It is worth pointing out that not all of these statues were erected to revise history. A reasonable number of them were erected (Between 1870–1915) purely to remember the war, the dead, and probably to save face or honor in a misguided attempt to praise the leaders on the battlefield and off that countless poor white (and a few black) people fought under. It appears that a lot of that era war memorials had real people at the center of them. While the UDC and such are an outdated anachronism now, they served a real purpose at the time. Plenty of people who’s lives were directly affected (and ruined) were around when these monuments went up. I’m not sure how many of them popped up after 1950 in response to the Civil Rights movement. These examples like the GA flag and the S Carolina statehouse flag are obvious.
By no means am I in favor of the “Lost Cause Mythology.” I’m simply pointing out that many people who may not have the means to go to a museum to see the real messy history. It’s also quite possible that school systems will start to shift field trips away from such controversial topics lest we cause discord. If a family can’t afford to go to a museum, then they can go to the park, point at a statue, and have an actual conversation about history. It would be more worthwhile to put up a sign explaining the Truth about history rather than presenting a sanitized version of the past to the world. I’m thinking that we may be one of the few Western democracies that is contemplating this amount of wholesale moving of the past out of free publicly view. There are lots of statues of evil people front and center all over Europe.
BTW I’m not trying to convince you or change your opinion. I simply ask you to acknowledge that there is an alternative point of view that does _not_ mean that I’m a racist and that my opinion is forever suspect. There’s too much of that crap going on in this world.