Metro Jacksonville

Jacksonville’s Civil War Memorials

(https://photos.smugmug.com/Cities/Jacksonville/History/Jacksonville-Civil-War-Monuments-and-Memorials/i-JZ8bLwL/0/9e0c2451/XL/Union%20Monument-XL.jpg)

Although few in number compared to many other Southern cities, a variety of monuments and memorials commemorating the Civil War exist in Jacksonville. These include graves, historic sites associated with camps and battles, monuments to those on both sides of the war, and schools and placenames dedicated to Civil War figures.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2017-aug-jacksonvilles-civil-war-memorials

Nice article, Taca.

Personally, I'm kind of neutral in the whole debate.  I try to understand both sides of the issue, but I do believe that the context around the erection of the statues/monuments  should most definitely be considered.  Meaning, I'd never given much thought before to why some of these were commissioned until it's been pointed out that a great many of them were done in spite and bad spirit. 

My hope is that more impetus is placed on the why (it was installed) rather than the what (it represents historically), but I'm afraid that bridge has already been crossed and burned based on the mob-mentality reactions that I see on social media.

Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on August 16, 2017, 11:07:16 PM
I try to understand both sides of the issue, but I do believe that the context around the erection of the statues/monuments  should most definitely be considered.  Meaning, I'd never given much thought before to why some of these were commissioned until it's been pointed out that a great many of them were done in spite and bad spirit.

Agreed.

Some of the information in this article genuinely made me sick to my stomach.

Great article, Bill.

In terms of Confederate Monuments, namely Hemming, even a few months ago, I would have said keep them up for their historical value, but qualify it with some kind of disclaimer. With everything that is going on in this country right now though, I say tear it down yesterday or put it in a museum. I don't care, just get rid of it. Taking down a bronze statue isn't going to sanitize or change our history one bit.

Also, I never knew that this inscription was on the Hemming statue either until I read it in a really great column by Mark Woods:

QuotePerhaps the most prominent monument in all of Jacksonville — in the middle of the park in the middle of town, across the street from City Hall — is the Confederate Monument.

Atop the 62-foot granite obelisk, there is a bronze soldier. Around the base are a series of plaques. With renovations to the surrounding fountain, they're hard to see. But one is for E. Kirby Smith ("A Christian Soldier") and one is for J.J. Dickison ("Tried and True"). One is an ode to the "deeds immortal" of the Southern soldier. And one is a depiction of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee on horses, surrounded by dozens of Confederate soldiers, along with two words and a period.

OUR HEROES.

That, quite simply, is the message that this monument has been sending ever since it was unveiled more than 30 years after the war ended. With its location, it speaks for this city and says that nearly 120 years later, our highest of heroes still are the men who fought for the Confederacy.

Seriously, historic artifact or not, how does ANYONE defend having such a vile display on the front steps of our city hall?

Don't care about the original intent, or the perceived historical value. That's a disgusting inscription to have on the front doorstep of our city, and keeping that monument up another day will only serve to cause problems. It will galvanize racists, and deeply offend others. For what? Just because it's been there a long time or because it survived the Great Fire?

To me, what's happened in Charlottesville, and frankly in the country in the last twelve months, has changed the narrative on this whole debate. The history buffs ain't the ones clamoring to keep these monuments up, the hateful anti-Obama white nationalist crowd are.

Found this tweet is rather poignant:
(https://i.redd.it/6mor8v72z5gz.png)

And if you haven't seen Vice's recent documentary, it's a must watch:
http://uproxx.com/news/mini-doc-white-supremacists-charlottesville-vice/

Take it down, set it on fire, change the name of the schools, do whatever you need to do to send the message that Jacksonville is a city of equality and compassion, with zero tolerance for racism or hatred.

Thanks for the article Taca... my position is close to NRW... I never really understood the south's need to erect monuments to a lost cause.  I am originally from the north... and I suspect many of us in the "I dont care if you tear em down" camp are from northern states or their relatives are from there.  I certainly do not recall a large number of Union statues, memorials, schools named for union generals up north compared with the south...

Quote from: BridgeTroll on August 17, 2017, 07:02:33 AM
Thanks for the article Taca... my position is close to NRW... I never really understood the south's need to erect monuments to a lost cause.  I am originally from the north... and I suspect many of us in the "I dont care if you tear em down" camp are from northern states or their relatives are from there.  I certainly do not recall a large number of Union statues, memorials, schools named for union generals up north compared with the south...

From my home state of Ohio:

Ohioans have built at least 295 monuments to commemorate Civil War veterans, civilians, political leaders, and war-related events in the state.  Eighty-six of the state's eighty-eight counties contain Civil War monuments, with Hamilton County, Lucas County, Lorain County, Brown County, and Franklin County each boasting ten or more memorials each. Only Clinton County and Noble County do not contain Civil War monuments.

