Circling the Facts
The decision of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and his City Council to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee and rename Lee Circle is troubling on a number of levels. Erasing evidence of New Orleans’s Confederate sympathy in the Civil War is a betrayal of truth, tantamount to saying it never existed. That slavery is heinous and indefensible is irrefutable fact, but is removing proof of its presence a responsible way of addressing it? I certainly support relegating the rebel flag to museums, but this self-aggrandizing political bandwagon is as shameful as it is ill-conceived. The rewriting of history has proven to be dangerous and irresponsible time and again, especially when it sets precedents. Landrieu’s actions have already spawned criticism of the...
Read MoreSouthern Exposure
Last week’s turmoil over the Confederate flag triggered a firestorm of commentary, and while people are certainly entitled to their opinions, I was distressed by the amount of vitriol heaped on the South in general. As a native Southerner who grew up in the days of segregation, I’m all too aware of the region’s violent history, as I am aware of race riots, past and ongoing, in other parts of this country. I also know there’s more than enough guilt and blame to go around, and while it’s crucial to learn from the past, we should not be so consumed with evil deeds that we ignore the good ones. There were numerous white Southerners, myself included, who recognized the injustice of segregation and contributed to the civil rights movement. Yes, it’s time to relegate...
Read MoreThe Lovely Bones
Arguably the most famous and iconic plantation ruin in the South, twenty-three pillars are all that remain of Windsor, a home so grandiose in its heyday that Mississippi steamboat captains used it as a landmark. It’s haunting under any circumstances, more so when glimpsed through a dense morning fog, emerging as a series of vertical phantoms which slowly morph into great columns supporting only thin air. The evocative stone skeleton holds a preponderant sense of time lost and forgotten and, with minimal surrender, conjures images of what was. Indeed, no one knew what Windsor actually looked like until an accidental discovery late in the last century. Located below Port Gibson, Mississippi, Windsor was begun in 1859 and finished two years later. On a...
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