Confederate Memorial Day a Time to Consider Changes

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Offices in Anderson County were closed Friday, to mark Confederate Memorial Day, South Carolina is one of seven Southern states that still hold a day for the memorial. It is only an official holiday in three states.

It is a time to reflect and study the history surrounding the reasons for the continued support for the day, something that is particularly American, particularly in the South.

Though statues have largely lost their place as a public tribute, Confederate statues still dot town squares across the South, where more than 700 statues and memorials reside, including the one on the courthouse square in Anderson. Workers installed the Confederate memorial in downtown Anderson in 1902.

In Anderson the two statues were erected in recent years, both to honor African Americans: one for “Radio” Kennedy at T.L. Hanna High School following the movie about his life and one of our county’s greatest war heroes, Freddy Stowers, which is on the grounds at Anderson University. Stowers was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the first African-American to receive the award, for his bravery during World War One, fighting under French command because the United States still did not allow African American combat soldiers.

Another monument to the victimes of lynchings in Anderson County followith Reconstruction is has traveled the county and is currently on display at Anderson University.

But the Confederate monument in downtown Anderson has been a lightning rod for decades, It’s unlikely the issue of a monument to the lost cause of the Confederacy in the middle of downtown Anderson is ever going to go away.

We are hardly the only community in the state (and nation) facing the challenge of what to do about such statues or other elements bearing the name of those who fought against the United States in the Civil War, or those who were adamantly pro-slaverly.

South Carolina law complicates the issue. Twenty-four years ago lawmakers made compromises to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse in Columbia by passing the Heritage Act of 2000 which forbids the moving, renaming or modification of any “monument, marker, memorial, school, or street erected or named in honor of the Confederacy” without the support of two-thirds of both the house and senate.

This complicates matters significantly for local authorities seeking to make changes. There are few loopholes in the act if public property is involved..

Clemson University dropped Calhoun’s name from the school’s honor college, which was allowed because it was the name of a department. But the university’s board of trustees also approved changing the name of Tillman Hall, named after the notorious Sen. “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, back to “Old Main,” the name the building was previously known as until 1948. But the legislature has failed to support this move..

Anderson’s Confederate monument hasn’t moved in 118 years, but the message it conveys, the truth of history, has moved beyond Southern provincial sentimentalization of the War Between the States.

What began as an idea on Declaration Day in 1886, eventually led to a group which raised the funds for the statue which was dedicated in January 1902 in a ceremony that featured the Clemson College band playing “Taps” as the statue was unveiled. A series of speeches and a parade of Confederate veterans were also part of the event.

At the top of the monument stands Anderson native Major William Wirt Humphreys, who despite being injured in several battles, served throughout almost the entire Civil War, returning to Anderson where he served in a number of prominent positions. Humphreys is buried in Old Silverbrook Cemetery.

The monument also includes two inscriptions which may have resonated with Confederate veterans in 1902, but which today are both offensive and baffling to the modern mind.

The first, ironically on the monument’s South side, reads:

"The world shall yet decide, in truth's clear, far-off light, that the soldiers who wore the

gray, and died with Lee, were in the right."

The truth? History makes it difficult to conclude the cause of the Confederacy was in any fashion as “in the right”

The longer inscription on the monument’s East side extols the chivalry of the South’s cause, a myth largely put forth in later years by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Some continue to insist the War Between the States was fought over states’ rights and other economic issues. But any issue of economics is tied to the South’s refusal to end the practice of slavery, which allowed the ownership of other human beings.

And while there were certainly many Southern foot soldiers who may have never owned slaves, those who sent them to war certainly did it to protect the right for others to own slaves.

By the time of the Civil War, most other civilized nations had long abandoned the practice of slavery, even though indenturement it continued for some groups, such as the Irish.

But support for slavery as an economic engine and philosophical justification was as deeply embedded in the minds of Southern leaders as the cotton plantations they made possible.

Slavery was in that sense about the economy, but chiefly as it was maintaining the lifestyles of wealthy plantation owners and others, making it a central part of the formation of the Confederacy.

Add to the argument, praising the heroes of a group which waged war against the United States of America less than 100 years after the nation waged war for the concept “That all men are created equal,” should serve as an affront to true patriots.

There have been no public monuments or statues praising England’s King George III or any of his generals anywhere in this country. Likewise there should be no monuments or statues of Jefferson Davis or any of his generals memorializing their efforts on town squares.

It’s long past time to move these monuments and statues to places where they can be properly preserved and used to teach the full measure of history, not seek to errantly glamorize localized versions which are steeped in nostalgia and racism.

These tributes to the past belong in museums, and Anderson’s monument would be well served by moving it a few blocks over to the grounds of the Anderson County Museum. The museum is one of the best in the country for its size, and would be the perfect spot since inside there is already a substantial exhibit on the Civil War.

Such a move is not, as some cry, an attempt to destroy history. Instead it enhances history by preserving such artifacts and putting them in context in a place where learning about the past is part of a sacred mission.

History is preserved in great detail in books in every library in the country, as well as in various art forms and other documentaries. Moving the statues and monuments to places where they will be seen in context and the full light of history for generations to come not only provides better understanding, it reflects, as do other museum exhibits, how far our area has progressed and notes the men and women who made such momentum possible.

But to paraphrase the words on the monument, it’s clear: "The world knows today in truth's clear light, that the soldiers who wore the gray and died with Lee, no matter their intentions, were NEVER in the right.”

One month ago marked the 163 anniversary of South Carolina’s shelling for Fort Sumter, which launched the Civil War and eventually cost the lives of more than 600,000 citizens, and a day that was marked four years later to the day by the return of the United States flag over what was left of the fort, where it belonged.

Let’s hope the state legislature has the wisdom to return jurisdiction of Confederate monuments and memorials to the counties in which they reside.

Workers installed the Confederate memorial in downtown Anderson in 1902.