Source: http://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=1624 (http://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=1624)

Honest question:

If we consider American slavery to be a shameful atrocity from our past, how is having confederate monuments in our public spaces any different than Germany having Nazi memorials in their public squares? How is having a Jefferson Davis Middle School any different than having an Adolph Hitler Middle School in Berlin? Regardless of whatever nuance of what people believe that the south truly stood for, both movements centered on the oppression, imprisonment, exploitation and abuse of entire races.

Take the ones in public spaces down.

The Confederate army ain't my "heroes."

Quote from: KenFSU on August 17, 2017, 08:32:14 AM
Honest question:

If we consider American slavery to be a shameful atrocity from our past, how is having confederate monuments in our public spaces any different than Germany having Nazi memorials in their public squares? How is having a Jefferson Davis Middle School any different than having an Adolph Hitler Middle School in Berlin? Regardless of whatever nuance of what people believe that the south truly stood for, both movements centered on the oppression, imprisonment, exploitation and abuse of entire races.

Take the ones in public spaces down.

The Confederate army ain't my "heroes."

If slavery is the issue... why limit the discussion to Civil War memorials?

Quote from: BridgeTroll on August 17, 2017, 07:02:33 AM
Thanks for the article Taca... my position is close to NRW... I never really understood the south's need to erect monuments to a lost cause.  I am originally from the north... and I suspect many of us in the "I dont care if you tear em down" camp are from northern states or their relatives are from there.  I certainly do not recall a large number of Union statues, memorials, schools named for union generals up north compared with the south...

I'm black and from the south. Unlike many people, I can't trace my history to other continents. All we can trace is back to plantations in Georgia and North Carolina.  Growing up, just about every black person I know has always despised confederate monuments and flags and have generally lumped people backing them (right or wrong) as racist or ignorant of the south's multi-cultural history. With that said, count me among the camp that believes each situation should be evaluated on its own merits, in regards to removal.  I can't speak for other communities because I'm not as well versed on their history, but the majority of monuments in Jax's monuments and memorials were installed as a part of an effort to either white-wash the historical narrative of our community or spit in the face of desegregation. So if we really want to get it right with history, Hemming Park should go back to City Park or St. James Park and Confederate Park should go back to being known as Dignan Park. As for that Hemming Park monument, stick it in a cemetery like the older Union monument and move on.

Quote from: BridgeTroll on August 17, 2017, 08:47:29 AM

Quote from: KenFSU on August 17, 2017, 08:32:14 AM
Honest question:

If we consider American slavery to be a shameful atrocity from our past, how is having confederate monuments in our public spaces any different than Germany having Nazi memorials in their public squares? How is having a Jefferson Davis Middle School any different than having an Adolph Hitler Middle School in Berlin? Regardless of whatever nuance of what people believe that the south truly stood for, both movements centered on the oppression, imprisonment, exploitation and abuse of entire races.

Take the ones in public spaces down.

The Confederate army ain't my "heroes."

If slavery is the issue... why limit the discussion to Civil War memorials?

From my perspective, the ultimate issue is the context behind the actual Jim Crow era installation of many monuments and memorials moreso than slavery.  It was a part of an effort to promote the dominance of one race above others, which flies in the face of social equity and justice.

I hear you Lake and I do agree that the context matters... hopefully a thoughtful and honest discussion will be had...

In the US Capitol, in the Rotunda Room, is a large statue of Jefferson Davis which represents Virginia.

Looking at him from across the room is a statue of Rosa Parks.  (In between is one of Ronald Reagan, representing California)

In Washington DC, all the memorials face the Washington Memorial, except one.

The MLK Memorial faces the Jefferson Memorial.

The symbolism is not apparent to all, but is clear once you go there.  A reminder that you didn't look out for us, but we prevailed regardless.

The flaws of our nation are open and present for all to see. If one is a student of history, one will know that slavery and black rights were an issue from the start. But they chose to overcome the King of England first and deferred on slavery.  The problem was it took way too long to reconcile after the Union was formed.  States rights were a big deal back then, and many wanted to abolish slavery, but not at the sacrifice of states authority. Back then, states behaved as small countries of their own.

Every country has to be able to grow up and accept the sins of their past.  We have kind of pushed it off over the years (like what we did post Declaration), but now is the time to leave the troublesome adolescence of our nation and grow up.

Accept what our founding fathers (as smart as they were) were unable to resolve, put away the CSA memorials and move on with our nations life.

Thanks for the comments, y'all. My hope with this is that it gives an idea of when our memorials were actually established. Memorials really reflect the context of their time and creators more than the thing they are memorializing. In a lot of these cases, as Lake says, the context was Jim Crow and the disenfranchisement of African-Americans, and there's never been a real accounting for that. Advocates tend to believe that it's all "history" and shouldn't ever be moved.

