Confederate Monument Piece

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Context has been added to this monument to illustrate the following facts:

 

• General Robert E. Lee lead the army of the separatist states in a war to preserve the inhuman practice of enslaving African Americans for the profit of white landowners. The rope symbolizes the bondage and degradation suffered by the slaves.

 

• The shroud is a white Confederate flag. White flags are a battlefield signal of surrender and as the Confederate Army’s General-in-Chief, Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War. Once the country was reunited under a single flag, the Confederate flag became irrelevant except as a symbol of resistance or intimidation.

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• It has been said that history is written by the victors. Official accounts of events are compiled by the authority in power and taught in schools, but history can be viewed through many lenses. If there is one pervasive history associated with Confederate monuments it’s a history of racism, since most were erected as acts of defiance during times of racial unrest or when major civil rights legislation was enacted. The following graph was compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center.