill to a little creek, a Confederate ran down to meet him, and presently hundreds of men from both sides were down there, shaking hands, talking, and picking blackberries. The Confederates asked the Federals how they liked the Mississippi climate, and said that they had been getting mule meat for breakfast, and did not seem to feel that they could hold out much longer. Then at last a Confederate officer came out and scolded the men for fraternizing; the Confederates reluctantly went back to their trenches, the Federals did the same, and in another minute the firing had been resumed as if there had never been a break.”
MINSTREL”: https://www.amazon.com/Blackface-Music-Minstrel-complete-performance/dp/B001CYRFCY
Blackface and Music By Dailey Paskman The Spirit of Minstrelsy A New Minstrel Book Complete With Songs Words and Music and a FULL SHOW Ready for Performance One performance permitted with the purchase of 15 copies at 50 cents each Edward B. Marks Music Corporation RCA Building ● Radio City NEW YORK Made in U.S.A. International Copyright Secured
“This book has been compiled for lovers of the art
of minstrelsy; for those who love a good song; enjoy a
funny joke; a lively bit of banter, and above all, for
those who take delight in sharing with others the joy
of mirth and melody in the spirit of goodfellowship.
In these pages will be found songs and material for
a full minstrel first part for stage and home entertainment.
Dailey Paskman
WHEN PERFORMING THESE COMPOSITIONS KINDLY GIVE ALL PROGRAM CREDITS TO MARKS MUSIC CORPORATION
INTERLOCUTOR: Say, Bones, when you are away from home nights, doesn’t your wife get
lonesome?
Nosuh, she’s got her mother-in-law to fight with.
INTERLOCUTOR: Why does she fight with your wife?
Because my father-in-law is dead.
INTERLOCUTOR: Of, course, I don’t want to be inquisitive, but what did he die of?
Throat trouble.
INTERLOCUTOR: Throat trouble.
Yes. They hung him. (All laugh)
(Interlocutor may introduce a specialty number here selecting a song from the group in the back of this folio.)
INTERLOCUTOR: Tambo, I understand you were at the cemetary yesterday.
TAMBO: Yessuh!
INTERLOCUTOR: Who died?
TAMBO: Everybody in the graves.
INTERLOCUTOR: No, I mean what friend or relative was buried?
TAMBO: No one.
INTERLOCUTOR: Then why did you go to the cemetary?
TAMBO: I went there to read the epitaphs on the tombstones.
INTERLOCUTOR: That’s a funny way of spending your time.
TAMBO: That’s where I get all my material for my jokes.
INTERLOCUTOR: Some of the jokes you tell Tambo, smell bad enough to be dead for a long time.
TAMBO: Hush, I sure read some funny epitaphs there—
Here lies the body
Of Liza Young.
At last she’ll have to hold her tongue.
The next tombstone was of a henpecked husband, and his
epitaph was:
Here lies what is left
Of poor Henry Spickles.
His wife sent him for prunes
And he came back with pickles.
The next was:
Here lies poor Min
She drank what she thought was gin.
The next one was…..
INTERLOCUTOR: Never mind the next… as a matter of fact the next offering in
Our minstrel show, ladies and gentlemen, is a specialty dancing
team. I take great pleasure in introducing those two slippery
soft shoe shufflers from Mississippi, who will step along to the
tune of
“LAZY MOON”
INTERLOCUTOR: Say Tambo. I heard you had trouble with your wife last week. What was the difficulty you had with your spouse?
TAMBO: I didn’t have no souse, I was sober.
INTERLOCUTOR: I said spouse, not souse. What was the nature of your trouble with your wife?
TAMBO: Well, I’ll tell you. You see, when my wife and I got married, we bought a cow in partnership. She paid for one half of the cow and I paid for the other half.
INTERLOCUTOR: That seems fair enough.
TAMBO: That’s what I thought until after we got married.
INTERLOCUTOR: Well what happened after you got married?
TAMBO: One day I went out to milk the cow, I was thirsty, and when my wife saw me going to milk the cow, she said, “No, I could not have any milk.” I said why not, isn’t half the cow mine? She said, “Yes, half the cow is yours alright, but it is the front half.” She said her half is where the milk comes from.
INTERLOCUTOR: Well, that sure was a good joke on you. Yours was the front half, Ha! Ha! Ha!
TAMBO: Yes, wasn’t it. Ha! Ha! Ha!
INTERLOCUTOR: Well, what did you do about it?
TAMBO: What did I do about it? Ha! Ha! Ha! Why I stopped feeding my half and the darn cow died. Ha! Ha! Ha!
