POLL: Most Black Americans Don’t Want Confederate Statues Removed

Daily Caller ^ | 8/18/17 | Amber Randall

[Impala64ssa]

Most black Americans do not think Confederate statues should be removed because they are offensive, a Marist poll released Thursday found. Forty-four percent of African Americans believe the Confederate statues should stay in place, while 11 percent said they’re unsure. The remaining 40 percent of African Americans polled said the statues should be removed. Those surveyed were asked whether statues “honoring leaders of the Confederacy” should “remain as a historical symbol” or “be removed because they are offensive to some people,” or whether the respondent is unsure. NPR and PBS News Hour conducted the Marist poll Monday and Tuesday, following a weekend of violent protests sparked by the subject in Charlottesville, Va. Latin Americans who participated overwhelmingly believe that Confederate monuments should stay in place — 65 percent said they should remain. Twenty-four percent said they should come down, while 11 percent said they weren’t sure.

White Americans also overwhelmingly supported keeping up Confederate monuments– 65 percent said they should stay, while 25 percent said they should be taken down. Eight percent said they weren’t sure if they should stay up or not. Most Republicans, Independents and those who identified as “soft” Democrats said the statues should stay. Fifty-seven percent of those identified as “strong” Democrats said the statues should be removed. Lawmakers and city officials are calling for the removal of Confederate statues, particularly in light of the Charlottesville riots, where white supremacists gathered in part to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Baltimore city workers removed four Confederate statues late Tuesday night. The Congressional Black Caucus has also proposed the removal of the statues from the U.S. Capitol Building. “We will never solve America’s race problem if we continue to honor traitors who fought against the United States in order to keep African Americans in chains. By the way, thank god, they lost,” CBC Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-Louisiana, said to ABC News in a Monday statement.

[Teacher317]

Notice that almost every statue being torn down is a statue of someone who was a Democrat? That every race-based law and movement in American history was promulgated by Democrats? Odd that this fact is not being broadcast.

[oldvirginian]

“...both having had Negro ancestors who fought for the Confederacy and were nnot servants of officers.”

When I lived in Richmond, VA one of my neighbors was very active in the SOC.
One of his responsibilities was approving new applicants.
Each applicant had to produce proof that they were descendants of soldiers who died of wounds or disease while serving or who had been captured and held as a POW until the war ended.

He once told me that he had been amazed by the number of negroes who fought for the South. Not cooks, servants or wagon drivers but negroes wearing Confederate uniforms fighting side by side with white southerners.

Soon after that they started a drive to identify such men and find their descendants and offer them membership.
They were successful in signing some as new members and the descendants of those old veterans were happy and proud to join.

[native texan]

Here is what the law says about monuments. But of course, who abides by the laws today:

Confederate soldiers, sailors, and Marines that fought in the Civil war were made U.S. Veterans by an act of Congress in in 1957, U.S. Public Law 85-425, Sec 410, Approved 23 May, 1958. This made all Confederate Army/ Navy/ Marine Veterans equal to U.S. Veterans. Additionally, under U.S. Public Law 810, Approved by the 17th Congress on 26 Feb 1929 the War Department was directed to erect headstones and recognize Confederate grave sites as U.S. War dead grave sites. Just for the record the last Confederate veteran died in 1958. When you remove a Confederate statue, monument or headstone, you are in fact, removing a statue, monument or head stone of a U.S. VETERAN.

18 U.S. Code § 1369 - Destruction of veterans’ memorials (a) Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (b), willfully injures or destroys, or attempts to injure or destroy, any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both. (b) A circumstance described in this subsection is that— (1) in committing the offense described in subsection (a), the defendant travels or causes another to travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or uses the mail or an instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce; or (2) the structure, plaque, statue, or other monument described in subsection (a) is located on property owned by, or under the jurisdiction of, the Federal Government.

[arthurus]

Many of them, maybe most, fought in the same units with the white soldiers. The Union army included Negroes in separate units.

[oldvirginian]

There was a story many years ago, in the Richmond paper I believe, about a slave that followed his owners son to war because the slave “couldn’t let him go into danger alone.”

The story goes that they fought together from First Manassas to Appomattox.
With the war over they returned home together.
When told that he was free and could leave whenever he wished he replied that he had never let the family down and they needed him more at that time than they had before.
He stayed on for the rest of his life.

When they were too old to work they would sit on the porch together and talk of things old men talk about.
When the white man whom he had followed to war died the former slave oversaw the digging of the grave, the filling of the grave and the setting of the headstone.

When the former slave died the family of his former owners insisted that he be buried in the family cemetery at the right side of his comrade and friend.

This account was verified by old family letters and diaries.

A story the MSM/BLM/antifa jackasses don’t want told.
It doesn’t fit the narrative.