C HR ISTOPHER H E ATHCOTE Gone with the Wind? America’s Struggle with Confederate Statues T hey swung into hushed action in early morning a few months ago, just before 1.30 a.m. on Monday, April 24. A large contingent of New Orleans police barricaded of Iberville Street and Canal Place, temporary lighting was set up, and police snipers were stationed on a parking garage and other buildings with a clear view overlooking the Battle of Liberty Place monument. hen trucks and equipment from the demolition company arrived. On each vehicle the irm’s name and logo were concealed by masking tape and cardboard, while workers had been issued with bulletproof vests, yellow helmets and bandanas which they tied across their faces to prevent identiication. A cherry-picker was carefully moved into place, with a tarpaulin positioned to obstruct view of the work, then, at about 3.00 a.m. a couple of workmen, armed with grinders, started removing the top section of the obelisk. Once that irst section had been levered away and dropped on a latbed truck, at 3.15 a.m., the New Orleans mayor’s oice issued a press statement formally announcing that the Battle of Liberty Place monument was being removed, and that another three divisive public statues—of Confederate President Jeferson Davis, of General Robert E. Lee, and of General P.G.T. Beauregard—would likewise be going in weeks to come. he statement explained that private funding from unnamed sources was paying for the work, and that “details about future statue removals will not be provided to the public” for safety reasons. he city mayor, Mitch Landrieu, emphasised that the removal “sends a clear and unequivocal message” about New Orleans’s focus on celebrating “our diversity, inclusion and tolerance”. He went on: Relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. his is not about politics, blame or retaliation. his is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once. his is about showing the 66 whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile— and most importantly—choose a better future. he Jeferson Davis statue was whisked away on May 11, followed six days later by the equestrian statue of General Beauregard. he Robert E. Lee memorial looked like a tougher proposition. Modelled on Nelson’s Column in London, the general’s statue surveyed New Orleans from atop a sixty-foot column rising from a twelve-foot earth mound in a traic island. he media conidently predicted a delay before complex work could occur. But only two days later the city council and police moved in a lightning operation, with a crane swinging the bronze igure free of its column on May 19. I t can be baling for Australians to fathom present eforts in America seemingly to purge certain cities and towns of Civil War-related memorials. Why are statues being removed? Is art being censored? Are unpalatable aspects of history now to be erased? Various academics and artists here worry the trend resembles political correctness taken to extremes. Matters are not clariied by a sensationalist media which has reported contentious removals without explaining the deeper history of these memorials; because most have been the symbolic focus of bitter troubles festering in their communities for generations. Take the Battle of Liberty Place monument in New Orleans. his commemorated an attempted armed coup in 1874 by a renegade group, the Democratic White League, which was seething at the result of Louisiana’s post-Civil War elections. Comprising former Confederate soldiers, the League deemed the elections invalid because blacks had been allowed to vote and stand as candidates. So on September 19, 1874, the 5000-strong League rode en masse into New Orleans intending to unseat the state governor, William Kellogg, and his black lieutenant-governor, Caesar Antoine, Quadrant December 2017 Gone with the Wind? both Republicans. In a pitched ire-ight on Canal remove the 1932 inscription which claimed “white Place, the League easily defeated the outnumbered supremacy”. city police and state militia, who sustained over he monument was placed in storage during 100 casualties. he League then occupied the state major roadworks in 1989. Pulling behind another house, armoury and several nearby buildings, intent black mayor, Sidney Barthelemy, the city counon taking control of the state and installing a white cil now agreed the obelisk violated a nuisance Democrat leadership. But after three days they led ordinance. A community debate followed during the city when news broke that a sizable force of fed- which it looked as if the monument would not be eral troops was on its way. re-installed. However, the forces of reaction prehe monument, an obelisk which commemorates vailed, and the obelisk went up again, this time in a the League’s action, was erected near the centre of less prominent site some distance away of Iberville town on Canal Street in 1891. Far from their vio- Street between a garage and a lood wall. Part of lently trying to overthrow democracy, the memorial the original inscription was also obliterated, and the claimed the renegades had been defending “liberty” sober message added: “A conlict of the past that and their cowardly attack on police was a “battle”. should teach us lessons for the future.” It