General Robert E. Lee, leader of the Confederate Army, fought in opposition to democracy. America, for Lee, was a place where white men slaughtered the indigenous population by the millions and displaced the survivors--for land, for Lebensbaum, "living space," and kidnapped Africans and enslaved and exploited their labor and the labor of their descendants on plantations.
For Lee and his men flying the Confederate flag, America was a slave nation. America enforced violence: it's white men could and did rape black women. It's white men could torture, maim, and murder black men.
This was America for Lee and he was fine with it! For only white men pursued freedom.
As writer Clint Smith argues in How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, Thomas Jefferson fought for the freedom of white men while white men kept their "boots on the necks of hundreds of others".
I recall that in school, we little black children learned to admire the great Jefferson. But, of course, we were never told about Sally. Or the many other black women Jefferson exploited. We learned about the great general. A hero, of sorts. And I was born and raised up north. In Chicago!
How is the word passed down the generations if not by people, writes Smith, "who have tasked themselves with telling the story of that place outside traditional classrooms and beyond the pages of textbooks". Smith visited "a mix of plantations, prisons, cemeteries, museums, memorials, houses, historical landmarks and cities". Wherever he traveled, he met formally or informally trained historians, who carried with "them a piece of this country's collective memory".
Somewhere along the way, on this journey toward a democratic society--for all--some of us have unearthed stories too. Collective memory from members of the lower caste have been raised to the surface by formally and informally trained historians and writers. Family stories, secondary to the dominant narrative's heroes, in pursuit of freedom. Democracy.
Lee, writes Smith, "didn't become open to the creation of a society based on racial equity; he actually opposed it". The Civil War cam about when Southern slaveholding states refused to end the exploitation of black people. Americans wanted blacks to remain unfree. Enslaved. Property. Blacks could continue to live on plantations, adhering to the rules of the dominant caste, which, in turn, put their collective faith in the narrative of white supremacy.
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