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I take great delight in introducing our nimble footed and tickle-toed terpsichorean performer, who will sally forth in a regulated movement of the feet to the rhythmical musical accompaniment of Eddie Leonard’s ever popular “IDA, SWEET AS APPLE CIDER’” . . .
Note: Something snapped in me when I saw Paskman’s book all snug, touching up alongside, & in collections of Christmas Carols, normal songs, as if the lyrics were standard sing-alongs on Salt Lake Public Library’s shelves, this slim eager-to-get-befriended-a-while book, stacked happy & safe, awaiting the next any color person to hold it in their hands, anyone looking for good cheer there. But maybe you had to be there. It felt a violent rip in the space-time continuum. I can’t explain it in words. I was walking around looking for Civil War books, that’s all, about a year & a half into my research, you know, shit that happened 160 years ago. But this? The war came into my living room. Then it was undeniably in my hands when I pulled it out to look through it. It was, then & there, a bit of gristle in my palms as I turned it over & tried to make its existence fit any comprehensible narrative I could come up with, & I couldn’t.
I yanked that off the shelf & thought, Let’s not continue with “IDA, SWEET AS APPLE CIDER” existing in the SLPL at all. Checking it out at the downstairs desk, the librarian said nothing. Probably because there are all sorts of bizarre books in the library, & any library worth its salt carries books that offend everyone at some juncture, right? Right.
I did suggest in my content challenge that SLPL maybe consider placing this joy of mirth and melody in the spirit of goodfellowship songbook in a display/installation of some sort rather than homed on the shelf for pete’s sake. SLPL took many months of pestering (they hoped I’d forget, I gathered later, after they claimed they’d mailed a response I never received, so I had ’em send it, period, & they sounded a wee bit nervous on the phone) but did, in the end, accept my content challenge. But not because, as I wrote them, “This book’s purpose is for the public to perform the compositions within, enjoyed “in the spirit of good fellowship,” songs about, for instance, lynching a Black man.” Their stated reasons for pulling it, February 26, 2019:
“We could not find any critical reviews of the title. While not every title purchased for the library has reviews available, in this case, lack of review did not support keeping the item in the collection. The book itself had fallen into poor condition and is no longer of the physical standard that would allow it to stay on the shelves.”
Google it & look at that cover, those illustrations. A “library withdrawal” is available on Amazon for $9.99, plus another in very good condition for $29.99. AbeBooks: $16.95. Ebay for $111.11. The beat goes on. It’s truly disgusting to hold in your hands. Burnt cork & greasepaint, big kinky wigs, the rope, the mirth, the malice, the mocking, the merriment, the moronity. The utter disregard for human life that makes your blood run cold to walk by it in person then pick it off the shelf in disbelief on a normal day & it’s sunny outside, & you’ll just get back in your car & drive home like nothing ever happened? Was this right of me? No. The First Amendment is the First Amendment. But I had that reaction, so I include it here. I guess I could buy them another copy if it starts keeping me up at night?
The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction Edward L. Ayers P. 376
“Some of the most widespread songs at the turn of the century were “coon songs.” These songs, popular on stages from New York to New Orleans to San Francisco, were parodies of black language, styles, and aspirations. Some idea of their tone can be gathered from their titles: “All Coons Look Alike to Me,””Mammy’s Little Pickaninny Boy,” “My Coal Black Lady,” “You’se Just a Little Nigger, Still You’se Mine, All Mine.” Between 1896 and 1900, at least six hundred coon songs were published, with several of the most popular tunes written by black men. Some songs adopted a newly fashionable syncopation, while others followed the sentimental tradition of the parlor songs. The performers were both black and white, male and female.
The coon songs, and many other forms besides, were played out in the enormously popular minstrel shows of the South. Before the Civil War, minstrel shows had been the rage in the North, staged almost entirely by white men hidden behind blackface. After emancipation, Northern audiences curious about real black people were eager to attend minstrel shows where blacks performed; if the men on stage were former slaves, so much the better.”
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander P. 22
“Like the minstrel shows of the slavery and Jim Crow eras, today’s displays are generally designed for white audiences. The majority of customers of gangsta rap are white, suburban teenagers. VH1 had its best ratings ever for the first season of Flavor of Love—ratings driven by large white audiences. MTV has expanded its offerings of black-themed reality shows in the hopes of attracting the same crowd. The profits to be made from racial stigma are considerable, and the fact that blacks—as well as whites—treat racial oppression as a commodity for consumption is not surprising. It is a familiar form of black complicity with racialized systems of control.”