was installed by the Democrat mayor, Joseph Nevertheless, the monument continued to draw Shakspeare, and his all-white city council. In 1932 political turmoil. It was still a magnet for vandalunder another Democrat mayor, homas Walmsley, ism and continual anti-racist graiti. And white further triumphal inscriptions were supremacists—who declared it a added to the monument claiming symbol of “white pride”—again the bloody uprising had airmed tried to use it for rallies. hen, in emorials are “white supremacy” by seeking to early 2012, graiti protesting against established as enduring the restrict Louisiana elections to white shootings of blacks by police proclamations of voters and candidates. was daubed on the obelisk, as well he irst attempt to get rid of as on prominent statues of Jeferson cherished values. the incendiary monument occurred Davis and General Beauregard elseafter it was dismantled and tempo- Communities can have where in New Orleans. he graiti rarily removed due to roadworks in a deep attachment to was cleaned of several times, but 1965. Opposition to its return was returning. them which should keptInvoking strong. Besides members of the the nuisance ordiblack community, those of Italian not be dismissed as nance in mid-2015, the present descent had always loathed the rac- mere sentiment. Moral mayor, Mitch Landrieu, announced ist ediice (members of the White he would remove the troublesome League led a mob that lynched beliefs will be at stake. memorial, along with statues of nine Italians in 1891). In a climate Lee, Davis and Beauregard. his of Civil Rights it had also become prompted assorted law-makers in an embarrassment to Democrats by gesturing to an the state capital, Baton Rouge, to try legislative era when their party had very diferent values. But, means to block the city, culminating in the matlouting community objections, the New Orleans ter going before a three-judge panel at the 5th city council re-erected it in 1970. Circuit of the US Court of Appeals earlier this year. he obelisk then became a lashpoint for politi- Along with bills iled during the 2017 state sescal unrest. It was regularly vandalised. Civil Rights sion to halt any removal, the Lieutenant-Governor, protests were periodically held by it, while the Ku Billy Nungesser, even asked the White House to Klux Klan and similar extremists used it as a rally- intervene. In this he seemingly went against the ing point. So a plaque, distancing the city council Governor, John Bel Edwards, who told the Timesfrom the racism of the past, was set before the mon- Picayune that any decision on its monuments rested ument’s base in 1974. Two years later the National with New Orleans, and no one else. Association for the Advancement of Colored People It wasn’t a clean contest, for opposition to the petitioned for the monument’s removal. he city memorials’ removal turned positively venomous. council didn’t shift ground. Death threats were made against contractors who Change looked likely when, more than a cen- put in bids. huggery and arson occurred. Few were tury after the Civil War, New Orleans elected its surprised when the irm initially awarded the job irst black mayor, Ernest “Dutch” Morial. He tried pulled out in 2016: the owner’s $200,000 car had to remove the Battle of Liberty Place monument been set on ire and destroyed. in 1981. But he was blocked by the city council. In After years of delay, the Battle of Liberty Place the ensuing public uproar, the council agreed to monument was inally removed last April. M Quadrant December 2017 67 Gone with the Wind? P ublic war memorials are community symbols. hey always have been. Whether we are speaking of bronze plaques, statues of uniformed soldiers, parklands bearing names of battleields or generals, even—in the case of rural Australia—special rows of trees lanking a main street, memorials are established as enduring proclamations of cherished values. his is why with the passage of time some will take on religious-like associations, as the historian Ken Inglis explored in Sacred Places, his thoughtful 1998 book on Australia’s outdoor war memorials. Communities can have a deep attachment to them which should not be dismissed as mere sentiment. Moral beliefs will be at stake. We saw a display of this a decade back when bureaucrats tried to meddle with a country memorial in Victoria for triling reasons. he authority responsible for highways announced it would remove several dozen elms in the famed Avenue of Honour at Bacchus Marsh. A traic interchange for the bypass circling the town was being modiied. So the trees, each planted in memory of a local volunteer who had died in the Great War, and each with its individual plaque, were for the chop. he media erupted, the RSL went berserk, tearful children held signs at Anzac Day ceremonies. he road planners were inlexible, and the rumpus got worse, culminating in parliamentary backbiting. he trees got a reprieve. Not all memorials escape oicial meddlers, as occurred in Melbourne in the mid-1990s. After the Great War, the trustees of that grand old Swanston Street building which housed the State Library, History and Science Museums, and National Gallery of Victoria installed on the forecourt two life-size bronze statues standing watch. Many