Posted on 02/25/2004 11:52:26 AM PST by 4CJ
THOMASVILLE -- Nelson Winbush knows his voice isn't likely to be heard above the crowd that writes American history books. That doesn't keep him from speaking his mind, however.
A 75-year-old black man whose grandfather proudly fought in the gray uniform of the South during the Civil War, Winbush addressed a group of about 40 at the Thomas County Museum of History Sunday afternoon. To say the least, his perspective of the war differs greatly from what is taught in America's classrooms today.
"People have manufactured a lot of mistruths about why the war took place," he said. "It wasn't about slavery. It was about state's rights and tariffs."
Many of Winbush's words were reserved for the Confederate battle flag, which still swirls amid controversy more than 150 years after it originally flew.
"This flag has been lied about more than any flag in the world," Winbush said. "People see it and they don't really know what the hell they are looking at."
About midway through his 90-minute presentation, Winbush's comments were issued with extra force.
"This flag is the one that draped my grandfathers' coffin," he said while clutching it strongly in his left hand. "I would shudder to think what would happen if somebody tried to do something to this particular flag."
Winbush, a retired in educator and Korean War veteran who resides in Kissimmee, Fla., said the Confederate battle flag has been hijacked by racist groups, prompting unwarranted criticism from its detractors.
"This flag had nothing to with the (Ku Klux) klan or skinheads," he said while wearing a necktie that featured the Confederate emblem. "They weren't even heard of then. It was just a guide to follow in battle.
"That's all it ever was."
Winbush said Confederate soldiers started using the flag with the St. Andrews cross because its original flag closely resembled the U.S. flag. The first Confederate flag's blue patch in an upper corner and its alternating red and white stripes caused confusion on the battlefield, he said.
"Neither side (of the debate) knows what the flag represents," Winbush said. "It's dumb and dumber. You can turn it around, but it's still two dumb bunches.
"If you learn anything else today, don't be dumb."
Winbush learned about the Civil War at the knee of Louis Napoleon Nelson, who joined his master and one of his master's sons in battle voluntarily when he was 14. Nelson saw combat at Lookout Mountain, Bryson's Crossroads, Shiloh and Vicksburg.
"At Shiloh, my grandfather served as a chaplain even though he couldn't read or write," said Winbush, who bolstered his points with photos, letters and newspapers that used to belong to his grandfather. "I've never heard of a black Yankee holding such an office, so that makes him a little different."
Winbush said his grandfather, who also served as a "scavenger," never had any qualms about fighting for the South. He had plenty of chances to make a break for freedom, but never did. He attended 39 Confederate reunions, the final one in 1934. A Sons of Confederate Veterans Chapter in Tennessee is named after him.
"People ask why a black person would fight for the Confederacy. (It was) for the same damned reason a white Southerner did," Winbush explained.
Winbush said Southern blacks and whites often lived together as extended families., adding slaves and slave owners were outraged when Union forces raided their homes. He said history books rarely make mention of this.
"When the master and his older sons went to war, who did he leave his families with?" asked Winbush, who grandfather remained with his former owners 12 years after the hostilities ended. "It was with the slaves. Were his (family members) mistreated? Hell, no!
"They were protected."
Winbush said more than 90,000 blacks, some of them free, fought for the Confederacy. He has said in the past that he would have fought by his grandfather's side in the 7th Tennessee Cavalry led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forest.
After his presentation, Winbush opened the floor for questions. Two black women, including Jule Anderson of the Thomas County Historical Society Board of Directors, told him the Confederate battle flag made them uncomfortable.
Winbush, who said he started speaking out about the Civil War in 1992 after growing weary of what he dubbed "political correctness," was also challenged about his opinions.
"I have difficulty in trying to apply today's standards with what happened 150 years ago," he said to Anderson's tearful comments. "...That's what a lot of people are attempting to do. I'm just presenting facts, not as I read from some book where somebody thought that they understood. This came straight from the horse's mouth, and I refute anybody to deny that."
Thomas County Historical Society Board member and SVC member Chip Bragg moved in to close the session after it took a political turn when a white audience member voiced disapproval of the use of Confederate symbols on the state flag. Georgia voters are set to go to the polls a week from today to pick a flag to replace the 1956 version, which featured the St. Andrew's cross prominently.
"Those of us who are serious about our Confederate heritage are very unhappy with the trivialization of Confederate symbols and their misuse," he said. "Part of what we are trying to do is correct this misunderstanding."
#3 is a VALUABLE resource to the risen southland, as he is converting neutrals to dixie PATRIOTS, every time he posts.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
it is really LONG, but some good stuff here, if you ignore the HATEFILLED comments of #3.
free dixie,sw
You're too biased to have an intelligent dscussion.
Anyone who reads the first part of this thread can see you're a liar.
