Confederates fought to keep people in chains

I’m not sure what the proper disposition should be of the many statues and monuments that were erected for Southern Civil War heroes, but I think that everybody needs to understand how they got there in the first place.

Almost all of them were put in place during the Jim Crow period and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. They were constructed by white supremacists to honor the leaders of a rebellion who wanted to continue the enslavement of human beings. These men were not heroes.

Adolph Hitler fought in the name of white Aryans and their right to enslave or kill everybody else. I’m sure that there are plenty of neo-Nazis in Germany who would love to put up statues of Hitler and his generals.

I doubt if any Jews would be joining in, just as I doubt that any African Americans appreciated the building of memorials to the men who wanted to keep them in chains.

Those statues are no more than symbols of the deep-rooted racism that is alive and well throughout this country. And one other thing, contrary to the words of Donald Trump, there are no “fine” Nazis or white supremacists.

This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Confederates fought to keep people in chains."