Melburnians will recall them. To the left was Wipers, a vigilant soldier from the trenches standing guard; to the right was he Driver, a navy sailor alert as he steered a ship’s wheel. hey were sculpted by the distinguished artist Charles Jagger, who had himself served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. hese paired statues were positioned as symbolic protectors of the library, museums and gallery—that is, of civilisation. he forecourt paths were set so visitors had to pass one or other of these vigilant igures. Jagger designed major war memorials in Britain, and Melbourne was fortunate to get the ensemble. Its whole point was to convey that those who served in the AIF had defended civilisation. It was an internationally signiicant artistic tableau. However, this carefully arranged and deeply symbolic memorial was discarded two decades ago when the building underwent refurbishment. he government had ambitions for the state library, 68 including a busy café out front. his central city war memorial was in the way, indeed the government declared it badly located. So the statues were carted to distant parkland, then foolishly placed back-to-back like giant bookends. here they now stand under a poplar tree, demoted to a decorative feature, no longer guarding anything. T he differences between Australia’s military monuments and American Civil War memorials are not limited to subject matter. Our monuments point to conlicts in which this nation was largely united against other countries. However, Civil War memorials recall events within a nation divided against itself: neighbour could ight neighbour, entire families sometimes split. Australian monuments mostly gesture to political and social realities that have been historically laid to rest; it’s a long time since Prussia was regarded as a military aggressor and threat to world peace. In contrast, Civil War monuments involve racial tensions that still play an active role in American society. his is why the writer Robert Lowell struck such a chord in 1960 when he recited at a Boston arts festival his newly composed poem “For the Union Dead”. Its subject was a relief sculpture on Boston Common which is dedicated to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. his memorial depicts the soldiers departing Boston to ight the confederacy. Beginning with the Latin inscription, “they gave everything to serve the Republic”, Lowell’s poem on this statue was a moving relection on how—as southern segregation ruptured the nation—a vulgar materialism had replaced New England’s former virtuous ideals. Fixated with property development, cars, television, and above all money, modern Boston is portrayed as being shamed by these neglected Yankee memorials: On a thousand small town New England greens, the old white churches hold their air of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed lags quilt the graveyards ... Of course, cities and towns will be motivated to erect monuments for a variety of reasons. Most Australian war memorials appeared within a few years of hostilities ending, and often constituted a formal act of mourning. hey laid the conlict to rest, with the larger ediices and buildings being oicial shrines. But in America most Civil War memorials went up decades after the last bugles sounded, being erected over the period 1895 to 1929 Quadrant December 2017 Gone with the Wind? after Southern state economies had recovered. And was hoped the removal of General Lee’s prominent if some were earnest expressions of mourning, cer- statue would arrest a cycle of agitation and unrest. tain Confederate monuments did aim to stir bit- An attention-catching rally by the group Unite the terness in their communities, nurturing resentment Right was to occur, although the city was counting against the victors. Conlict had not been resolved. on it being a inal big protest. he Battle of Liberty Place monument is a irm Friday night’s preliminary demonstration was example of this. It was erected twenty years after an unsettling act of theatre recalling the terror of war’s end as a provocation. he mayor and city Jim Crow. Bearing laming torches, an advance council were taunting local Republicans and those party from Unite the Right processed through the who supported black rights. hese taunts escalated dark onto the campus of the University of Virginia. in 1932 with the new inscription added to the memo- hey wanted to gather beneath a famed statue of rial. he Confederacy may have lost the Civil War, homas Jeferson, author of the Declaration of but those who ran New Orleans signalled their bel- Independence. he preamble of that signal doculigerent adherence to Jim Crow values. No wonder ment might state “all men are created equal”, yet this obelisk has long headed a list the white supremacists were intent of Southern memorials that human on claiming Jeferson as their own. rights activists wanted removed. They were met by students and uscle-lexing he Battle of Liberty Place monufaculty members who had formed Unite the Right ment was designed to cause trouble, a silent human barrier around the which it manifestly has succeeded supporters arrived bronze eigy. here was jostling in doing. attempted intimidation. But from distant parts and here is also an