You're too dumb and biased to discuss anything with. You've been here how many years and you can't even post pictures or links because you don't know how? [snicker]
you are one of our best recruiting tools, as you are a wonderful example of a FOOL & a damnyankee inside one skin.
have you ordered your robes & hood yet?
if NOT hurry right down & do so, as you are NO BETTER than the KKK-morons.
free dixie,sw
and free the southland from HATERS & FOOLS like you,sw
Recruiting??!! There's less of you now than ever. lol It's your heros like Forrest that dressed in hoods, by the way.
YOU are a HATER & NO better than a KKK-idiot.
free dixie,sw
Forrest was the founder of the KKK and they wore hoods to symbolize the ghosts of Confederate soldiers killed in the war. You show your ignorance again. He was a murderer of the worst kind. He murdered POWs and then after the war his group murdered people for simply being black or Republican. He resided over two years of this political murder and racist genocide and ran away when he knew the government was going to put a stop to it. What a great guy...your hero.
do you REALLY believe any of that IGNORANT NONSENSE???
are you REALLY that STUPID/IGNORANT or are you just being a TROLL???
1st, nate forrest was NOT the founder of the KKK, though he was BRIEFLY one of the first members.(the actual founders were a group of college boys, who started the klan as a "college prank")
2d. there is NO EVIDENCE, period, that he EVER murdered a SINGLE POW, unlike the damnyankee scum that ROUTINELY MURDERED helpless civilians & CSA POWs. (if you were UNfortunate enough to be captured while "black,in gray uniform", you could count on being MURDERED by your damnyankee captors.) it is reliably estimated, by the curator of the Arfican-American Museum in New Orleans, that the damnyankees MURDERED at least 75% of all NON-white CSA POWs (mostly blacks, indians & "mixed bloods").
you REALLY should start reading something other than damnyankee, self-serving propaganda. you'd then look smarter.
free dixie,sw
They're like people in the Balkans or the middle-east. They live in the past and re-live stupid old grudges.
SW is obsessed with some massacre from the Civil War involving ancestors of his. It's like an Albanian blood feud where everyone involved died a century ago and yet their descendents are still obsessed with the issue.
The Civil War is over. The North won. Rational people in the South see the whole thing as an interesting bit of their history. Only people with some sort of mental disorder take it beyond that.
i wonder if you would call a JEW, whose family went to "the showers", courtesy of the nazis, "obsessed"????
are YOU just a damnyankee APOLOGIST???
how would YOU feel if it had been YOUR FAMILY that was SLAUGHTERED by the "filth in blue", for no reason except that they were NOT WHITE people????
would YOU fogive/forget??? i think NOT!
free dixie,sw
A century from now, if descendents of Holocaust survivors were still harping on the actions of long-dead people against other long-dead people, I would call them obsessed, yes.
You do know that one question mark is sufficient, right?
how would YOU feel if it had been YOUR FAMILY that was SLAUGHTERED by the "filth in blue", for no reason except that they were NOT WHITE people????
Nearly 150 years later? I wouldn't really care. Who do you direct your hatred at? Anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line?
I have ancestors who were murdered by Turks as part of their periodic massacres in the Balkans. Am I supposed to hate the Turkish guy who lives down the hall from me? Should I be demanding an apology from him?
are YOU just a damnyankee APOLOGIST???
The North has nothing to apologize for, so no. You seem to fall into the same camp as people who demand reparations for what happened to their ancestors. Pitiful.
we southrons want NO $$$$$, just that everyone stop:
1.attacking our blood-spattered,tattered battleflags & other CSA symbols,
2.attacking the memory of our dixie HERO-MARTYRS,
3. demanding that our memorials & gravesites be removed/covered/forgotten.
4.denying the truth about the mass MURDERS, TORTURE & RAPES of the INNOCENT POWs & CIVILIANS,
5.HATING southerners & the southland.
a NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING & REMBERENCE would do much to promote healing of our many wounds, north & south.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Not going to happen. Accept that.
1.attacking our blood-spattered,tattered battleflags & other CSA symbols,
Americans have the right to free speech. Many Americans find the Confederate flag offensive and they are free to say so. Don't like it? Too bad.
2.attacking the memory of our dixie HERO-MARTYRS
You sound like a Palestinian, with your talk of martyrs. Again, Americans have the right to critisize whoever they want, including dead traitors. Don't like it? Too bad.
3. demanding that our memorials & gravesites be removed/covered/forgotten.
If a community decides to remove a memorial or gravesite, that's their right.
4.denying the truth about the mass MURDERS, TORTURE & RAPES of the INNOCENT POWs & CIVILIANS,
Everyone knows atrocities were commited by both sides during the Civil War. Again, why do you care so much? These are things that happened 150 years ago to people you don't know. Who cares?
5.HATING southerners & the southland.
You are such a liberal. You're determined to claim victim status. How lame.
Let's see- out of our last 5 Presidents, 4 were from the South. Other than a few liberal extremists, nobody hates the South. You have a persecution/inferiority complex. Get over it.
a NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING & REMBERENCE would do much to promote healing of our many wounds, north & south.
Pointless. Any wounds that exist are only in the minds of a small group of fanatics. The vast majority of people couldn't care less.
free dixie,sw
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