I have no love for Confederate symbols, but I'm really of two minds about the Hemming Park monument. I think there's a difference between a monument to soldiers, versus the ones that glorify the Confederate cause. My personal preference would be that rather than removing it, we move the Union monument down and create a bigger Civil War monument, that gives an up-to-date picture of the war and how it impacted Northeast Florida. It also could be repurposed as some other kind of memorial with minimal work. But I certainly understand the impulse to get it out of there.

My major hangup with the removal talk is that there's too little talk about what will actually happen to the monuments, and basically no talk about replacing them, let alone with anything remotely comparable. I can easily see the Hemming Park monument coming down, the city finding no museum that can hold it (it's 60 feet tall), and it going to a warehouse indefinitely, while we're stuck with another blasted out, perpetually empty spot in the middle of Downtown Jacksonville. I would much rather that talk of removal be accompanied by replacement or reworking. Does the act of removing significant but undesired structures have a good track record in our urban core?

FYI I'm white, grew up in the South- and much deeper than Jacksonville, FL.  Though I do question that from time to time.

Basically what Lake said.

Separately, but related I think equally prominent / juxtaposed memorials would actually be a fairly good solution and perhaps powerful symbolism.  But too often you end up with Hemming: statue front and center and name unchanged, tiny ax handle riot plaque off somewhere.

In cases where we can't get to such a solution, they come down.  Tie goes to the people who've been systematically oppressed for centuries.

I have never been to Germany but assume there are few if any statues commemorating Hitler and the Third Reich, even though they are an important part of their past.  Does any one know?

Nationwide list of monuments coming down... includes a nice picture of Hemming Park...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/16/us/confederate-monuments-removed.html

Quote from: MusicMan on August 17, 2017, 03:54:08 PM
I have never been to Germany but assume there are few if any statues commemorating Hitler and the Third Reich, even though they are an important part of their past.  Does any one know?

The US tore them all down in West Germany. I am sure they had a worse fate in East Germany with the Soviets.

Quote from: FlaBoy on August 17, 2017, 04:03:17 PM

Quote from: MusicMan on August 17, 2017, 03:54:08 PM
I have never been to Germany but assume there are few if any statues commemorating Hitler and the Third Reich, even though they are an important part of their past.  Does any one know?

The US tore them all down in West Germany. I am sure they had a worse fate in East Germany with the Soviets.

It's also illegal to use or even own Nazi symbols. There are no statues of Nazis or anything, but some things the Nazis built are there. There are also a lot of historical markers and such describing significant events and the victims of the regime.

The practical answer is you take them down and put them in a museum for a couple of reasons:
1) black tax payers shouldn't have pay for the maintenance of these statues
2) people are going to try to tear them down anyway, probably hurt themselves and sue the city
3) they should be preserved for historical purposes

I think it is absolutely ridiculous that some of the statues bear messages like "our heroes" in the first place, but I don't think you can or should try to put the genie of history back in the bottle. All of these things are complex. If it was as simple as saying the Civil War was 100% about racism, or Thomas Jefferson should be defined by the worst thing he ever did, then it would be easy. Using that logic, most of our parents were probably anti gay, and most of our grandparents were probably racist, and should be decisively cut from the family tree. We can and should use these pieces of our history as discussion points around where this country has been and the lessons learned from it rather than (as the media fools people into) an instrument to tear people further apart by artificially baiting people into lining up behind one extreme or the other.

It's interesting that if you look at the people lined up to turn themselves in for vandalizing confederate monuments today in Durham, it is mostly white college kids https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6uaf14/line_of_people_in_durham_waiting_to_turn/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6uaf14/line_of_people_in_durham_waiting_to_turn/). This to me is part of the problem, not the solution.

Quote from: MusicMan on August 17, 2017, 03:54:08 PM
I have never been to Germany but assume there are few if any statues commemorating Hitler and the Third Reich, even though they are an important part of their past.  Does any one know?

There are no memorials to Hitler or the Nazis but there are memorials to the German soldiers who fought and died in WW2 and WW1.

Not all Germans were Nazis.

A good friend of mine fought in the Vehrmacht and told me of the many times he sat in beer halls where him and his friends would be accosted by Nazi recruiters trying to get them to join the party.  They always retorted that they were "loyal Germans" and didnt need to support the party to support the country. (He was later captured by the Soviets and escaped)

When I was in South Africa, there was a monument to the Italian soldiers who died in WW2 fighting the South Africans in Somalia. Many of them were imprisoned in SA for the duration.

There is a marker in a small town in Iowa (name escapes me) that was put up by the German soldiers who were imprisioned there. They so appreciated how well they were treated, they came back after the war to show thier appreciation.

Quote from: MusicMan on August 17, 2017, 03:54:08 PM
I have never been to Germany but assume there are few if any statues commemorating Hitler and the Third Reich, even though they are an important part of their past.  Does any one know?

No.  They don't.  They keep that past in books and museums.  Even Hitlers last stand is now a parking lot with not even a plague.  The arm gate at the entrance to the parking lot is directly over the bunker he died in.