emerging patthe Sage of Monticello was not in tandem with the going to be given up. tern in America for staid memorials—usually statues of civic leaders It was a diferent story the next customary throng or famed generals—to be used by morning. Numbers had swelled of social-justice Southern recusants to stir trouble. as more muscle-lexing Unite the Eleanor Harvey of the Smithsonian warriors, libertarians Right supporters arrived from Art Museum has identiied a wordistant parts in tandem with the and professional rying trend where far-Right opporcustomary throng of social-justice radicals who always warriors, libertarians and profestunists select a plain yet prominent public sculpture then talk it up as stage an indignant sional radicals who always stage expressing toxic sentiments. his an indignant counter-protest. A counter-protest. happened to the statue of Robert ine summer’s day was forecast. As E. Lee at Charlottesville, Virginia. the demonstration over the statue’s “If white nationalists and neoplanned removal warmed up, a Nazis are now claiming this as part of their herit- cordon of police in riot gear took position at the age,” she warned, “they have essentially co-opted monument to ensure it wasn’t damaged before the those images and those statues beyond any capac- Charlottesville city council could throw it away. ity to neutralize them again.” Dr Harvey herself By late on Saturday afternoon the contested has a personal stake in preventing sculptures being statue of General Robert E. Lee upon his horse, twisted into modern symbols of hate: Traveler, was intact. However, while police were shielding the sculpture, fourteen people on both I’m from Virginia—everyone in my family sides had been seriously injured in street ights, background fought on the side of the and another nineteen people were injured and one Confederacy. I take from my family history the young woman killed when a youth from Unite the obligation to think about what my beliefs are, Right deliberately ran his car into a throng of counwhat country I want to live in. hat certainly ter-protesters. Caught on ilm by a television news doesn’t mean I disavow my ancestors, but I feel crew, this wicked act prompted an outpouring of no obligation to justify what they did. public concern across the republic, with a host of city councils promptly moving against Confederate Events at Charlottesville over Friday, August memorials. 11, and Saturday, August 12, 2017, have forced the In Maryland that Monday, the Baltimore city issue across the entire nation. Earlier in the year council voted unanimously to remove four monuthe city council had resolved to change the name ments during the week. Change had begun. he next of Stonewall Jackson Park to Justice Park and day, Tuesday, the marker plaque for the Stonewall Robert E. Lee Park to Emancipation Park, and it Jackson Memorial Highway was oicially removed M Quadrant December 2017 69 Gone with the Wind? at St Petersburg, Florida; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, renamed its Confederate Memorial Hall as plain “Memorial Hall”; while in Los Angeles a memorial was also removed for the soldiers and sailors buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery—this was due to an eruption of hostile complaints over the bronze plaque which, beneath a small relief lag, bore the prayer, “In memory of the soldiers of the Confederate States Army who have died or may die on the Paciic Coast. Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget—lest we forget.” hat evening in Durham, North Carolina, eight people took it upon themselves to push over and vandalise the Confederate Soldiers Monument outside the Old County Courthouse. hey were arrested and charged, although the memorial isn’t to be reinstated. hings got busier on Wednesday. In Illinois, a prominent Chicago religious leader, James Dukes, angrily demanded the city rename its parks dedicated to presidents George Washington and Andrew Jackson, as well as removing a military statue of Washington. Both presidents had owned slaves: “I think we should be able to identify and decide who we declare heroes in our communities,” Pastor Dukes told CBS television. “In an AfricanAmerican community it’s a slap in the face and it’s a disgrace for them to honour someone who was a slave owner.” He suggested one park be renamed in honour of Michael Jackson. Across in Brooklyn, New York, the Episcopalian Church likewise symbolically cast a stone by taking the plaque from a tree planted by Robert E. Lee during the 1840s. Forgiveness was getting to be in short supply. he day continued with the San Diego city council in California removing the marker plaque from the Jeferson Davis Highway; while in Franklin, Ohio, council workers dealt with the city’s Confederate Memorial during the night. hat same Wednesday night saw the four monuments in Baltimore carted of; they comprised a sculptural tableau of Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, as well as the Confederate Women’s Monument, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and a statue of the Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney (who once wrote the majority opinion in a case ruling that black people had no claim to citizenship). Thursday’s city council