Posted on 12/18/2004 10:02:21 AM PST by Ellesu
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- From a renamed "Confederate Boulevard" in Arkansas to the shrunken "Heart of Dixie" on Alabama's license plates, some in the South are erasing memories of their Civil War pasts with the hope of enticing investment. "Business people and tourists don't know what to think about slavery, elitism, the Civil War," says Ted Ownby of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. "So one way is to give them an easy out. We'll change the name of this building, this street, change this display."
Over the last few years, more and more Confederate roots seem to be vanishing around the South. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., last year, the school dropped "Confederate" from Confederate Memorial Hall. The University of Mississippi dropped "Colonel Rebel" as its on-field mascot. Georgia downsized, and then eventually removed a Confederate symbol from its state flag. And South Carolina's NAACP has been boycotting business in that state since 2000 in hopes of removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds.
In Little Rock, the Confederate Boulevard change came just before the opening of the Clinton Library. In Alabama, "Heart of Dixie" was made smaller on the license plates in favor of specialty plates that bring in dollars for special interests.
John Shelton Reed, a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina's Center for the Study of the American South, says the trend is clear, and business interests coupled with concern from the African-American community are the catalysts.
"Businesses named Dixie this and Dixie that, there are fewer of them than there used to be," Shelton says. "If you're a businessperson, why do you want a name that's going to raise anybody's hackles?"
Ownby says that Southern heritage's effect on business has been an issue since the Civil Rights movement.
"Little Rock, Birmingham, Selma, immediately after something horrible happened in those places, it was for a few years almost impossible to do business," Ownby says.
Jim Dailey, the mayor of Little Rock, says the Confederate Boulevard sign was changed after city officials noted that it was often the first thing visitors saw after arriving at the Little Rock airport. With the world's eyes on the opening of the Clinton Library, and with millions of tourism dollars at stake, the city opted for a different first impression.
So what exactly is the contention? Why do the stars and bars and the word "Confederate" upset so many, while others are so adamant to protect them?
"It seems to be glorifying elitism, racism and slavery," Ownby says. "It seems to celebrate one part of the community at the expense of the other."
Not so, says Ron Casteel, chief of staff for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He calls the removal of rebel reminders a "disgusting trend" that can be pinned on political correctness.
"We honor everyone else's traditions and heritage, why should we discriminate against Confederate heritage?" Casteel says. "It is now a politically correct thing to do to erase Confederate symbols, Confederate street names, anything that is attached to something that is very much a part of political history."
But Ownby says out-of-town investors want to visit a South that isn't mired in the past. Many Southern tourist regions, like Mississippi's Gulf Coast, make special efforts to see that the atmosphere is war-free.
"They want to offer an image of a place of ease and peace, without people angry at each other," Ownby says.
Larry Griffin, a sociology and history professor at the University of North Carolina, says the South has simply become too diverse to identify with the symbols of its rebel past.
"Could these particular symbols truly represent the Southern people when they have such an extraordinary diversity?" Griffin says. "I don't believe that these kinds of symbols can represent truly a people, now of many hues, many colors and many faiths."
Historians say that it seems white Northerners are happy to let the South hash the problem out themselves, until money becomes involved.
"The white North appears to be letting the white South determine its own meaning," Griffin says. "If the symbols became so divisive that nuts and bolts economics were damaged, if there were boycotts ... the way to handle it is to get rid of the symbol, not permitting public authority to display the battle flag."
However, Griffin also argues that these symbols shouldn't be forgotten, just placed in context.
"We don't want to rewrite the past so moments are silenced or hidden," Griffin says. "The past needs to be observed and engaged, warts and all. There are places that would be proper sites for these kinds of symbols. It could be in a museum, in a national park or any of the Civil War battlefields."
"If the National Park Service wants to honor blacks being free from slavery and blacks getting the right to vote, that's fine," said Michael Givens, first lieutenant of the state division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "Just don't do it under the pretenses of Reconstruction."
...
Givens, of the SCV, said Reconstruction was a terrible time for Southern whites, who he said were "punished" by Northern whites, or "carpetbaggers," who came South. "The genesis of bad relationships between the races is Reconstruction," rather than slavery, Givens said.