This article sort of caught me - I hadn't considered this aspect of the monument business before (Big Monument):

https://hyperallergic.com/384776/the-norths-role-in-supplying-the-south-with-confederate-monuments/ (https://hyperallergic.com/384776/the-norths-role-in-supplying-the-south-with-confederate-monuments/)

It talks about how many of these monuments were mass produced, in the North, out of cheap materials.  They were assembled from a list of options and soldered together, then covered with a sealer to cover the joints and give them an instant patina.

The image from the Monumental Bronze Company catalog looks very similar to the Hemming memorial...

(http://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/blog_monumental_bronze_company.jpg)

I haven't had time to do the research yet, but I assume that there's a complete catalog of pre-fab monuments out there.

Would it make any difference to this debate if the monument turned out to be a copy that existed in many other towns across the country?  Is artistic significance an issue?

Quote from: lowlyplanner on August 18, 2017, 02:38:15 PM
This article sort of caught me - I hadn't considered this aspect of the monument business before (Big Monument):

https://hyperallergic.com/384776/the-norths-role-in-supplying-the-south-with-confederate-monuments/ (https://hyperallergic.com/384776/the-norths-role-in-supplying-the-south-with-confederate-monuments/)

It talks about how many of these monuments were mass produced, in the North, out of cheap materials.  They were assembled from a list of options and soldered together, then covered with a sealer to cover the joints and give them an instant patina.

The image from the Monumental Bronze Company catalog looks very similar to the Hemming memorial...

(http://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/blog_monumental_bronze_company.jpg)

I haven't had time to do the research yet, but I assume that there's a complete catalog of pre-fab monuments out there.

Would it make any difference to this debate if the monument turned out to be a copy that existed in many other towns across the country?  Is artistic significance an issue?

Probably little difference.  The great sculpture artists of the past used to do something similar.  They'd create a miniature in wax or clay and then a whole team of their students or assistants would chisel out the real thing with the master only adding a few fine touches at the end.  It's not physically possible for a single artist to have carved all of their commissions personally as it would take several lifetimes.

But I do see a certain irony and parallelism is the south's monuments to themselves being made in the north much like a lot of make America great again clothing and items are made in China.

^I don't think it makes much difference. For the ones depicting generic soldiers, there are only so many ways to do that regardless of how it's made. In Jax, it's really only the Union Monument and the Hemming Park monument that would have been made that way.

Talking about aesthetics, it's really the column, not the soldier, that makes the Hemming Park monument so striking. The most aesthetically beautiful of our monuments is the Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy in Confederate Park, which isn't a generic form, except maybe the statue inside the pavilion.

Quote from: lowlyplanner on August 18, 2017, 02:38:15 PM

The image from the Monumental Bronze Company catalog looks very similar to the Hemming memorial...

(http://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/blog_monumental_bronze_company.jpg)

It actually looks pretty much exactly like the Union monument.

(http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/civilwar/cache/monuments/jacksonville-evergreen-cemetery/evergreen-cemetery/side-view-showing-lean_595_FPAN%20logo-white-outlined.jpg)

I was in the neighborhood yesterday and drove through Evergreen Cemetery to see the Union memorial, but I couldn't find it.  Is there a map to it?

I would love to see the Union Memorial get some more attention.

Quote from: lowlyplanner on August 18, 2017, 08:12:10 PM
I was in the neighborhood yesterday and drove through Evergreen Cemetery to see the Union memorial, but I couldn't find it.  Is there a map to it?

I would love to see the Union Memorial get some more attention.

I'm on mobile so I can't get the direct link easily right now, but there's a link to an interactive Google map with the direct location of the Union monument. The link under the picture of the monument seems to go to the wrong place; we'll try to get that fixed soon.

Great article!  There's more complexity to this subject than most care to see.  Moving the Hemming Park statue to a cemetery sounds like an excellent solution.

I find it strikingly ironic that the statue on the Union memorial is so similar to the statue atop the pillar in Hemming Plaza Park.

The City could switch them out in the dead of night and barely a person would notice, I think.

Quote from: lowlyplanner on August 18, 2017, 08:12:10 PM
I was in the neighborhood yesterday and drove through Evergreen Cemetery to see the Union memorial, but I couldn't find it.  Is there a map to it?

I would love to see the Union Memorial get some more attention.

It's at the corner of Cummer and Mills Drives: https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3685172,-81.643251,3a,75y,195.08h,76.85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swOLyYxe17QAChC-OFa9_LA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I just wonder how many people defending the "heritage" of these monuments have actually visited them or even were aware of their existence.

Quote from: Jim on August 21, 2017, 09:05:52 AM
I just wonder how many people defending the "heritage" of these monuments have actually visited them or even were aware of their existence.

The local United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans are well aware of all of them, and they're pretty much the most active folks on the heritage front. They actually put up a lot of the historical markers (most of which really give pretty straightforward information) and do a good job maintaining the Confederate graves and other memorials in the cemeteries.

