Removal of Confederate Monuments

[brtmchl]

While thinking about this topic I came across an account of a former slave, who became a legislator in Mississippi. I had remembered hearing about this speech after the shooting incident in South Carolina and the removal of the flag a few years ago. There are many blogs with people arguing about this speech. Some calling Harris an Uncle Tom and demanding proof that he even existed, some arguing that Southerners keep trying to trot out "so-called black confederates," one wrote "So this one Black MS Legislator is evidence that southern blacks in general supported the southern slave society?" Still others would claim that he is an example "slave mentality."

Again I think emotion plays heavily on topics of the Civil War. Slavery is a topic that people cannot digest in today's society. Possibly because we try not to talk about it because we are so offended by it. Our culture has rightfully grown to be sickened by the thought of owning another human and forcing our will upon them. But, this wasn't the way of the world back then, and to be honest there are parts of the world today were slavery still exists. http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/

In my opinion Harris is simply paying honor to those who would fight. The monument was for them, NOT a cause or a justification for a cause. The monuments were for the people who took up arms for something (which may have been different for everyone) that they believed in and would die for. We disgrace them and mock them when we remove these monuments or even worse when we disrupt their final resting place because its no longer politically correct for them to lie in certain cemeteries. These were Americans, these were our ancestors.

It's Ok that we feel shame for bad periods in our history, Instead of erasing it and pretending that it didn't exist we can choose to view these as our evolution and be proud that we rose above it even as a young nation.

Lincoln wanted a peaceful reconciliation. He wanted to forgive immediately after the War. Why can't we 150+ years later?


In 1890 John F. Harris, a former slave before the war, a former confederate soldier during the war and a Republican legislator from the Mississippi House of Representatives after the war, voted in favor of the erection of a Confederate monument on the capitol square in Jackson, Mississippi.
Hearing opposition to the monument, by a fellow representative who was the son of a Confederate veteran, a sick Mr. Harris spoke on the House floor.

"Mr. Speaker! I have arisen here in my place to offer a few words on the bill. I have come from a sick bed … Perhaps it was not prudent for me to come. But, Sir, I could not rest quietly in my room without … contributing … a few remarks of my own. I was sorry to hear the speech of the young gentleman form Marshall County. I am sorry that any son of a soldier should go on record as opposed to the erection of a monument in honor of the brave dead. And, Sir, I am convinced that had he seen what I saw at Seven Pines and in the Seven Days’ fighting around Richmond, the battlefield covered with the mangled forms of those who fought for their country and their country’s honor, he would not have made that speech.
When the news came that the South had been invaded, those men went forth to fight for what they believed, and they made no requests for monuments … But they died, and their virtues should be remembered. Sir, I went with them. I too, wore the gray … We stayed four long years, and if that war had gone on till now I would have been there yet. … I want to honor those brave men who died for their convictions. … I want it to be known to all the world that my vote is given in favor of the bill to erect a monument in honor of the Confederate dead.