Charles Black Politics Blog: September 2017

(Baltimore, MD) Cites across the nation did not want a repeat of pro-confederate demonstrators clashing with protesters who saw the statues perpetuating the idea of southern sympathies, segregation and worst of all Nazi sympathizers. Baltimore became ground zero with Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh deciding to remove Confederate monuments overnight to avoid protesters.

The move was shrewd. It didn't quell the concerns which led to questions about what to do with the statue to Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney in Annapolis. I wrote on my Maryland State of Mind Blog about the Taney and Dred Scott families reconciling.) In a matter of days it was gone.

Across the country a number of Confederate statues were removed. Was this a matter about re-writing history; righting a wrong or correcting the official record? I an conflicted by the removals. Get past the Civil War rewrite and the southern sympathizers. A lot of racist used this as a way to legitimize their beliefs. I reject any comparison.

Did I miss something? The south lost the war and the Civil War ended slavery. No country honors the losers. There was a collective rewriting of the Civil War by 1910. Consumed by the idea "The South will Rise Again." Civil Rights incensed those who wanted to control the growing Black middle class. Veterans coming back from a pair of World Wars were not going to be regulated to second class citizenship.

But these statues were permanent markers. A signal of racial superiority that was legislated into law. Time has a weird way of equalizing the battlefield. Charlottesville and its imagery in August of 2017 turned the tide. Talk was already in the works to remove a statue of Supreme Court Chief Judge Roger Taney. Baltimore had a created commission to removed the statues. When it happen it started a "domino effect." I watched and listen and tried to compile how some saw the removal and perspective.