meeting in Helena, Montana, agreed to remove their Confederate Memorial Fountain. It was pulled out the next day. hursday also witnessed the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, order the removal from the town’s historic cemetery of signs indicating a section where over 100 Confederate soldiers are buried, all prisoners of war who died at nearby Camp Randall. he 70 plaque giving their names is also going. Likewise a Confederate plaque came out at the liberal arts college, Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine; while another casting of the Justice Taney statue, this one before the Maryland State House at Annapolis, went that day, too. he Kansas City council in Missouri also agreed to pull out the United Daughters of the Confederacy Monument on Ward Parkway the next week; and in Lexington, Kentucky, the mayor Jim Gray pushed through council a motion to remove two Confederate statues at the courthouse: “Mayors are on the razor’s edge,” he told CBS news. “When you see the violence that we saw in Charlottesville, then you know that we must act.” hese escalating actions, and calls for removals of some presidential monuments, prompted a cautious tweet by President Trump’s oice on hursday: Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson—who’s next, Washington, Jeferson? So foolish! Nevertheless, the removals went on. Friday saw a state historical marker taken away from outside the home where General Roswell Ripley was born in Worthington, Ohio. And the University of Texas decided to have statues of Generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Johnson, plus the Confederate postmaster John Reagan, removed from its Austin campus irst thing the next week. hey would be soon followed by a Confederate statue of the veteran George M. Jones at another liberal arts college, Randolph College, in Lynchburg, Virginia; as well as a portrait of Robert E. Lee prominently displayed in administration at the University of Georgia. Saturday’s activities at Duke University in North Carolina included another statue removal of Robert E. Lee, this one ejected from the chapel. he following week saw escalating monument removals at a host of towns and universities dotted across the nation. O utsiders looking on from Australia may wonder precisely what gives ofence with some memorials. his is most pronounced with statues. How can a blunt eigy posed at attention on a standard stone plinth cause immense distress? Many statues of Confederate soldiers were mass produced. Besides, if there was one manufacturer in Kentucky, often townships below the MasonDixon Line would purchase monuments through catalogues from workshops in the industrial North. Quadrant December 2017 Gone with the Wind? hese uniformed igures are almost identical to he superior tone here, and its mocking inlecUnion soldier memorials found across small towns tions, are typical mannerisms of someone bluing up north—according to the Smithsonian Museum, about visual art. You hear it afected by smart peomanufacturers merely changed the insignia on belt ple who talk loudly in museums. Nothing penetratbuckles to match Union or Confederate clients. ing or showing artistic proiciency is said. Commissioned artistic monuments tend to Besides making a hash of Shrady’s name, have originated in Northern studios. he divisive Livingstone portrays his diligent study of animals as equestrian statue in Charlottesville was produced an amusing hobby. But life drawing, which is what by Henry Shrady, a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee he was doing, is the cornerstone of studio teaching. whose father had been a ield surgeon in the Union It’s inseparable from skill. Professional artists never army. he Lee sculpture was the inal work of this cease drawing, and never cease observing. respected artist who is renowned for massive pubLivingstone’s piece came illustrated with a closelic statues, including New York’s George Washington up photograph of the statue’s face. his had been at Valley Forge (1906), Detroit’s taken using a camera with telephoto General Alpheus Williams (1921), lens, and therefore showed a level of and—an astonishing achievedetail not visible to spectators here is an aspect high ment—the extensive multi-igure standing below the work. So the of fanaticism to Ulysses S. Grant Memorial (1922) writer’s dismissive comments about in Washington DC. Shrady died the sculptural modelling and inish what is taking before the Robert E. Lee comare deeply misleading. Any work of place. Social-justice art scrutinised using a telescope is mission could be cast in bronze so inishing was handled by Leo warriors shout down bound to look coarse. hat is what Lentelli, a proicient sculptor and does. Try it yourself and bully those who magniication respected studio teacher from the sometime. object or question, Art Students League, in those days A cohesive variation on Shrady’s the best art school in New York. ine military sculptures of Generals angrily calling them When people begin quarrelling Washington and Williams, the neo-Nazis. It’s a Charlottesville late piece cerover statues, sooner or later sometainly does not appear “cobbled one wants to ind artistic faults. brave individual together”. But Livingstone had an he current afairs