We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival Jabari Asim P. 65
“Other Americans wore similar getups, evidence of the quasi-erotic thrill that blackface and the ritual reenactment of violent black death apparently provides. Whereas white Georgians—men, women, and children—gathered by the thousands to bear joyous witness to the butchering of Sam Hose, countless voyeurs can endlessly revel in the virtual killing of Trayvon Martin, secure in the anonymous glow of their cell hones and computer screens. Seeking to profit from the controversy, an Orlando-based entrepreneur crafted a shooting target complete with a hooded figure, a package of Skittles, and a can of ice tea. He told reporters he sold out his inventory in two days, further proof of the durable link between capital, white rage, and commoditized blackness.”
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 329-330 (Excerpts)
“April 13, 1865: Rides horseback to Soldiers’ Home. Appears weary and sad. Receives many members of Congress who call to congratulate him on successful conclusion of war.”
Note: Preston Brooks– who caned Sumner in 1856– died of suffocation, “acute sore throat” at 36 in 1857. His violence backfired on him, no?
Note: That Black people are now like 21 more times more likely to be killed by cops. Pretext arrest, that stop & frisk in NYC is a race tax, & it’s actually stop & fondle. They go into your underwear. They go all the way.
Last, note: Reliable statistics are hard to find. Until LE creates mandatory Federal reporting– not a current Federal requirement as yet– no one can know the truth with exactitude, except that there is actually a 2.87% higher rate of Black people killed than whites by police (nearly 3x higher). These numbers are unreliable, despite originating at the Washington Post & at the FBI. 14 Black people were shot & killed by cops in 2019 (25 unarmed, if you include beatings, tasers, cars, etc.), while, same year, Black people murdered 2,574 other Black people, which are 14% in America. In 2019, White people killed 2,594 other White people, 60.1% in America. In 2019, 370 White people were killed by police: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-43
Note bene: Despite never-ending undebatably racist media depiction, representations, & even Blaxsploitation, a mere .010% of Black people in America are murderers, meaning you would have to meet 10k Black people before meeting one killer. As well, 0.005% are White killers. But the people in their homes, like Breonna Taylor or Amir Locke, are Black victims. Peculiar it’s never the Whites with these no-knock-warrant-executions, then the paint-by-number barrage of cop fabrications after. Very strange. True stories of Black deaths by cop; imagine being cut down for no reason:
You get shot through the window while on the Xbox with your 8 year old nephew: Atatiana Jefferson, by men creeping outside who neglected to identify themselves as they stood in pitch black, at 2:30am., ordering her to put hands up, then fired. Or let’s say the pig has a Confederate flag t-shirt on when he shoots you through the head for not having a front license plate, Sam DuBose, 2019. And don’t get me started on Sandra Bland; that was a travesty, & naturally no indictments for jail staff. Or Daunte Wright, shot in his chest not with a taser. Andre Gladen, legally blind, but the cop lies about a knife. George Floyd, his neck, for nothing (it never is for anything). Rodney King, the batons, on camera & the whole world watching yet again only because of footage taken do not pass Go and do not collect $200 to KTLA. Oscar Grant, laying on his stomach, shot in the back, then handcuffed at Fruitvale BART, filmed by train bystanders, after which a BART cop sprints aboard, tries snatching cell phones out of people’s hands, & the people all scream NO at her, a beautiful thing (YT footage of Marisol Domenici scrubbed, but I saw it in ’09, just after). Or Pamela Turner, whose execution got posted on Snapchat that night. O’Shae Terry, pretext expired registration, rare case where the cop– a Bau Tran– got fired. Sooowwwwwiii. Andre Hill, sitting in his car. Manuel Ellis, hogtied, told them he couldn’t breathe. Paul Monroe, then decades later SPLC exposing Deaton & his Steakhouse gift cards. Michael Ramos, hands in the air but that’s not good enough. Aaron Campbell, on a welfare check after his brother died that morning, shot in the back with an AR-15 (as you do?). Abdi Mohamed, Salt Lake, holding a broomstick, ruled justified by everyone’s least favorite D.A. Sam Gill. While we’re on Utah: Cindreia Europe, Allen Nelson, Rezek Yaqub Yahya, Cody Belgard (though White. White as well was Michael Chad Breinholt, the 3rd person killed on duty by this serial killer cop; for his most current kill, he said, before shooting, “You’re about to die, my friend.”).