For others, yeah, I doubt many know about all these monuments; some are pretty obscure, and many are on private property.

Quote from: Tacachale on August 21, 2017, 10:04:18 AM

Quote from: Jim on August 21, 2017, 09:05:52 AM
I just wonder how many people defending the "heritage" of these monuments have actually visited them or even were aware of their existence.

The local United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans are well aware of all of them, and they're pretty much the most active folks on the heritage front. They actually put up a lot of the historical markers (most of which really give pretty straightforward information) and do a good job maintaining the Confederate graves and other memorials in the cemeteries.

For others, yeah, I doubt many know about all these monuments; some are pretty obscure, and many are on private property.

I'm more so referring your average southern Joe.  I would expect groups to the cause would be aware of them and their fight for them is at least understandable.  It's the guy yelling on Facebook about erasing history and saving heritage that I ponder.  How many have even been to Hemming, let alone knew a Confederate statue even existed there until this debate began?

I doubt the average Joe even knows that we have a Union monument that predates the one at Hemming. I mentioned this at the Times-Union editorial board meeting last week and that was news for a few people there. They also didn't know that Confederate Park was originaly called Dignan Park. Thus, I seriously doubt most know that Jax was a lot more progressive in the 1880s and 1890s than it was during the 20th century Jim Crow era.

^What's more is that most don't realize that none of the monuments date to the actual war, and few were even within the first 30 or 40 years after it ended. Other than the Hemming Park and Union monuments, the actual historical sites, and a couple of namings, they're pretty much a 20th century thing in these parts. I've spoken to a number of people on both sides of the debate who were unaware that that was the case, or at least the extent of it. It's really telling to give folks the history of the school namings. To be fair, I didn't even realize that until researching it during the debate over Nathan Bedford Forrest and our discussions here on MJ.

Chicago Tribune asks, "If you take down these monuments, where does it stop?"

There is a huge statue of Sen. Robert Byrd in the West Virginia statehouse. He served some 30 plus years in Congress.  He used to be the President of the KKK.

What to do?

What about all those Democrats from 1870 all the way to 1965 who blocked any civil rights legislation?

Do we go out and seek their monuments and wipe them out too?

Thomas Jefferson was known to be a serial rapist of one his female slaves, what about that?

Just how far do we want to purge society of history, even when we find it disgusting and undesirable?

  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-statues-democrats-kass-0820-20170818-column.html  (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-statues-democrats-kass-0820-20170818-column.html)

Quote from: spuwho on August 21, 2017, 01:53:31 PM
Chicago Tribune asks, "If you take down these monuments, where does it stop?"

There is a huge statue of Sen. Robert Byrd in the West Virginia statehouse. He served some 30 plus years in Congress.  He used to be the President of the KKK.

What to do?

What about all those Democrats from 1870 all the way to 1965 who blocked any civil rights legislation?

Do we go out and seek their monuments and wipe them out too?

Thomas Jefferson was known to be a serial rapist of one his female slaves, what about that?

Just how far do we want to purge society of history, even when we find it disgusting and undesirable?

  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-statues-democrats-kass-0820-20170818-column.html  (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-statues-democrats-kass-0820-20170818-column.html)

Everyone draws the line in a different place. Personally, I want it to stay at (some of) the public Confederate memorials. Others like the Take it Down Jax movement want to extend it to other figures like Andrew Jackson and Isaiah Hart. The real issue with Confederate monuments is less the Confederacy or even slavery, than the fact that Confederate symbols have been used as tools of oppression for decades after the war. If that hadn't been the case, there'd far fewer Confederate monuments, and I doubt they'd be as controversial.

There are no monuments to the Nazis in Germany, but there is still an active neo-Nazi movement there.

While retiring the CSA monuments is probably a good idea, it will not stop any white-supremacists from making noise or trying to get attention.

Purging monuments for "any" activity deemed unjust is too far off the rails because its impossible to establish a consistent set of standards to abide by.

A Patriots fan wants to erect a celebratory monument to Tom Brady on his Atlanta front yard. Where does it end?

(https://photos.smugmug.com/Street-Scenes/Urban-Orlando-Dec-2008/i-36n6g52/0/a43d95dc/X2/P1180536-X2.jpg)
Orlando's "Johnny Reb" overlooking Lake Eola in 2009

IMO, it stops where each individual community and its leaders want it to stop. Every community and monument has a story of its own and a decision on how to address them should not be the same across the board. However, a lot of dialogue isn't needed to understand and accept the true reason many of these things were erected in the 20th century was really fucked up.

This whole debate really has less to do with the actual Civil War and more to do with the revisionist agendas of segregationist generations after the end of the actual war. There's a reason James Weldon Johnson mentioned in his autobiography that long after the Reconstruction period, Jacksonville was a good town for Negroes and by the early 20th century, it had become a 100% cracker town. There was a reason 16,000 African-American residents left Jacksonville in 1916 alone, to head north (a freaking insane number when you realize we're 800 square miles now and we still don't get 16,000 new residents moving here annually).