journal the New who speaks out. agenda in panning the sculpture. Republic did just that a few hours Having asked if removing such after President Trump’s tweet. statues “will sap America’s public Taking the Oval Oice to task over the phrase “our beautiful statues and monuments”, spaces of their beauty”, she seized upon the White the culture staf writer Josephine Livingstone got House tweet as proof of presidential bad taste. stuck into the Charlottesville sculpture. She bun- “Dictators of many stripes have loved kitsch, from gled the artist’s name, calling him “Shady” instead Kim Jong-Il to Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein to Turkmenbashi,” Livingstone continued, using of Shrady: Donald Trump’s tweet on statue removals to claim he statue is the work of Henry Shady (1871– he “has an idea of beauty that is closer to Stalin’s 1922), who died before he could quite inish than to the New York Times”. it of. he last bit was done by Leo Lentelli his is far from those knowledgeable, engaging (1879–1961), an Italian immigrant. Shady himself discussions of art and culture for which the New learned sculpture by copying his own pets, Republic was once respected. As for its brief remarks along with animals in the zoo. He was quite on the statue’s inishing sculptor, “an Italian immigood at doing horses, having dissected a few of grant” and “not even American”, besides the latter them … he horse, Traveler, is certainly rather being untrue—Leo Lentelli took US citizenship— better formed than Lee himself. he whole these sentiments seem worthy of the Italiansculpture is bronze, and thus nicely encased in lynching Democratic White League. a greenish patina that really classes the thing merican history is to be sanitised of the up. But look at Lee’s face. It looks made of unpalatable bits. Besides wanting monuments plasticine. He seems to be all eyebrow and no pulled out, social justice warriors in some cities are skin. his is not a beautiful piece of public art. demanding name changes to parklands, streets, It is the cobbled-together work of two diferent highways, hospitals, schools, libraries, sports craftsmen—one on the brink of death and the ields, universities, research institutes, public and other not even American—and it is ugly. T A Quadrant December 2017 71 Gone with the Wind? campus buildings. Civil War historians say this has been surreptitiously taking place for a dozen years. Some have anecdotes of neighbourhoods inding memorials disappearing overnight, or street names abruptly changed, without proper public consultation beforehand. he extreme aspects involve cemeteries, towns stripping them of signs and markers indicating where soldiers are buried. Councils may even withdraw permission for small annual remembrance services held in cemeteries for the Confederate dead. Families may not publicly pray for their forebears. he broader issue has now come into the open partly because cities and larger towns are taking action against prominent ediices, partly because it couldn’t be hidden forever and everyday citizens are troubled. Anything which bears the name of an individual associated with the Confederacy, or who owned slaves, is fair game for condemnation, fury, protest, then erasure. It is as if the past is being airbrushed out, like those doctored Soviet photographs with gaps among the sepia igures where once posed men and women later condemned by the Communist Party. here is an aspect of fanaticism to what is taking place. Social-justice warriors shout down and bully those who object or question, angrily calling them neo-Nazis. It’s a brave individual who speaks out. Anything that may sound like disagreement is risky in an atmosphere of extreme political correctness. People are frightened to talk openly. Which is why, short of chiselling the relief igures of Georgia’s Stone Mountain, or renaming military bases such as Forts Benning, Bragg and Hood, the social-justice warriors appear to be getting what they demand. T he big question posed by all this is for what purpose memorials are removed? What do activists think they will achieve by erasing history? his was raised by Richard Marksbury, the former Dean of Tulane University, and a voice of considered moderation throughout the protracted New Orleans fracas. In an interview with the New York Times on May 12, as monuments were being removed, he identiied hostility to Confederate memorials as a misplaced means of venting anger over pressing issues: It’s part of the social-economic problems we have in America and in our cities, whether it’s high unemployment among young people, and a lot of crime, and school systems that are broken. hese are mostly young people, and this gives them some opportunity to protest [about] some aspect of the government. Deep down, I don’t think it has anything to do with the monuments because when these monuments 72 are down, they’re going to migrate to another thing. he monuments are just symbolic … It’s a sad situation. his issue has brought more racial tension than anything I’ve seen or witnessed in the 44 years I’ve lived here, and I think most adults, black or white, living here would say the same thing ... If anybody thinks it’s going to end when these monuments are down, they’re kidding themselves. his