Posted on 02/10/2003 8:22:03 AM PST by H8DEMS
(CNSNews.com) - As part of Black History Month, the public library system in Norfolk, Va., is honoring African-Americans who fought and died on behalf of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Robert Harrison, director of the Horace Downing Branch library in Norfolk, said blacks are rarely portrayed as supporting the Confederacy because politically correct historians prefer to connect the South and the Confederate flag with the evils of slavery. But history tells another side of the story, he said.
Harrison said the Horace Downing Library will spend one day, Feb. 25, re-creating Civil War encampments and re-enacting the roles that blacks played on both sides of the battlefield. (On Feb. 13, the Barron F. Black Homework Center, part of the Norfolk Public Library system, will present a similar re-enactment.) The celebrations will include rifle and cannon salutes to black "fallen heroes."
"We're going to try to bring together a balanced view of what happened to the black soldier, North and South," said Harrison, a black man with Confederate ancestry who intends to wear his own Confederate uniform during the event.
Harrison said Confederate re-enactors will explore the various factors and conditions that motivated thousands of blacks, including freemen and slaves, many of whom fought alongside their masters to preserve the Southern way of life. He said the controversial Confederate battle flag will fly as part of the re-enactments.
"All historical flags, historically accurate to the individual units presented, will fly. More than likely, one or two versions of the national flags will fly as well," Harrison told CNSNews.com. "This is strictly an historical event and nothing political. We're not here to have a flag rally; we're here to have a history rally, if anything."
Harrison said the reenactments are intended to show people of all races that black history is not always what Americans have been taught to believe.
"Politically correct history has definitely found a stable footing in the way history is presented in this country," Harrison said. "Historical truth is in the eyes of the beholder, and there's always more to history than what we think we know."
For example, Harrison said he has discovered "tons of passages and memoirs" that document Southern blacks' loyalty to the Confederacy prior to and after its demise. Yet almost 138 years later, he said, it's becoming increasingly difficult to convince modern blacks that their ancestors fought to preserve the South of their own free will.
"Sometimes, people are so accustomed to having things one way, that no matter how much proof or documentation you're going to present to them, they will automatically dismiss it," Harrison said. "People have told me flat-out, 'I don't care what you have to say. I don't care if it's real or not. I believe what I believe and that's all I want to know.'"
Harrison said the stigma that attaches to the Confederate flag and issues of Southern heritage have prevented Americans, both black and white, from taking pride in their Confederate ancestry.
"It is a part of American history," Harrison said. "It's a proud history and I, myself, as well as a large host of people of all ethnicities and colors, such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other folks, speak about and praise this history every day of our lives."
Harrison said the local library system is not trying to influence patrons' views on the controversial nature of this subject. Instead, the library system will offer information, including the reenactment, that lets people draw their own conclusions.
"We're going to try to bring together a balanced view of what happened to the black soldier, North and South," Harrison said. "The information is more than there if people want to see it."
'Distorted view'
"It strikes me as an extremely false portrayal of history," said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "It aids and abets a completely distorted and really racist view of what occurred during the Civil War."
According to Potok, there were "extremely few" blacks that fought on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. He claimed only a "handful" of blacks served the South and were relegated to non-combat roles, such as cooking.
"I'm not saying there weren't a handful of blacks who willingly fought for the Confederacy," Potok said. "It is established fact - and not by me, but by real academics of the Civil War - that blacks who fought in the Civil War were almost entirely pressed into service in one way or the other."
Potok accused the "neo-Confederate movement" of promoting the "myth" that blacks willfully fought and died to preserve the Confederacy.
"The fact is that this is a myth that has been pushed very hard by groups like the League of the South and others concerned with kind of re-writing the history of the Civil War," Potok said. "Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to spotlight the many blacks who fled the South during the Civil War and fought with the Union."
Potok said the Norfolk Public Library system's decision to celebrate black Confederate history "shows an appalling lack of judgment on their part."
Taboo subject
"Re-enactments are very popular with the public," said Brag Bowling, Virginia commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "All we ask for is historical accuracy."
According to Bowling, more than 90,000 blacks served the Confederate army in "one form or another," including combat.
"Depending on its slant, of course, I've seen them say that these people were forced to work for the Confederacy," Bowling said. "If you take a look at a lot of the United Confederate Veterans reunion photos, there are just boatloads of black people in the pictures...they weren't forced to come to the reunion."
Bowling said the "most overlooked" group of people in America is blacks who fought for and supported Confederacy. However, he said many blacks with ties to the South are pressured into denying their Confederate roots by other blacks who are too ashamed to admit the reality.
"Within black communities," Bowling said, "the people who want to honor their ancestors are shrilly beaten down by the politically correct forces in the community."
Bowling blames the embarrassment faced by those Southern blacks on historians and text book authors for creating an abundance of "politically correct revisionist history."
