Blacks Join Confederate Group to Honor Heritage

Richmond Times-Dispatch ^ | Jul 13, 2002 | MARIA SANMINIATELLI

[Ligeia]

Court records, family documents and visits to museums yielded evidence of slaves, the ships that carried them and the tools that restrained them.

Now, Holland's genealogical quest has taken him to a place that many blacks consider just as offensive: the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

[Ligeia]

Is it only my perception, or is Dixie fighting back on many fronts.

[Ligeia]

Dixie ping!

[DeaconBenjamin]

unearthed a list of the plantation's slaves who had received Confederate pensions.

There's an untold story!

[shuckmaster]

Aw, Shucks!

[shuckmaster]

. "And the harassment is going to come from their side, not ours."

This guy is in for a surprise...

[Dante3]

Interesting.

[stainlessbanner]

Great post. Hooray for the Holland brothers!

[Bandolier]

Oh, my God, Blacks fighting for freedom from government tyranny!! What a concept. I guess they didn't like the system where northern industrialists became rich while southern blacks starved.

[nanny]

I am glad this is being discussed.

There is a difference, I will admit, but there were many 'unwilling' Americans serving in many of our wars. Do they not deserve the honors and pride?

[billbears]

Bump for the Holland brothers and welcome more ancestors of brave men who fought for the South and for freedom. The lie is slowly coming apart. Hopefully in our lifetimes the truth will come to light that the War of Southern Independence was a war against tyranny. Federalists v. Anti-Federalists

[TomServo]

Big damned Dixie bump Shuck! Thanks bud!!

[Twodees]

Gary W. Gallagher, who holds a chair in Civil War history at the University of Virginia............ Gallagher also dismissed the notion that some of those black men supported the Confederacy.

Well, Gary old boy. Let's just see how things go for you at another university. Nobody who despises the South the way you do should have to suffer being here.

[BnBlFlag]

Amen, brother!

[Non-Sequitur]

"The overwhelming majority of black Confederate soldiers - and you can put that in quotation marks - didn't want to be there but were made to be there," he said.

You can say the same for a large percentage of the white soldiers. About 30% of the confederate army was conscripted and a considerable percentage of the remainder had their enlistments involuntarily extended in 1862. I suppose that Mr. Gallagher think's that their ancestors shouldn't join either?

[catfish1957]

Great Article....

After having our southern heritage attacked by the SCLC and NAACP, it is refreshing to see some sense brought into this argument.

I hope to join SCV (5 ancestors served) after I retire

[Libertarian_4_eva]

How exactly can you serve with honor if you are a slave? I can understand free slaves at the time serving with honor but not slaves. They are little more then property with no choice in the matter. Its like thinking that a slave can have consent to her masters sexual desires. If you do not have freedom for yourself you cannot have consent.

[WKB]

PING

[catfish1957]

Your point is valid.

But now it is up to us to honor his contributions, and the other confederate veterans that served so valiantly. I know the cause of the civil war has been debated here ad nauseum, but it really boiled down to economics. I'd like to use the analogy of the U.S. today. What if an outside entity, dictated that we discotinued all of our industrial and technological sectors, and became a service only econony? It would collapse, unless we fought for it. Simply stated, it boiled down to survival.

BTW... of my five confederate ancestors, none owned slaves

[Twodees]

A slave could serve with honor simply by serving faithfully when others had faith in him. The concept isn't hard at all for me to understand. In my home town there is a monument to slaves of that era who proved to the cynical northerners that a slave isn't a savage and has a mind and a soul of his own. They proved this by disregarding the blandishments of those fanatics who urged slaves to rise up and kill their owners before and during the war and to band together with the "liberators" after the war and help them loot the conquered states.

I guess that someone who views the Confederate cause as evil would be unable to see how a man would have no claim to honor in following orders if his status was that of a slave. I see it differently. Being enslaved did not rob these men of their humanity nor of their value as human beings. Only the man himself can do that.

Look at it this way: when a slaveowner placed a rifle in the hands of a slave, knowing full well that the slave has been exposed to the propaganda that a war is being fought to free him, then that slaveowner is placing a lot of faith in the honor and humanity of the man he arms in that way. A betrayal of that faith would be unconscionable to an honorable man whether he's a slave or a free man.

The author chooses to say that the man was "forced to serve" instead of saying that he was "ordered to serve" or even "asked to serve". There'a a reason for that. The author has a very clear bias which is readily apparent. Do a search for what else she's written. That can give you an idea of whether or not she's a writer you could trust.