Heck, there was a reason the movie industry headed west right around the same exact time African-American's were heading north. That reason had a lot more to do with multicultural oppression and racial terror in the early 20th century and little to do with a war that ended 50 years earlier.

Other than dialogue to understand the context that led to many erections of these monuments, what's really needed are leaders to make a decision and implement one way or the other. This is exactly what happened in Orlando earlier this summer:

QuoteOrlando's Confederate statue removed from Lake Eola

(https://media2.fdncms.com/orlando/imager/u/blog/5107518/confederate67.jpg?cb=1497990091)

Without much fanfare, the Confederate statue that watched over Lake Eola Park for more than 100 years was dismantled Tuesday for its move to Greenwood Cemetery.

City employees began working early in the morning to carefully disassemble the almost 9-ton "Johnny Reb" memorial made of marble and concrete, piece by piece.

QuoteThe statue had been in Lake Eola Park since 1917, after originally being placed on Magnolia Avenue in 1911. Commissioned by a local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the monument has a plaque honoring "soldiers, sailors and statesmen of the Confederate States of America."

Last month, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer decided to move the statue to the Confederate veterans section of the Greenwood Cemetery after an outcry from former Orlando Sentinel journalist David Porter and other residents, who said the statue was a racist symbol of white supremacy and slavery. At a city council meeting held on the subject, dozens of Confederate supporters from Orlando and other parts of Florida flooded City Hall, demanding that the statue be left in Lake Eola because it honored soldiers who died in the Civil War. But no such demonstrations happened during its removal Tuesday – workers removed the Confederate statue quietly behind a chainlink fence that was set up around the perimeter of the structure.

QuoteLafser says the statue will be repaired and reassembled on top of a new base in the Greenwood Cemetery. The approximate cost to remove and re-erect the statue is about $120,000, but Lafser says those costs could increase. The city is also working with historians to install a plaque near the monument that gives historical context and serves as an educational tool. Overall, the process is expected to take about six weeks.

QuotePrice says the Greenwood Cemetery is an appropriate place for the statue because so many of Orlando's historical figures are buried here in the same section, including Orlando Mayor William Jewell and Andrew Jackson Barber, who founded a cattle and agricultural dynasty across Central Florida. The reassembled statue will face north toward the Union states, instead of the way it's facing now, which is west toward Parramore, Orlando's largely African-American neighborhood. Price says the city wants to make sure the statue isn't facing a particular community.

"This is the Confederate section of the cemetery," Price says. "So historically, it belongs here. We're the keeper of the history."

Full article: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/06/20/orlandos-confederate-statue-removed-from-lake-eola

Quote from: spuwho on August 21, 2017, 10:11:44 PM
There are no monuments to the Nazis in Germany, but there is still an active neo-Nazi movement there.

While retiring the CSA monuments is probably a good idea, it will not stop any white-supremacists from making noise or trying to get attention.

Purging monuments for "any" activity deemed unjust is too far off the rails because its impossible to establish a consistent set of standards to abide by.

A Patriots fan wants to erect a celebratory monument to Tom Brady on his Atlanta front yard. Where does it end?

It's not about halting the spread of white supremacists. It's about not glorifying their cause or the history and circumstances that drives them.  It's about not perpetuating the reason those statues were erected in the first place.

It's also about not glorifying a history that still has a real world impact and affect on a sizable portion of our population.  I shouldn't have to say this but put yourself in the shoes of a young, impressionable black child that see a statue prominently located in a town square that features a leader from a nation that wanted to keep her race enslaved.  How the hell do you think that makes them feel?  Imagine being told that these statues have more value to the white community than your sense of belonging, your sense of self....your right to live without standing in the shadow of a statue that was erected simply to glorify a history that treated you as cattle that can talk. 

Walk those shoes.  Walk them every. damn. day.  Then let us know if they should still stand.

^If anyone can't visualize it and wants to know from that perspective, I can fill you in.  I'm black and just as deep south as they come, my parents graduated high school prior to desegregation and have a laundry list of stories about the KKK, boycotts, dealing with separate but equal and many of my great aunts and uncles got the hell out of Tampa and rural Hillsborough County to head north during the Great Migration. Let's just say our perspective when it comes to heritage is a bit different.

For what its worth I don't think anyone really cares.  The sudden issue with confederate monuments is fools gold.  Its an issue where anyone who cares can virtue posture.   If anyone remembers we had a high school named bedford forrest.  It was the  issue of the week on this site. 

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-oct-who-was-nathan-bedford-forrest

doubt if anyone has ever cared about the kids in the school since then. certainly sure that NO ONE has ever volunteered or helped these kids.  But the name was changed and we can all feel better about ourselves

Quote from: civil42806 on August 22, 2017, 11:40:48 AM
For what its worth I don't think anyone really cares.  The sudden issue with confederate monuments is fools gold.  Its an issue where anyone who cares can virtue posture.   If anyone remembers we had a high school named bedford forrest.  It was the  issue of the week on this site. 