Then there’s Ahmaud Arbery, out jogging, trio of White men in cars trailing along with a .357 Magnum & some shotguns; not arrested for 74 days, & only due to WGIG’s footage that attorney Tucker gave to prove “It wasn’t two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back,” except it was, basically; the jury agreed, even after defense attorney Laura Hogue’s surreal, absolute trash comments about the man President Biden called “lynched before our very eyes.” Daniel Prude, “cold-blooded murder” by asphyxiation for no good reason (there never is a good reason). Quanice Hayes, on his hands & knees, & they still blamed him for his own death. Pearlie Golden, 93 & a yard full of chickens. Rayshard Brooks, for falling asleep at a Wendy’s. Stephon Clark, in his Grandmother’s back yard. Botham Jean, shot dead eating ice cream on his couch. Philando Castile, oh my god. Alton Sterling, selling CDs, straight-out executed after hearing “Don’t fucking move or I’ll shoot you, fucking ass bitch.” Freddie Gray, in the ‘coffin on wheels’. Eric Garner. Edward Garner. Michael Brown. Yvette Smith. Janisha Fonville. Michelle Cusseaux. Aura Rosser. Alteria Woods, who had, just hours earlier, gone to see GET OUT, & was lying in bed, shot 10 times, true fiasco, Keystone Cop SWAT team exonerated. Akai Gurley, by a Liang, an utter moron. Tomothy Stansbury. Gabriella Nevarez. Tamir Rice. Tanisha Anderson. Nicholas Chavez, walking through traffic, shot 21 times. Wayne Jones, told to walk on the sidewalk instead of the street, so 22 bullets. Anthony Dwain Lee, in costume at a Halloween party, by a nosy cop sneaking around the back yard for no good reason (there never is a good reason). Trayvon Martin, died by a wannabe Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, a Michael Douglas in Falling Down, a Zimmerman: “These assholes, they always get away,” sure, with Skittles & an Arizona iced tea, walking home from a 7-11.
See: 330 names: http://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames
See: https://www.saytheirnamesmemorials.com/names which includes a database, & shows memorial projects & installations in many cities around the country.
See: Full list of 229 Black people killed by police since George Floyd’s murder at newsweek.com, way outdated by the time you get to the end of this sentence. Also: washingtonpost.com for nearly 250 women who have been cop-killed since 2015. Visit mappingpoliceviolence.us/ Thus far (July) in 2022, there’s been 8 days where police haven’t executed anyone in this country.
See: http://www.blackobituaryproject.com/about
Note: Winged Victory of Samothrace discovered today, in a year.
hope the time may soon come that we may hear the gospel proclaimed….
What is actually missing is how it ended up: no slave ship statues, no leased convict monuments—the Black men, women & children who built this country into the corporate empire it is—the ones from West Africa who taught the White planters how to even farm. Looking up at what is not there, you just get in the sky a horizon shaped like a lie, like it’s only a deep space mystery spot where the Real War can be located at last.
What’s been literally backgrounded is had the South abolished slavery, there would have been no cause for secession. And it’s always been We the People, not We the States. And our Bald Eagles have 7k feathers the same now as back then.
1.2 miles, or 4 minutes away from Lee, et al., on his horse hovering over Monument Avenue in Richmond is a new statue, this one by Kinde Wiley: “Rumors of War” is up at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). On a horse in the same posture as Jeb Stuart– how he turns in the saddle looking over his shoulder while his horse plunges straight ahead; in a movement toward making that shape into something else, this time a Black male sits in the saddle wearing Nikes, & he has braids. He faces southward, toward the building along Arthur Ashe Boulevard that houses, yes, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, These were the grounds where the public was not allowed to stand & view the statue’s unveiling; not on their property, no, no, the site that will become the last time a Yankee plays capture the flag: after George Floyd’s murder (for passing a fake twenty? no, for living), protesters break windows, sail molotov cocktails through front windows. Officials then announce Stonewall’s casket flag got “incinerated,” but it turned out the flag had an underlying condition. Was easier to burn. Potential accelerants in its system. Predisposed to being on fire with that preexisting condition of being full of holes that led to nothing but its demise. No?
Next day’s Richmond Times-Dispatch headline: “Nothing of Value was Lost.” Say it.
Up the front steps, the word “abolition” spraypainted. Protestors assaulted firefighters trying to set a perimeter, so police used tear gas: “Nine fire trucks and a police line three blocks long worked to assuage the fire and protect the building.”
Christy S. Coleman, the black CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond and co-chair of the Monument Avenue Commission: “I was not surprised when I read it this morning. Black Richmond knows what the UDC is and always has been.”
Amanda Chase, running for Governor of VA., said from her car to a reporter: “Let’s be honest here. There is an overt effort here to erase all White history.”
Kinde Wiley on his statue: “To be in a black body walking through the streets of Richmond and to see something that signifies the enslavement of your people, that’s a bit more heavy duty. I want my statue to be speaking back to the people looking at those statues.” https://www.vmfa.museum/about/rumors-of-war/
Note: The following are a few Twitter hashtags, & numerous Facebook comments left on “The Virginia Flaggers” page (I altered spelling in instances where words were incomprehensible):
“#finishingupGeneralSherman’swork
#Shermanswithusalltonight
#BurnBabyBurn
#burningaConfederateflagisheritagenothate
#notsomuchvandalismasunfinishedbusiness
A lot of people in Richmond are terrified in their homes.
