I did a double-take when I read that two Upstate legislators want a monument honoring blacks who "took part" in the Civil War. At first I thought I must have read something wrong. But then I realized that Mike Burns' and Bill Chumley's "answer" to the confederate monument controversy is to honor black Americans—the 328 of them who filed pension applications as Confederate Veterans—with a statue at the statehouse grounds, to "honor South Carolinians who showed  . . . that they loved their state . . . "

Talk about missing the big picture. The Civil War —which Burns and Chumley still quaintly call "the War Between the States"—was fought to end slavery! It was fought to free African-Americans from the violence, indentured servitude, and hopeless oppression that was the reality of slavery. In an attempt to obfuscate what is pretty simple with "complexity," I'm sure Burns and Chumley will argue the war was fought for other reasons: states rights, tariffs, the hallowed "Southern Way of Life,"  blah blah. But the bottom line was slavery. Why twist the facts? Why are they still fighting the Civil War? The South lost, guys. And what if it had won? The South would have split from the United States and slavery probably would have continued for another 100 years or more.  

Burns and Chumley want to "educate" people about a little known "but important" part of South Carolina history: i.e., that a few blacks, for reasons we don't know, may—perhaps under coercion or falsehood—have participated in some way in the Civil War (Perhaps they carried their white masters' vittles or groomed their horses—we don't know). The not-so-subtle message here is, Hey, blacks supported the Civil War too! Is that really the "history" we want to preserve and honor?

It's a shame that men like Burns and Chorley are representing South Carolina in this day and age. They're an embarrassment and insult to Blacks and whites alike. The proposal by senators Greg Gregory and Darrell Jackson to honor Robert Smalls, a slave who commandeered a Confederate ship and fought for the Union would make a fitting and appropriate monument.  It would help fill in a truly important part of the story of the Civil War—that Blacks fought against the South to free their fellow men, women and children from the chains of slavery.

It would be hilarious, if it weren't so pathetic, that Burns says, "It is time we faced the truth. We need to quit white-washing history."

Burns and Chumley are all about white-wash.  And I do mean white. 

Paulette Alden,


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