By MARSHA MERCER
In a week of peaceful protests,
violent riots and widespread looting, the removal Tuesday of a Confederate monument
in Alexandria may seem almost inconsequential.
No one was hurt or died,
and the “Appomattox” monument – nicknamed “Appy” – wasn’t defaced or toppled.
It was scheduled for removal next month, anyway. The Washington Post tucked the
news on page B-4 of Wednesday’s paper.
But Appy’s sudden exit
was a sign the long-simmering controversy over Confederate symbols had finally
boiled over.
Sorrowful Appy
depicted not a general in full military regalia on his steed but an unarmed
Confederate soldier, standing, head bowed, arms crossed over his chest, hat in
hand, facing the battlefields to the South where his comrades had fallen.
The monument at a busy
intersection in Old Town commemorated the place where Alexandrians assembled to
join the fight against the Union. It was not erected until a quarter century
after the Civil War ended, a time many Southerners were eager to glorify the
Confederacy.
Cities and towns have
been taking down Confederate memorials since a white supremacist killed nine
black worshippers at a South Carolina church in 2015.
The trend gathered
steam in 2017 after white supremacists staged a rally in Charlottesville to
protest a plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The
demonstration led to one person’s death and the injuries of 19 others.
After the killing of
George Floyd, who was black, May 25 in Minneapolis while in the custody of a
white cop, protesters took to the streets around the country to demand justice and
an end to police brutality.
Landmark monuments became
a prime destination for protesters to gather and as targets of graffiti and destruction.
In Washington, ugly words were inexplicably spray-painted on the Lincoln
Memorial and the National World War II Memorial.
In at least half a
dozen cities, demonstrators congregating at Confederate memorials painted “BLM”
for “Black Lives Matter,” and other slogans and expletives on some memorials
and destroyed others.
After demonstrators in
Birmingham, Ala., pulled down one Confederate monument and defaced anothe,
while attempting to bring it down, the mayor pleaded to be allowed to “finish
the job for you.”
The city Tuesday removed
the 52-foot Confederate Sailors and Soldiers Monument obelisk.
The United Daughters
of the Confederacy, which owns Appy, decided to move it early after protesters last weekend vandalized
the group’s headquarters in Richmond and set a fire there. Protesters also
covered Richmond’s Confederate monuments with graffiti.
The Daughters notified the city of Alexandria Monday they would take
down the statue the next day.
Now, Virginia Gov.
Ralph Northam, who signed a bill in April allowing localities to remove
monuments from public property, plans to remove the soaring Lee monument in
Richmond.
Richmond Mayor Levar
Stoney, saying the city is no longer the capital of the Confederacy, wants to remove
the four other monuments to Confederate leaders along Monument Avenue.
The big news about Richmond’s
memorials made the Post’s frontpage Thursday.
Many consider Confederate
monuments a symbol of the oppression and subjugation of blacks, while others consider
the memorials a part of their history and heritage.
President Donald Trump,
allying himself with the latter, tweeted in 2017: “Sad to see the history and
culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our
beautiful statues and monuments.”
Those who find the monuments
hurtful and hateful often quote Lee, who favored reconciliation and was no fan
of war memorials.
“I think it wiser not
to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who
endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion
the feels it engendered,” Lee wrote.
And so, more than 150
years after the Civil War ended, the battle over Confederate monuments appears
to have reached a tipping point.
Future Americans surely
will see fewer Confederate symbols on busy city streets. But what will happen
to these monuments?
In Alexandria, the Daughters
have not said where Appy was taken or what’s planned.
Often there is no
plan, and monuments get crated and stored in warehouses.
Authorities should try
to find Confederate monuments final resting places in museums and Confederate
cemeteries. That would be a monumental step forward.
©2020 Marsha Mercer.
All rights reserved.
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