appears conirmed by the escalating “Black Lives Matter” campaign over police shootings. Graitists have targeted Civil War monuments for their slogans, indeed many activists claim AfricanAmerican deaths are linked with the memorials’ existence at a deep psychological level within society. But removing monuments won’t alter police behaviour. Another theme strongly evident in August’s media reports of monument removals—besides an instant public outpouring against Unite the Right—is how those on the Left openly feel that in removing memorials they are striking a wounding blow against the Trump administration. Eigies of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are being used as whipping boys for the President. On a conciliatory note, the Baltimore council is looking at reaching some form of balance over the four major memorials it has removed from city streets. Announcing its decision, the mayor, Catherine Pugh, said on Baltimore television the sculptures were neither going to be destroyed nor ditched in permanent storage: some would eventually be “rehomed in Maryland’s Confederate cemeteries”. In this vein, Richard Marksbury insists that cities need to rethink their monuments and help to set people thinking on the lessons of history. He heads a New Orleans volunteer group, “Monumental Task Committee”, which has lobbied to keep city monuments while making changes in presentation. hey have pressed for a constructive approach, putting up explanatory signs at monuments to supply information on their historical and political context. he committee also wants memorials of forgotten heroes and events added around the city to balance the historical and racial view. “I’m a cultural anthropologist,” Marksbury explained to the New York Times: I was in the Peace Corps, I did my research overseas, and I helped two diferent peoples try to record and save their cultural heritage—so my whole life has been dedicated to trying to preserve cultural heritage, which means I don’t believe in tearing down anything. Quadrant December 2017 Gone with the Wind? A curious feature of the broader debate is how memorials in the city it wants removed or renamed monuments to the Army of the Union, and to besides the four that went last April and May. One Abraham Lincoln, have escaped criticism. he vic- can see the point of taking away a piece like the tors were fond of slipping African-Americans into Battle of Liberty Place monument. It was intended their war memorials; but there was a tacit racism as a permanent racial provocation, and protesters in those times, even among those opposed to slav- had legitimate grievances. ery. So it was accepted convention to place these But why many other memorials? On its website dark igures in subordinate positions, often setting Take ’em Down NOLA declares that all forms of them visually on a level beneath white politicians public memorial to those connected with slavery or soldiers. “psychologically terrorise us”. So it wants retitled In instances like Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s several hospitals and schools that are named after ine relief on Boston Common, positions do seem their founders. he same goes for universities and to have matched reality. Colonel Robert Gould creative arts schools named for philanthropists who Shaw, the white officer commanding the 54th funded their establishment. Going down their list, Massachusetts Regiment, did ride a horse at the the group also wants to eject the statue of Jeanparade and thereby sat above the black troops as Baptiste le Bienville, the irst territorial governor, they marched. Still, the sculptor signiied a difer- who was appointed to the then French colony of ence of human type by having the winged goddess New Orleans, because he allowed slavery to exist. Victory ly above Shaw, holding a For the same reason the name is to laurel crown over his head. come of Claiborne Avenue, which he racial outlook of the period he victors were fond honours the irst elected governor, is particularly evident in depictions Claiborne. of slipping African- William of Abraham Lincoln accompanied A wide net is cast. Buildings by slaves. Emancipated igures had Americans into their named for Judah Touro, who set to be kneeling in fawning gratiand ran an early hospital, are war memorials; but up tude to their liberator. Instructions disputed because slave owners there was a tacit to this efect were given to artists grumbled he charged too much when commissioned to portray the racism in those times, for their slaves’ medical treatment; deceased President, as the historian and Touro’s father had been a even among those Kirk Savage revealed in his 1998 slave trader. hen there is the park book Standing Soldiers, Kneeling opposed to slavery. named for Benjamin Palmer, minSlaves: Race, War and Monument in ister of the city’s First Presbyterian Nineteenth Century America. It’s a Church. It should be censured puzzling state of afairs when cloyingly racial works because he supported the Confederacy. Take ’em of art stand in public today unscrutinised, unques- Down NOLA even wants the city’s First World tioned, unmeddled with, because they are dedicated War memorial removed, because it “segregates” the to the Union cause. names of soldiers who died into white