Posted on 12/03/2010 4:39:40 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Event marks war's anniversary
CHARLESTON -- The shots are solely verbal -- and expected to remain that way -- but at least one Civil War Sesquicentennial event is triggering conflict.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans plan to hold a $100-per-person "Secession Ball" on Dec. 20 in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. It will feature a play highlighting key moments from the signing of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago, an act that severed the state's ties to the Union and put the nation on the path to the Civil War.
Jeff Antley, who is organizing the event, said the Secession Ball honors the men who stood up for their rights.
"To say that we are commemorating and celebrating the signers of the ordinance and the act of South Carolina going that route is an accurate statement," Antley said. "The secession movement in South Carolina was a demonstration of freedom."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to protest the event, said Charleston branch President Dot Scott. She deferred further comment to Lonnie Randolph, president of the state NAACP.
"It's amazing to me how history can be rewritten to be what you wanted it to be rather than what happened," Randolph said. "You couldn't pay the folks in Charleston to hold a Holocaust gala, could you? But you know, these are nothing but black people, so nobody pays them any attention."
When Southerners refer to states' rights, he said, "they are really talking about their idea of one right -- to buy and sell human beings."
Antley said that's not so.
"It has nothing to do with slavery as far as I'm concerned," he said. "What I'm doing is honoring the men from this state who stood up for their self-government and their rights under law -- the right to secede was understood."
Antley said, "Slavery is an abomination, but slavery is not just a Southern problem. It's an American problem. To lay the fault and the institution of slavery on the South is just ignorance of history."
Antley said about 500 people are expected to attend the ball, which begins with a 45-minute play and concludes with a dinner and dancing. S.C. Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, an ardent Civil War re-enactor, is among the actors in the play. The actual ordinance of secession document also will be on display.
Randolph said the state NAACP is consulting with its national office in Baltimore regarding the format of the protests, which also could extend to other 150th anniversary events. "There is not one event that's off the table," he said.
Asked whether there could be good Sesquicentennial events, Randolph said, "If there were a dialogue to sit down and discuss that event 150 years ago and how it still negatively impacts the lives of so many people in this state and around the country, that would be a good discussion, but not an event to sit down and tell lies about what happened and glamorize those people who thought America was so sorry and so bad that they wanted to blow it to hell. That's what they did -- that's what they attempted to do, and we want to make that honorable?"
Charleston is receiving increased national attention as the nation's plans for the Sesquicentennial move forward. This was where it began, with the state becoming the first to secede on Dec. 20, 1860, and firing the first shot on April 12, 1861.
Most of the Lowcountry's Sesquicentennial events have been announced with little controversy -- many involve lectures by respected historians and scholars.
In its vision statement for the observance, the National Park Service said it "will address the institution of slavery as the principal cause of the Civil War, as well as the transition from slavery to freedom -- after the war -- for the 4 million previously enslaved African Americans."
Michael Allen of the National Park Service said he is aware of plans for the Secession Ball but noted that most Sesquicentennial events have found common ground among those with differing viewpoints.
"Now some people might be upset with some pieces of the pie. I understand that," he said. "I think that's the growth of me, as a person of African decent, is to realize that people view this in different ways."
Allen said other Sesquicentennial commemorations being planned will mark events that have a strong black history component, such as Robert Smalls' theft of the Confederate ship Planter and the 54th Massachusetts' assault on Battery Wagener.
"At least what's being pulled together by various groups, be they black or white or whatever, will at least be more broad based and diverse than what was done in 1961," Allen said. "Hopefully, at the end of the day, all Carolinians can benefit from this four-year journey."
Tom O'Rourke, director of the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission, said Sesquicentennial organizers were fooling themselves if they thought the Confederate side of the story was going to be buried in the observances.
"I think there will be controversy, I think there will be hurt feelings, and I think that as this anniversary passes, we will question what else we could have done to tell the whole story," he said. "But I am OK with all of that. ... I think all discussion is progress."
Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/12/03/1847335/secession-ball-stirs-controversy.html#ixzz1737LSVRv
Yeah, you're right. Half the Indiana state legislature, all of them Republicans, plus the governor, plus every other statewide office, plus all 13 congressional seats from the state. Hardly anyone.
There were progressive republicans.
Gee, you think? Teddy Roosevelt, anyone?
The mainstay of the KKK was always as a terrorist wing of the democrat party and is well known for targeting and murdering republicans.
Only in its Reconstruction iteration. Later Klans had other agendas. The 1920s Midwestern Klan was more concerned with Catholics, Jews and immigrants.
Your post was speaking of German-American immigrants and a German movement from 1848. Your first post clearly spoke of the 48ers desire to defend ‘liberty’. That is hardly a desire to expand government. Your reference to Hitler is not backed up by anything except your own propaganda.
You should quit posting. You're embarrassing your brothers in The Coven.
BTW, does your mommy know that you're cutting school and spending all day posting on internet sites?
I didn’t say it was ‘hardly anyone’. I simply do not agree with the statement ‘many republicans’ being KKK. I do not see how your example shows it to be ‘many republicans either. The majority of KKK support was entirely democrats during all of its stages and their targets were republicans.
Did you make this insult up yourself. Pathetic.
TheBigIf, for your info - I would not qualify ( even if I wanted ) for Klan membership. I’m also about sick of talking about it. You see, my Wife is a good part Cherokee and that wouldn’t qualify for the Klan’s 1/16 rule. So in other words, they would consider my children not racially pure.
It's good that you learned your name pokie. Now heel you mutt!
Why are you defending yourself against something that you were never accused of? I am simply stating that the KKK was founded by the Confederate democrats and then taken up by them again later when they were known as the Progressive democrats.
BTW, who are you, punkrr? You’ve claimed to have been born and raised in at least two different Southern states and you once posted a picture of your ‘back yard’ which turned out to be a snagged photo from Google Images.
Say please.
Wikipea has an interesting map of US ancestries by county: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg. German ancestry predominates in the North, and "American" and black predominate in the South. I find that I've lived in two black counties, two Hispanic counties, three German counties, one English county, one Italian county, and two Irish counties.
Fine, if you’re that intent on holding to your simplistic version of history, in spite of evidence to the contrary, I’m not going to waste my time talking you out of it.
So if I don’t agree with you then it is a waste of time?
The fact still remains that the KKK was a terrorist wing of the democrat party and they targeted republicans.
As with any movement or human trait you will never have an absolute tie between just one group and another so of course there have been republicans that have been racist or have been members of the KKK. Just as today we have liberal republicans as well, the lines get blurred sometimes and that is even used as a stradegy of democrats.
But you haven’t, imo, given evidence to make the statement ‘there were many republicans in the KKK’ true. There were not ‘many republicans’ in the KKK and the fact is that republicans were targets of the KKK.
Interesting map. I grew up in a central Illinois town with a huge German-descended community who arrived in the 1840s when the area was being settled. Another large community was white southerners who came up during the Depression for industrial jobs in the area. The joke (which they tell) is that they were on their way to Chicago but their cars broke down. My family was Italians who came to work the coal mines in the 1910s and lived in company houses on the hill outside of town, next to the mines.
See what we put up with!
Lorens SC 2008, outside the Redneck shop.
Hey, I was just simply minding my own business and didn’t even know that the debate was still going on in this thread but then got pulled into it this morning. Then of course I saw your ridiculous ‘Coven’ remark again about those who support the United States and simply wanted to remind you again that it is your beloved Confederate democrats who formed a coven or klavern.
"I've always loved you."
Has nothing to do with the Civil War I. We are not discussing the Klan. The Klan is nothing but a bunch of racist fools, not worth discussing.
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