Where are the members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans organizations. I don’t recall hearing from either of them. Are they still in existence? How about Confederate re-enactors dressed in there uniforms!?
I’m willing to make a stand at the monument.
This is clear evidence that all the true patriots are either dead and gone or have fleed the state or grown vaginas!
Anyone know where his (Northram’s) relatives are buried? Let him feel it.
Does the Arthur Ashe monument come down too?
Walk around DC after dark, tell me how that works out, naive sheep.
Tiem for another civil war.
You should get out of office. Y’all people are a disgrace to America.
The Black community is its own worst enemy.
No white guilt. And I am far from privileged. If blacks get out of the hood, quit selling dope and gang banging they can feel what we feel. Free from most persecution that come with living a normal life obeying the law.
I thought Hitler was dead?
THOSE THAT DENY THEIR HISTORY ARE D-[CLANK]
My Confederate flag isn’t about hate, it’s about honoring my Southern heritage.
Nope, it’s a hate symbol, hon.
I honor my German heritage by eating sauerkraut and potato salad, not flying a swastika from the back of a butt-ugly pickup. Go eat some cornbread and shut up.
But those protective laws in Virginia have been changed– states’ rights in action.
You guys need to have boots on the ground but I’m not optimistic. If you live in Virginia this is not the time to be a keyboard warrior. Your ancestors defended Virginia but will you defend your ancestors? Where is the Johnny Reb in you?
Why is everyone so upset that a memorial to a traitor is coming down?
Tear down every black statue you see and then some two can play at that game
Taking down the country a piece at a time
But they aren’t renaming Cherokee Triangle even though they owned slaves, fought for the Confederacy and the last rebel general to surrender was Cherokee Chief Stand Waite who was also a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle… is it just coincidence they’re only after Caucasians?
When there’s no more monuments to remove, what’s next?
This is so sad.
My gr-gr-grandfather was at Camp Morton and luckily survived. They all had to eat rats, twigs, whatever. Once he and a few comrades caught a guard’s dog and ate him. He relayed the story to his grandchildren as if it were a Christmas Dinner… GRRR
When they get through erasing history they can re-write it like they want to. And tell our grandchildren that Uncle Sam was our savior. And they will bow and say “thank you.” I cannot get this bad taste out of my mouth.
Our lives are the constant of the sins they and their ancestors committed. Their sins are biting them.
Why are people scared of the riots and looting? The flu kills way more people every year.
….when you raise people who act like animals….
He is 39 years old. No one who was born after 1970 can know of racism. I cannot watch this.
Maybe When They Start Taking Lee Down Traveller Will Stomp A Bunch Of People.
Sad sad day… I’ve got space in my yard!
Mr. Governor you just started Virginia’s second Civil War! #virginiastrong
Virginians, rise up! I am in Georgia and ready to join a march of Southerners to the monument. Please get a permit and let the Confederacy know. Let’s show the world our numbers and our strength!
Every country had slaves at one point. When are the pyramids coming down? Most African Americans are proud of their African roots then why can’t we be proud of ours?
Leave the monument alone. Richmond Va. was the capital of the CSA. American History Matters
Dam old governor democrat black face I think he was one of the looters not sure but good possibility
WHAT IS HE TRYING TO GET STARTED?
Ready your weapons.
Only now will peace flood the land. Timing is suspect.
The next step is book burning.
So if our monuments get taken down we can also take down everyone else’s monuments too right? I mean don’t be hypocritical
One need Only Observe the obscene FILTH this Memorial to a great man such as Robert E. Lee has been subjected to see the socialist government devils and the mob hoards intentions for ALL of America.
This is spiritual warfare. The demons are raging. I’m not talking about the people. I mean actual demons who are orchestrating this. Pray pray pray.
Shame on Richmond!
Communist cowards.
The South shall rise again… yeah right, we fell with a whimper.
Get the Yankees out of dixie!
So let Richmond burn, again.
I see the end. Please tell us there is hope.
How can we save Monument Avenue? Can we have a counter protest and block the cranes somehow? We need to not just let them take it.
These statues were raised as monuments to the dead. Read a book.
Read up on history!!!! The slaves came from where and were sold by who? Then freed by who?
The original slaves came from their own people.
Secession is treason? What are you celebrating every July 4th?