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-oct-who-was-nathan-bedford-forrest

doubt if anyone has ever cared about the kids in the school since then. certainly sure that NO ONE has ever volunteered or helped these kids.  But the name was changed and we can all feel better about ourselves

I expect the kids who go to school there and their families, who spearheaded the Forrest renaming, do care about themselves and their school.

This type of argument has always sounded like a cop out to me. "Why do anything at all if you can't solve this much bigger, more complex problem first?" They are not mutually exclusive.

That said, Jim's post is a bit of:

(https://frinkiac.com/gif/S07E23/358507/360342.gif?b64lines=IE9oLCB3b24ndCBzb21lYm9keSBwbGVhc2UKIHRoaW5rIG9mIHRoZSBjaGlsZHJlbj8=)

;)

A certain portion of the population has always cared. They've just been marginalized for much of the country's history. Like hoopla around police brutality, what took place in Charlottesville and this particular debate isn't new either.  Access to technology is just exposing our warts at a much larger scale than say....30 years ago.  At some point, we'll need to address them. It appears that time has finally come.

You know what pisses me off more than the actual white supremacists, KKK and neo-Nazi's?  The people that don't care.  The people that shrug and say, "Doesn't affect me."  It by default grants permission to the oppressors and hate groups to keep going.  Martin Niemöller warned us about such apathy.  You only give a damn when it's about you.

I will admit without any embarassment, I dont know exactly  how one feels and I havent walked in anyones shoes. I have to take the word of the friends I have.

Some resent it. Some dont really care. Some consider it a point of motivation.

My first warning was some of my high school classmates going south to play spring baseball in the 70's. They came back rolling their eyes at some of treatment they got. But it didnt define their life. They moved on.

By the time I reached college, it was never an issue. We discussed in American History and we spent a good week on the slavery issue. Many friends of mine were very vocal on what it meant to them. I gained yet more understanding.

I spent some brief time at Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH in Chicago and learned yet more,  more than I had learned my whole life.

The message I got at PUSH was not to let the "white" experience define who you are as a person. Maintain your integrity, honesty and your ability and you will be defined by your accomplishments, not by your color. Dont let the white perception become your personal perception on how to live life.

So if I apply that to the recent discussion on monuments, I would say "dont let who you are be defined by a culture that is obsolete and reflected in old monuments"

^I get what you're saying. Me and my siblings were raised the same way. We were raised that being black men, things aren't far and that you'll just have to work twice as hard to make it.  Just because things are systematically set up against you doesn't mean you let them define you.  I totally get that.  With that said, I also believe when the knock of opportunity comes to bring dialogue, debate and exposure to history in a way that finally leads to change, open the door.

In this particular case, I'll personally be fine regardless of how Jacksonville does or does not address its actual history.  However, I do believe Jacksonville will have a much better economic and image enhancing future, if it moves into the 21st century by finally addressing some of this stuff.

Quote from: Jim on August 22, 2017, 01:06:31 PM
You know what pisses me off more than the actual white supremacists, KKK and neo-Nazi's?  The people that don't care.  The people that shrug and say, "Doesn't affect me."  It by default grants permission to the oppressors and hate groups to keep going.  Martin Niemöller warned us about such apathy.  You only give a damn when it's about you.

If I have to read that stupid Niemoller quote again, I'm going to hurl.

(Nothing against Niemoller or her quote, per se, but more a comment on the people posting it A LOT on social media these days).

Quote from: spuwho on August 22, 2017, 02:54:45 PM
So if I apply that to the recent discussion on monuments, I would say "dont let who you are be defined by a culture that is obsolete and reflected in old monuments"

Obsolescence is up for debate. Tell Heather Heyer's family that they obsolete.  Look at what is brewing here.  White supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazi's are here, today, present tense.

And nobody is saying let that culture define you.  What we are saying is the civilized world should have moved beyond such nonsense. 

Quote from: Jim on August 22, 2017, 03:49:36 PM
And nobody is saying let that culture define you.  What we are saying is the civilized world should have moved beyond such nonsense.

Well said. We've got to confront our past or we'll never move on.

Tonight's council meeting is highly entertaining:

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2017-08-22/large-group-expected-speak-about-relocating-confederate-monuments-jacksonville

Myself and others have asked... Where does it end?  Washington?  Jefferson?  To me, the answer to the question begins with a straightforward test: Was the person to whom a monument is erected on public property devoted to the American experiment in liberty and self-government?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/opinion/why-lee-should-go-and-washington-should-stay.html?ref=opinion

QuoteWhy Lee Should Go, and Washington Should Stay
By JON MEACHAMAUG. 21, 2017

Nashville — I grew up on Missionary Ridge, a Civil War battlefield overlooking Chattanooga, Tenn. In my childhood we could still find minie balls from the battle in which a young Union soldier, Arthur MacArthur, the father of Douglas, received the Medal of Honor. The war's relics were real and tangible — I still have a few on my desk as I write — and so were the war's perennial and tragic consequences.