"Nowadays, you're not allowed to talk about certain subjects, and this is one of them," Bowling said. "I think black people, especially, need to know the fact that there were lots of blacks that served in the Confederate service, and it might be some of their ancestors that they don't even know about."
It proves that a certain number of former slaves weren't afraid to fight the slavers.
Walt
Regiments? If you believe stand waite there must have been whole divisions, whole corps, maybe even whole armies. Before you know it he'll have us believe that Robert E. Lee was our first black general.
I wouldn't argue with that at all. I was simply referring to those cases in which slaves followed their masters into war. I never meant to imply that all slaves felt that way.
I wouldn't argue with that at all. I was simply referring to those cases in which slaves followed their masters into war. I never meant to imply that all slaves felt that way.
It's also anecdotal to note that President Lincoln said that without the help of the blacks, the war would be lost in three weeks.
Could the rebels make such a statement?
Walt
Yes, I am. There were Indians in the Union army as well. What's your point?
Regiments? If you believe stand waite there must have been whole divisions, whole corps, maybe even whole armies. Before you know it he'll have us believe that Robert E. Lee was our first black general.
That's where all this falls down. Where are these loyal blacks? Did they desert too, and melt away with the white soldiers? The numbers that Stand Watie favors, 90,000 or 135,000, or whatever the latest fad is, would be a significant percentage of total CSA soldiers. There's just no record of it.
No one has yet in this thread mentioned Dr. Steiner's account of the 3,000 blacks with Lee's army on its failed raid into Maryland in 1862. Maybe they are tired of me noting that Dr. Steiner also said the officers and men of the ANV were "dirty and repulsive."
In any case, it occured to me that Howell Cobb was on that expedition. He would have seen those blacks in arms, just as Dr. Steiner did. And yet he wrote on January 8, 1865:
"I think that the proposition is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to this your white soldiers are lost to you, and one reason why this proposition is received with favor by some portions of the army is because they hope that when the negro comes in they can retire. You cannot keep white and black troops together, and you cannot trust negroes alone. They won't make soldiers, as they are wanting in every qualification necessary to make one."
Guess he wasn't very impressed with what he saw in Maryland.
Walt
Kudos to them, I honor the Black Confederates that proudly served. I also purchased "Black Confederates", and have enjoyed it immensely.
Those blacks that voluntarily served the confederate army in supporting roles no doubt did it partly because they viewed the southern states as their states, too, and partly in the hope that their service would change attitudes towards them held by their southern neighbors. Boy were they ever wrong.
Au contraire! Many that served in the miltary - not just in supporting roles - but those that fought as well, took great pleasure in attending Confederate reunions, and were welcomed at every event.
Of the millions of blacks that were in the South during the war, I have yet to find an instance of where they rebelled and harmed their masters. With almost all the adult whites males off fighting, it's ludicrous to assume that all blacks were held there by women, children, or old men. And there are numerous accounts of blacks being capured by the yankees, and still refused to fight for them, or simply to be freed by pledging loyalty to the north.
Instead of denigrating their loyalty and service, I choose to commemorate it.
WP. Think about it. Would you become homicidally enraged if you found yourself on a battlefield and people were actually trying to kill you?
Sure, now. But 140 years ago that loyalty and service you spoke of was rewarded with Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.
Nonsense. If anything, the codes to which you refer were a by-product of reconstruction - forced upon the South by the yankees - which made it illegal for most whites to vote, and also led to the plundering of the Confederate states by yankees.
Be that as it may, it speaks volumes that the "underground railroad" ended in Canada - the Northern states certainly didn't want blacks there. The northern states had numerous Black laws of their own long before the war, and didn't want blacks in the western lands.
If the ensuing black codes were at fault, the puppet governments installed by yankee reconstructionists could have ended the black codes after the war - as the former confederates could not vote or hold office.
Where? Illinois and Oregon? Illinois didn't rescind their law until 1865 and Oregon just had a referendum vote on changing their constitution to rescind racist speech last year. Kind of puts an interesting light on any black people living in Oregon before last year, now doesn't it? Oh, I forgot the 14th Amendment destroyed the 10th. H#ll, why bother with state constitutions in the first place?!? They can be overridden at the whim of the Empire anyway, can't they? Tell Mr. Morris 'I hate the South' Dees to move his hate to Oregon to deal with that!!
LOL - It's just a labor conscription act. Beforehand, free blacks were immune from compulsory service of any kind, and slaves had to be hired out from their masters to do work for the military or government. This act is to make blacks susceptible to compulsory labor service, that's all. You're doing the same stupid thing wlat does, you're posting something and then trying to make people think it's something it's not. Why didn't you just post a pro-colonization speech of Lincoln's, that wouldn't have dealt with the topic either.
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