They scared cause we didn’t lose, we just got tired of killing yankees, but Lincoln wasn’t getting tired of sending them to die
Hold a vote for all registered voters and I bet it would tell a different story. It’s so sad this is in the hands of a couple people.
The monuments will never be enough.
Damed yankees and thier dirty tricks
The Confederates: the only army that could lose a war and still terrify those who won 154 years later
They’re scared because they know that Southern blood still runs through us.
IM SO MAD MY BIG MOUSTACHE AND 6 SHOOTERS JUST FELL OFF.
<jaunty banjo music twangs to a halt>
How about taken down that mlk monument. That might be a good thing. They forget what he did now they do the opposite of what he preached.
And James Brown.
Bless Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Quit trying to hide history! Many fought and died for it. Show some respect for them!
That statue was out after curfew. I don’t know what he expected.
These monuments need to be handed over to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Get them out of the Richmond ghetto! They belong to true southerners!!!
Virginia, my heart is weeping for your sons and daughters whose sacred Confederate blood runs through their veins. Cradle of freedom, nobility and Christian love may you rise again in truth and honor.
Well let’s take down all yankee memorials and Martin Luther King memorials while we’re at it
What’s happening right now is a racist insurrection to violently overthrow the government. That’s treason. We are in such a scary time.
They are burning Richmond again.
Just like that thing standing in front ofVMFA its funny how they didn’t target that or black statues.
They also ended Lee-Jackson Day. What’s next? The war never even happened?
Wonder what they would do if this was one of their heros
This is about the same bigotry that caused the war.
This is assault on Americans.
As vulgar and filthy as it is, they haven’t touched Lee. He’s still standing proudly!
Robert E. Lee Is Shaking His Head In Disappointment… From The Confederate Foundation To One Of The Most Pantywaist States In The Union… Virginia Is Not For Lovers… Its For Cowards!
It’s more than the South. All over the country they have defaced, vandalized or torn down monuments, memorials and statues to soldiers, wars and heroes regardless of the war they fought
We gotta go there and stand up for it.
How long are we going to wait? Til they dig up Jefferson Davis and throw him in the James?
They are casting Oprah’s statue right now. Riding on a unicorn.
Martin Luther King tear that down
It’s why after 9-11 we built all those Bin Laden statues, right?
They have desecrated monuments all over the country. North AND South. They desecrated the WW2 memorial in DC and even the 5th Massachusetts statue in Boston for the black troops. They don’t CARE what it is as long as they can destry it.
Instead of raging about it on the internet everyone should band together and PERSONALLY intervene.
I wonder how much of this criminal abomination our forefathers would have tolerated. I don’t believe it would have gotten this bad.
I guess my body will be laying at the bottom of that monument right there I will go down fighting since the rest of you coward too scared.
This is definitely a sad day in the history of humanity. God bless America.
Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
The Democrats are the ones who didnt want the black man to vote have you forgotten about George Wallace.
Far left antifa sewer slime
American Terrorist
If this George person is inciting violence why isn’t he locked up?
Hooray for the Union!
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. George Orwell
Okay flaggers lets not just talk let’s actually do something. This is coming from the man who’s been down there every two weeks for the past year maintaining these monuments as best I could. Placing Christmas wreaths on Davis Monument during December, Going in behind these fools and cleaning up removing the Noose from Davis’s neck, cleaning up eggshells, toilet paper, glass, spray cans and cardboard signs. If I see “say his name” one more time…. these people disgust me. I was down there Saturday night trying to stand my spot on the Lee Monument only to be pushed away and asked by the police to please go home because they were told to stand down. Stoney and the governor hiding in his Palace behind the National Guard planned this all along. I plan on renting a water tank and taking my pressure washer down there either this weekend or next weekend depending on how many crazy little left in town and try to clean the David Monument. Anybody care to watch my back while I’m at it? God bless America God bless the South. Jeff Kyte
WHAT A WATERED DOWN PATHETIC limp wristed response. Bunch of Cowards. The Death of Mr. Floyd and the Monument are NOT connected issues!
Interesting. The Rumors of War statue is there. Have you seen it?
GARISH LOOKING MONSTROSITY FROM SOME DEPRAVED MIND. PATHETIC!!
Every county in every state needs to form an active militia.
What the hell did that piece of concrete do to you nothing grow up
One more time: there’s a difference between honoring people despite their sins & honoring people due to their sins.
they are just making room for a new snoop dog statue
In Tikrit there’s a monument of the shoe an Iraqi journalist threw at George W. Bush during that press conference.
Honestly no need for books when you’ve got a nice piece of rock in front of you.
Adolf who?
