An article at the Carolina Journal describes efforts by the leaders of Alamance County to preserve its Confederate monument in front of the county courthouse in Graham. They are currently fighting off a lawsuit.
That monument had been the target of sustained efforts to have it removed including prolonged demonstrations. The county commissioners and county sheriff did what they needed to do to defend it.
That type of leadership is rare, particularly in view of the fact that Alamance sits between two lefty, politically charged metropolitan areas– the Triad and the Triangle.
I think those county commissioners and the county sheriff deserve a lot of credit. Their courage in the face of blistering antagonism from the vicious, violent left is to be commended.
Yes the Alamance county officials have indeed shown courage in defending the Confederate monument.
Up north of Richmond a more outrageous action is about to take place.
Here is an editorial from the Washington Times:
Another Confederate monument bites the dust
Reconciliation statue at Arlington National Cemetery set to be destroyed
By Editorial Board – The Washington Times – Tuesday, May 30, 2023
OPINION:
In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement sparked in 2020 by the murder of George Floyd, Congress required the Department of Defense to create a commission to evaluate the ways the military continued to honor the Confederacy.
The duties of the “naming commission” were to assess the “cost of renaming or removing names, symbols, displays, monuments or paraphernalia that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.”
In January, the commission recommended the removal of Arlington National Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial, which is to be demolished this summer. The memorial, dedicated in 1914, features a bronze woman standing on a 32-foot pedestal, crowned with olive leaves, holding a laurel wreath, a plow stock, and a pruning hook designed to represent the South. The base of the statue features 14 shields with the coats of arms of the 13 Confederate states and Maryland, which didn’t secede and join the Confederacy.
A little history is in order.
After the Civil War, Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant worked hard to reconcile the North and the South. Lincoln pardoned and restored property to all who engaged in the war, with the exception of the highest Confederate officials and military leaders. Grant supported pardons for former Confederate leaders — seeking to maintain peace and economic growth — while also protecting the civil rights of freed slaves.
In 1898, President William McKinley held a “Peace Jubilee,” where he stated: “In the spirit of fraternity, we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers. … Sectional feelings no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag waves over us in peace with new glories.”
In 1900, Congress allowed Confederate remains to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, designating Special Section 16 to them — and that’s where the monument stands. Three years later, in 1903, the first Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies were held in Section 16. President Theodore Roosevelt sent a floral arrangement to commemorate it, a tradition that almost every U.S. president has repeated — even Barack Obama. (Mr. Obama modified the tradition by sending a wreath to Section 16 and another one to D.C.’s African American Civil War Memorial.)
With President William Howard Taft’s consent, in 1906, the United Daughters of the Confederacy began raising funds for the statue. It was designed by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. Other sculptures of his can be found around the nation, including in front of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. He was buried beneath his statue in Arlington, with President Warren G. Harding praising him as “a great Virginian, a great artist, a great American and a great citizen of world fame.”
Now, the radicals in our society are going to tear down his creation because, as the secretary of defense has explained, Arlington National Cemetery can “inspire all those who call them home, fully reflect the history and the values of the United States and commemorate the best of the republic that we are all sworn to protect.”
The military says all bronze elements on the memorial will be relocated, and its base and foundation will remain as to avoid disturbing the surrounding graves. In today’s race-based hysteria, it is a wonder that Section 16 has survived at all.
With the monument’s destruction, the reconciliation message that Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, Taft and Roosevelt advocated will be lost.
The statue’s demise will not unite but only further divide.
Thanks for the info, Fred.
Several interested parties have filed a lawsuit against the Naming Commission
https://deadconfederates.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/show_temp.pdf
Arlington National Cemetery Seeks Public Input on Confederate Memorial Removal
The Army is accepting feedback about the impacts of the statue’s removal until September 2.
By Maggie Roth August 14, 2023
The Arlington National Cemetery is seeking public input about the removal of the Confederate Memorial located on its grounds. Officials announced plans to remove the statue in March, following directives from the Department of Defense that aim to remove all symbols of the Confederacy from DoD assets.
The U.S. Army announced the beginning of a 30-day “public scoping period” on August 4, in which the public is invited to submit comments related to “alternatives that will avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse effects of the monument’s removal.” Comments can be submitted online until September 2, and a virtual public meeting will be held on August 23.
This is the first of three comment periods included in the full process.
“The removal of the Confederate Memorial must be conducted in a manner that ensures the safety of the people who work at and visit ANC and that protects surrounding graves and monuments,” ANC said.
The statue in question, located in Section 16 of the cemetery, depicts a woman crowned in olive leaves who represents the American South. Below her on the statue are 32 life-size depictions of Confederate soldiers and Southern citizens, including two depictions of slavery. One features an enslaved woman called “Mammy” holding the infant child of a white officer, and the other shows an enslaved man following his owner to war.
The ANC website said that this monument “offers a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” It was created in 1914 by sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran who was later buried at the base of the memorial.
The current plan includes the removal of all bronze elements from the statue. The granite base and foundation will stay in place to avoid disturbing surrounding graves, according to the ANC.
The removal of this statue is part of a larger effort to remove Confederate symbols from all DoD assets. A Congressional Naming Commission was created in 2021 to provide recommendations for how to “remove names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from assets of the DoD.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved these recommendations in October 2022, mandating that all of the renaming and removals indicated in the plan must be completed by January 2024.
The plan to remove the ANC’s memorial is currently being challenged in court, according to The Washington Post. The Sons of the Confederate Veterans and other descendants of Confederate soldiers filed a lawsuit in a Virginia circuit court — which was later moved to federal court in DC — in an attempt to keep the statue intact. The federal government is now seeking to dismiss the lawsuit.
(** On August 23 , I participated in a Webinar put on by the Army for public input. I heard many opinions expressed and all were opposed the removal of the Confederate Memorial )
These are terrible people who are behind all of this, Fred. And of course, they have not stopped at the Confederates. They are going after a broad range of historical symbols and markers and monuments.
This is what a color revolution looks like.
Now you’re talking, Tommy!
It is possible they won’t prevail in the long run with this stand they have taken. But they have done the right thing.