and black A lack of agitation over such memorials sug- lists. Why not use common sense and simply adjust gests the social-justice warriors are responding on a it to show one integrated list? knee-jerk supericial level, and have no awareness of Much “historical” information circulated by Take content and political meaning. Not only that, they ’em Down NOLA visibly resembles Chinese whisevidently haven’t even read the standard works on pers, half-truths and slanted disinformation. Civic Civil War monuments. identities honoured with street and building names Instead of paying attention to what sculptures are called “brutal” and “cruel” with little explanaand monuments convey, activists ix on which peo- tion. If I am unfamiliar with most historical igures ple are honoured with public remembrance. If New cited, I do know something of Charles de Gaulle, Orleans is anything to go by, social justice warriors who has a New Orleans street named for him. pass historical judgment solely on racial matters, Take ’em Down NOLA wants this street renamed ignoring all other positive contributions individuals because, it claims, the former French President was made to their communities. Civic leaders, states- the “oppressor of Africans—Algerian Revolution men and other historic nation-builders are to be and other states in North, West & Central Africa struck from public memory if they were connected & Indochina (Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia)” (sic). with the Confederacy or slavery. Actually, after de Gaulle assumed leadership he New Orleans lobby group “Take ’em Down of France in 1958, he developed a process of selfNOLA”, which has been co-ordinating agitation determination for all colonies. Algeria, which was against Confederate monuments, lists another 128 administratively part of France, was a major focus. T Quadrant December 2017 73 Gone with the Wind? De Gaulle inherited the war from his predecessor, and he was expected to reimpose order in a worsening mess. He soon realised it was untenable, so, scaling down military action, he opened secret negotiations with the nationalists. He then held referendums (giving the vote to Arabs, including Arab women) which enabled Algeria to achieve representative government, then be given full independence. his is not the behaviour of an oppressor—which was conirmed by the right-wing extremists of the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète. Feeling France had been betrayed, they embarked on a terrorist campaign of shootings and bombings in metropolitan France and Algeria (on a single night in January 1962, Paris was rocked by eighteen explosions), culminating in attempted assassinations of the president. As for Indo-China, France had withdrawn from the region three years before de Gaulle came to oice; besides, the peoples of Indochina are Asian, not African as Take ’em Down NOLA seems to think. Richard Marksbury had a legitimate point when he told news media that all sides seriously need to study American history. Certain grievances about Confederate memorials are legitimate. Others are steeped in a shocking level of ignorance. And that’s the problem evident even at this distance. Far from being guided by Lincoln’s better angels in human nature, the recent behaviour of some self-appointed moral sentinels appears more inclined to attentionseeking, stirring trouble, unsettling communities, causing division, feigning distress, staging shouting matches, and not caring an iota for historical truth. Dr Christopher Heathcote lives in Melbourne. His forebears were committed abolitionists. One American relative, Caleb Heathcote, is among the earliest individuals recorded as aiding and harbouring escaped slaves. A footnoted version of this article appears at Quadrant Online. Kissing Grandma Slowly, the sea, of black suits and mourning dresses, parted, allowing the small boy through, the prone woman there on view, a daughter holding his hand; his mother. He kneels down, on carpeted stair, staring at old ingers, rosary. he abyss of coin falls away, the child staggering down dark vertigo, clinging to the larger hand. It’s alright, honey, say ’bye to Nana—his mother’s voice, thin, choked, in her sufering, the elder woman, once large, now compressed into a blackboxed rectangle of Lily, the impossibly large breasts, gone girlish, pressed and lattened, this cold relic, not quite her. What is missing? Her laughter, as she leads small me downstairs, to basement kitchen, fragrant with frying perch, oil, sauces, a white stove, and coal furnace, the canning room, where bottles of yellow peppers, peaches, tomatoes, cellar light-lit, under low ceiling, a round eating table, the plastic protecting the embroidered and full-bodied linen cloth, sewn during her hard war years— four sons left home, to ight, three returned, my tears fell into every stitch, she told me. No crying now, my eyes wide wondering watching ixed to horror silence mystery. It is her but it is not. he grandma part has drained out. Kiss her now, and say goodbye— my mother’s voice so soft, so high, above my bowed head, I lean across polished wood, gripping the cold brass handle, my smaller lips brushing hers, briely tasting foundation, as I’m gently pulled away. Joe Dolce 74 Quadrant December 2017