What’s a Germany? I went to public school, we couldn’t afford to learn because our taxes went to buying granade launchers for police.
come to think of it i can’t really remember what his whole deal was?? like i know he was famous for something but i just can’t put my finger on what it was
If only there was a sculpted metal likeness of him with a small plaque so I could be free of my ignorance. Alas
I tried googling him but no results came up. We should have listened to the warnings, when the statues come down it really does destroy history
I went to Auschwitz but without statues of the people responsible for the holocaust I’ve no idea what actually happened.
Without a statue outside, it’s just an old derelict train station surrounded by fences isn’t it?
Berlin removed all statues celebrating hitler and renamed all streets after him so when i visited it was a shame because there was absolutely nowhere i could visit to learn its history
may as well take every graven down of every culture and race and religion! Only Fair!
As for the gold and silver that went with Jeff Davis ask him where it is.
Happy Trails
Surround the monument with thousands if not millions of armed Patriots denying the removal of such a great American.
Line in the sand.
How about a statue to King George 3 to replace it
This isn’t going to end well.
They were just soldiers. Boys. It’s a dark thing that destroys the memory of the dead. No good can come of it to anyone.
#USAisdead… #USAonFire
your gun rights are next and last is your constitution
In the dark of night like cowards
Racism is over! Good job everyone.
You can mourn this guy instead of the real procession of a murdered slave, right?
What about cemeteries and battlefields which honor both sides? Or the Gettysburh Museum? And if you want something that is just for the Confederates… Stone Mountain.
Time to change the name of Washington D.C. And paint the White House pink then call it Flamingo Road.
ISIS way lol
America is using democracy and freedom system to control the world
We already pay reparations in the form of welfare.
The war was about central banks gaining control of all the Americas and about money and power, not slavery!
Oh, no, now I can’t remember who won the Civil War.
*laughs in Yankee*
Arab countries have never apologized or felt sorry for enslaving not only Africans but the Europeans, accumulating far more slaves in numbers than the Europeans ever did. There were slaves being traded to Arabs and Africans long before Europens arrived on African coast to buy them from Africans. Europeans didn’t capture slaves. That is fact.
Are these offered to the public? Like for Art around my pool?
Next get rid of Jefferson monument & Washington monument should be painted black– we built them all.
‘Publican panties in a bunch about mah histree. But it’s black history since the founding that’s always been taken down.
Our American History is being shredded, Statues taken down, Monuments being removed, Renaming Army Bases, the classis “Gone with the Wind” is GONE! Cops was taken off the air by Paramount & now THIS!…it’s getting past being ridiculous now!!!!
Don’t throw out clips of someone dying in police custody next time.
So, no one’s flying that British flag? What happened to our history?
I don’t understand why you don’t “Vandal” them back with some buckshot?? That would end this nationwide…
Va is being infiltrated with Northerner’s.
Really the confederate flag should be called the Human Trafficking flag, cuz that’s what they did.
Is it time to rope ashe or rumours and bring them down too
Don’t drink the kool-aid. (“Cults in 1978” with picture of bodies laying at Jonestown; below is a 2020 picture of “Cults in 2020” bodies laying at BLM protest).
This is a really sad day for America the Federal reserve unfortunately won civil war can finally erase the past and trick people into thinking the war was about slavery and not about Central banking. In control with monopolies.
Everyone on Richmond city council should be taken out back shot for treason of this country.
Mao’s Cultural Revolution ended up slaughetring 50 million innocent chinese. Scary.
Truly dark times for humanity. We’ll march out victorious in the end, don’t worry.
92% say NO!
Hell no fucking Yankee
I am praying for help for us all who are attacked by witch craft and war.
White guilt got them voted in and this is the result… a war
Wish they’d bring back the draft. That’s fix all you whiny bitches.
That’s the Yanks for you.
If you haven’t healed in 150 years you’re not going to.
It’s not about healing, IT’S ABOUT POWER AND CONTROL!!!!! PLUS IF HEALING WAS THE ISSUE WOULDNT YOU THINK THEY WOULD BE PROTESTING AGAINST THEIR OWN IN WHICH SOLD THEM INTO SLAVERY!
When the world is changing and making you scared IGHT IMMA HEAD OUT AND MAKE A VIDEO IN MY TRUCK
Get over the loss of a war. Reminder, the South lost.
Now they’re attacking monuments of the Europeans who discovered America and America’s founders too.
Remember it was a black man that sold the first slave and a White man that Stopped it! Hmmm I am proud that happened and your not! Shame on you I guess.
People still want to be paid for slavery years ago that never effected them.
Maybe we should just level Richmond, as the capitol of the Confederacy, as the good governor says, “was wrong then and it’s wrong today.”
