Confederate Statues Should Come Down

By Editor |

Friday, August 18, 2017

Those people who believe that Confederate statues are a celebration of history are wrong.  They are racist statements.  Most Confederate statues went up in the early 20th century, not after the Civil War.  By the early 20th century, Jim Crow laws were well established, and southern whites -- who had temporarily lost power after the Civil War -- were back in power.  Putting up those statues was a way for whites to say "we may have lost the war, but we are still in charge".  The Confederate statues were a political statement directed primarily at blacks.  You could say that the statues were a "victory dance" by whites, the purpose of which was to show off white power.  In the early 20th century, blacks were unable to vote in most southern states (and many northern states too).  If they had been able to vote, far fewer of those statues would have gone up.  The statues do not reflect the reality of our multi-racial and multi-cultural country.  They must go.