Some people have the idea that the quarrels over the Confederate Battle Flag are about history or heritage against Orwellian efforts to control the past. The problem is that those who defend the flag are every bit as much interested in controlling and determining just what the historical record is, and excluding inconvenient facts. Givens wants monuments and memorials to represent just his own militantly revisionist understanding of history, and it's hard to see what separates such a flag defender from the angrier and more embittered opponents of the CBF.
The question of just who is falsifying or distorting or changing history isn't as easy as some would make out. Plenty of people who didn't have a voice when Confederate monuments went up have one now, and use it just as the SCV and other groups always have. I doubt it's a matter of one side rather than the other wanting to "erase" history. It's just a result of living in a country where more people have a say in what we remember.
Like the way they did "Iko Iko" though.
LOL!
We can't do the 30 foot poles here because of the by-laws and covenants. I tried to disband the HOA here, but there are a few who love to intrude on others and their property. A couple of us then joined the HOA in order to make it as inactive as possible. I fly flags off my deck unless there is bad weather or we are away.
Yes, however, I don't hear anyone from the south calling for the ban of anything. It is one side wanting to ban flags, monuments, street names, etc. It seems to me that the southerners have not protested or called for the banning or removal of anything "northern." You appear to be taking the middle ground (somewhat) on this issue, but there is a difference when one side wants to erase any vestige of the other.
i DESPISE HOAs. period. end of story.
the "workers", employed by ours have a habit of stopping school-age children & asking them FAR too PERSONAL questions about their parents & their "home life".
can you say, "PRIVACY INTRUSION", children? SURE you CAN.
free dixie,sw
Amen brother!
a friend of mine MAY have stopped that "practice" over the weekend. he called the HOA office & told the "nice lady" that if he heard of HIS children being asked questions about THEIR home life, that his wife would make a "personal visit" to see "the questioner".
i KNOW his wife & she gives new meaning to the term, "SCORPION" when aroused.
trust me, you wouldn't want "a personal visit" from Bonnie! LOL.
free dixie,sw
I have to wonder what type of questions those were... I cannot believe how some of these HOA types act. I have a neighbor who lived in a townhome when he was first married back in the late 80's. He told me that the Architectural Control Committee used to carry clipboards and walk around the neighborhood (even in the back yards!!) noting changes that were not approved. It's a damn good thing I didn't live in that neighborhood. I would have physically removed them from my yard and it would not have been pretty!
These are questions that can probably be resolved in a calm and moderate way, even though some groups on both sides take extreme positions on such questions for propagandistic reasons, like fund-raising and membership drives. If the pro-CBF groups seem to be less controlling now, it's because they were in control for over a century, and they determined what was built and what wasn't. So now the more radical of them don't act so much to take things down as to try to prevent new monuments -- like the Lincoln statue in Richmond or the projected National Historical Park commemorating Reconstruction -- from being established. But some of them are as radical and as determined to impose their vision as anyone on the other side.
I can understand why some Southerners are so upset about efforts to take down flags and monuments. But it is a two-way street. Plenty of what the most militant Confederates say is offensive to others, even to those who don't otherwise have a strong opinion about the Civil War. To say that Reconstruction and Black Suffrage weren't closely related or that enmities between Black and White can be put at the door of Reconstruction, and slavery be more or less ignored, as the SC SCV man does, is to take a wrong-headed view of things, and it calls one's opinion on other issues into question.
We're seeing forms of this type of activity all over the place. The ten commandments are suddenly being removed from courtrooms after being there for generations. Nativity scenes that have been placed in certain areas for 200+ years are now suddenly not welcome. Crosses are being taken down in certain buildings and town sqaures. It's the same thing. These neo-leftist-idealists are practicing a form of censorship and they have their "thought police" out in full force to ban or protest anything that does not conform to their ideals. As for the Confederate flag being used by hate groups, let me remind you that the KKK has marched under the American Flag for well over 100 years and slavery was conducted under the American flag. We do not equate the American flag with racism - and rightfully so. Those who truly know the history of the Civil War know that what is being advertised by the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Kweisi Mfume, etc is simply not accurate. Unfortunately, too many Americans are afraid to challenge these folks on anything for fear of being called the "R" word.
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