From the article: “This is a highly unusual action,” Western Carolina University Professor and political pundit Chris Cooper said. “Putting aside, for a moment, whether the commissioners have the legal right to remove the plaques, the best practice would certainly be to get community buy-in, or, at the very least, communicate the action to the public.”
Does the professor not know that the community can buy in at the next election, or register their disapproval. Apparently the supervisors think the people are by and large not going to object.
I think it would behoove people to think about the timing of the erection of such monuments, and how we venerate our fathers and grandfathers, even though they may be flawed men, as the ten commandments tell us to honor our fathers and mothers. This was put up in 1915, and that would have been by the generation that was seeing their grandfathers age and die off, who were the generation of the Civil War. They sought to honor their memories, knowing them, one presumes, as good men, or good enough anyway. A little charity towards such a gesture seems like a good idea, but perhaps the problem is that so many of the people who object to these things may not think much of their fathers or grandfathers either.
"This was put up in 1915, and that would have been by the generation that was seeing their grandfathers age and die off, who were the generation of the Civil War. They sought to honor their memories, knowing them, one presumes, as good men, or good enough anyway. A little charity towards such a gesture seems like a good idea..."
Yes, definitely. The United Daughters of the Confederacy were motivated by that supremely.
However, 1915 was also the Second Founding of the Ku Klux Klan. The film Birth of a Nation lionized the old Klan and caused a mass movement to reignite it.
Interesting that it was rededicated in 1996, however. I don't know why that would have been the case, and it's quite late in history for a celebration of the Confederacy.
I'd say 1996 is close enough to have been influenced by the Ken Burns Civil War documentary aired 1990 which also had a pretty even-handed treatment of Confederate veterans (though I think Burns subsequently repudiated his approach when it became unfashionable)
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From the article: “This is a highly unusual action,” Western Carolina University Professor and political pundit Chris Cooper said. “Putting aside, for a moment, whether the commissioners have the legal right to remove the plaques, the best practice would certainly be to get community buy-in, or, at the very least, communicate the action to the public.”
Does the professor not know that the community can buy in at the next election, or register their disapproval. Apparently the supervisors think the people are by and large not going to object.
I think it would behoove people to think about the timing of the erection of such monuments, and how we venerate our fathers and grandfathers, even though they may be flawed men, as the ten commandments tell us to honor our fathers and mothers. This was put up in 1915, and that would have been by the generation that was seeing their grandfathers age and die off, who were the generation of the Civil War. They sought to honor their memories, knowing them, one presumes, as good men, or good enough anyway. A little charity towards such a gesture seems like a good idea, but perhaps the problem is that so many of the people who object to these things may not think much of their fathers or grandfathers either.
"This was put up in 1915, and that would have been by the generation that was seeing their grandfathers age and die off, who were the generation of the Civil War. They sought to honor their memories, knowing them, one presumes, as good men, or good enough anyway. A little charity towards such a gesture seems like a good idea..."
Yes, definitely. The United Daughters of the Confederacy were motivated by that supremely.
However, 1915 was also the Second Founding of the Ku Klux Klan. The film Birth of a Nation lionized the old Klan and caused a mass movement to reignite it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan#Second_Klan:_1915%E2%80%931944
Interesting that it was rededicated in 1996, however. I don't know why that would have been the case, and it's quite late in history for a celebration of the Confederacy.
I'd say 1996 is close enough to have been influenced by the Ken Burns Civil War documentary aired 1990 which also had a pretty even-handed treatment of Confederate veterans (though I think Burns subsequently repudiated his approach when it became unfashionable)
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