The Question Is, “Remember Whose Heritage?”
Symbols send deep messages that move us without thinking
I grew up in the south, amidst Confederate flags, schools named after Robert E. Lee, and statues honoring Southern Civil War soldiers. I didn’t think twice about the symbolism when I, as a young white boy, meticulously glued together a plastic model of the red Dukes of Hazzard car, named “The General Lee,” with the Confederate flag on the roof.
Years later, when a 2017 “Unite the Right” rally at a Confederate memorial in Charlottesville saw protesters converge around a huge statue of Lee in the center of town, it didn’t sit right with me. I began to wonder why such monuments still existed. I dug in to find out if such commemorations were a one-off, a statue or monument erected here and there, depending upon the whim of a locality. The answer: not even close.
As I did my research, I came across this stunning graphic from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) tracking the dedication of Confederate names and monuments, year by year. These monuments began to proliferate almost immediately after the Civil War, and the multiplication of these statues has continued ever since, spiking significantly during times of perceived equality gains for Black Americans.
