
I had an appointment with a professional person in town recently. He brought up his military service and mentioned being stationed at Ft. Lee. I asked which Lee the station was named for, and he said Robert E. Perhaps I looked a bit uncomfortable because he went on to defend Gen. Lee, emphasizing his good works before and after the war, and asserting that you can’t blame a man for fighting for his home state. (This is a person from Way Up North, mind you. I live in Holland, Michigan, not Holland, Georgia or Holland, Arkansas.) He mentioned Ft. Bragg as well, and the army’s plans to change the names of nine bases named for Confederate officers. My best paraphrase of his argument is this: “So if we change the names of these forts just because Lee and Bragg owned slaves, what are we going to do in another hundred years? Society is going to change, values are going to change. Will we just rename the forts again? Besides, nobody’s perfect.”
And then he got down to business, the conversation shifted, and I failed to respond. This is what I wish I had said:
Continue reading “Relics of Slavery and Jim Crow: Fighting over History, Fighting over the Future”