In upper Va he brought in illegals that voted. If you go through the countryside of Va he did not get enough votes. He is evil
For every statue or monument taken down, there should be another giant flag (similar to the I-95 Fredericksburg one) put up prominently displayed somewhere nearby on private property for all to see.
But Lee must stay standing at all costs because the statue is towering over the city “guarding” Virginia
We need to pray, but also organize a rally or something.
God Bleess Dixie
But if you start taking down some then lets remove them all. Take all history down
Y’all still got the Dodge charger they used in the Dukes of hazzard!! Now go home and eat some pimento cheese, kiss your dog in the mouth and be happy.
When someone tries to explain how Confederate symbols are History. Sure, Klan.
The JEB Stuart statue is now wearing a traffic cone!
No reason on earth we should have monument to men that fought to keep men in chains with whips to their backs and ropes to their necks. How hard is that for you people to understand?
I’m a very angry American right now.
No, you’re a very angry Confederate right now.
True facts
While you’re at it Governor maybe you could start the movement of removing everything to do with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. School names, associations, and statues!
Around 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust. How many slaves died during the Atlantic Slave Trade, a practice that the South fought literally to the death to keep?
So liberals are using a Yankee cop’s actions as the latest excuse to destroy more war memorials across the South. Makes sense.
The purpose of these statues is to lie and alter history by pretending that these men did something worth honoring. Pulling them down is simply correcting the historical record.
It would be a shame if the protestors in Missouri destroyed this statue of the condeferate war general Sterling Price and it would be a greater shame if they found out I, as his great, great granddaughter, gave them my full permission.
All of Virginia is a participation trophy.
I truly do hate these modern carpetbaggers.
What good is that going to do? Oh I forgot THEM MONUMENTS SHOOT AT PEOPLE AT NIGHT
They want a world of bubbles and want to erase HOSTORY, sorry can’t do that.
They removed it this morning at 4am. without any notice.
SPLC approved!
Be advised. There are belligerent neoconfederates driving around Monument Ave.
When the black plague destroys the white race, who will they destroy then?
It’s just a shame that people wants to make the history sound good to them instead of leaving the real history alone.
Why did they have a close casket for George Floyd think about it. Because it was all a hoax by the democrats its already been proved in so many ways it isn’t funny
Just put them back up. Everyone who has a yard. If someone takes down my Confederate flag I’ll put up 100… 1000 or 10000. I’m retired I can spend the rest of my life putting confederate up all over the entire country.
Bruh the Confederacy lasted from 1861-1865. Lol. Let it go.
The Golden State Warriors had a better run at it
The cavs-warriors finals series lasted as long as a country lmao
Hey Obama lasted twice as long as the confederacy.
Niggas couldn’t even get a second term.
The Dukes of Hazzard tv show lasted longer than General Lee and the Confederacy.
Pokemon GO has lasted longer and had 3x the support.
I’m starting to think that the south won’t rise again.
They tell Black people to get over slavery which lasted hundreds of years but they still crying about losing their racist war lol
Yeah that was as long as Brockmire lasted. GOT lasted 8 seasons. The Walking Dead lasted a year or 2 into Reconstruction?
Dixie! Greetings from the southerners of Russia!
Just waiting for one of these idiots to climb “rumors of war” and start removing a leg.
My great, great, great, great grandfather was ambushed and killed by people carrying that flag. People carrying it today don’t bother me.”
Note: The New York Age, quoted in the Richmond Planet June 7, 1890:
“Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest generals of modern times. But he was a traitor, and gave his magnificiant abilities to the infamous task of disrupting the union and to perpetuating the system of slavery. Where then is the wisdom or the propriety of wasting any sentiment on Robert E. Lee? Let the unconstructed Democracy of the South glorify him and his memory as they will, but let the patriots of the nation indulge in none of it.”
Richmond Planet, June 7, 1890:
“The Negro was in the Northern processions on Decoration Day and in the Southern ones, if only to carry buckets of ice-water. He put up the Lee Monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down.”
Note: A last comment on “The Virginia Flaggers” Facebook page:
“All Virginia– TRUE VIRGINIA– was here, this day. As a native Virginian, and a veteran, I proudly stood and saluted our monument today. I marched “into the breach”, medals upon my chest in civilian clothes, and laid our banner– a bumper sticker that I felt more fitting here– then, I returned to my car, drove around the circle, and proudly proclaimed “OUR MONUMENTS WILL STAND!” and gave my best rebel yell as I played Dixie as loud as I could out the window. I was scoffed and shouted at. These were a mere confirmation to me that we were just. I took action, I took a stand. Will you?”
Note: Jesus fucking Christ, no wonder they lost that war.
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