I remember the smoke rising from downtown riots in 1980 after an all-white jury acquitted two Ku Klux Klansmen in the drive-by shotgun shootings of four black women. (A third Klan defendant was convicted only of reduced charges.) It was a stunning verdict. "Good God," my grandfather, a retired judge, remarked of the jurors. "They didn't let the facts get in the way."

Facts, as John Adams said, are stubborn things — and, for Southerners, they are also often uncomfortable. If we don't face them forthrightly, we risk living in worlds of fantasy and fable, subject not to reason, the greatest of gifts, but susceptible to passion, the most dangerous of forces. In such alternative realities, the Civil War was not about slavery but about what neo-Confederates refer to as "heritage."

So let's talk facts. From Baltimore to New Orleans, cities across the South are removing statues of Confederate figures from public property — memorials often built as emblems of defiance to federal authority in the post-Reconstruction period and in the Warren Court years of the 1950s and '60s. The white-supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., this month was occasioned by the city's decision to take down a Robert E. Lee statue.

In the ensuing chaos, President Trump spoke of the "many sides" of the debate and defended the neo-Confederate view. "I wonder," Mr. Trump said, "is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

To me, the answer to Mr. Trump's question begins with a straightforward test: Was the person to whom a monument is erected on public property devoted to the American experiment in liberty and self-government? Washington and Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were. Each owned slaves; each was largely a creature of his time and place on matters of race. Yet each also believed in the transcendent significance of the nation, and each was committed to the journey toward "a more perfect Union."

By definition, the Confederate hierarchy fails that test. Those who took up arms against the Union were explicitly attempting to stop the American odyssey. While we should judge each individual on the totality of their lives (defenders of Lee, for instance, point to his attempts to be a figure of reconciliation after the war), the forces of hate and of exclusion long ago made Confederate imagery their own. Monuments in public places of veneration to those who believed it their duty to fight the Union have no place in the Union of the 21st century — a view with which Lee himself might have agreed. "I think it wiser," he wrote in 1866, "not to keep open the sores of war."

Of course, Lee lost that struggle, too, and my home state is dealing with just this issue at the moment. In 1973, the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised money to install a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Southern cavalry commander and early leader of the Klan, in the state capitol.

It's ahistoric to judge figures from the past by our own moral standards. Yet we need not contort ourselves to find Forrest wanting as an object of veneration. He was condemned for outrages and atrocities in his own time. One example: the massacre at Fort Pillow in April 1864, in western Tennessee, where Forrest's men "cruelly butchered every colored soldier they could lay hands upon," according to a report in The Chicago Tribune not long after.

More than a century and a half on, the battle over Forrest's memory here may offer lessons for others. Taken as a whole, my state was always ambivalent about the Confederacy. In February 1861 a majority of its voters opposed a proposed secession convention, with pro-Union sentiment particularly strong in the more mountainous eastern region of the state. Then came Fort Sumter and the federal call to fight the secessionists, and secession carried the day at last.

By the end of the war, 120,000 Tennesseans had fought for the Confederacy, but a significant number, 31,000, took up arms for the Union. As historians have noted, that meant Tennessee alone provided the federal forces with more soldiers than all other seceded states combined.

Given its history during the Confederate era, then, Tennessee has the capacity to be more reasonable in the neo-Confederate one. According to a 2016 law, the removal of a monument like the one to Forrest requires either an act of the General Assembly or a two-thirds vote of the state's historical commission, most of whom are appointed by the governor. And the position of Gov. Bill Haslam, a popular Republican, is clear: It's time for the Forrest bust to go. "I don't believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol," he said. "That history should be put in a museum, not in a place of honor."

"There will never be peace in Tennessee," Union Gen. William T. Sherman once said, "until Forrest is dead." Like his more celebrated remark that war is hell, Sherman was onto something. The good news in this grim period of 2017 is that reasonable Southerners may be ready to give peace a chance.

I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

Vandals pulled the sign off of Robert E. Lee high:

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2017-08-24/jacksonville-s-lee-high-school-signs-vandalized-then-letters-removed-district

If the T-U is to be believed "controversey" is the proper spelling of the word, and Robert E. Lee was the president of the confederacy:

(https://snag.gy/oM8YqP.jpg)

Quote from: spuwho on August 24, 2017, 12:03:10 PM
I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

I'm pretty certain it had far more to do with Plessy vs Ferguson in 1896 along with hundreds of states and local laws that were racially repressive during the next 2 decades than an economic crash in 1893.

Quote from: spuwho on August 24, 2017, 12:03:10 PM
I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

I believe the story is much more complex than this. The erection of Civil War monuments for Union and CSA veterans boomed all over the country between the 1880s and WWI. Nationally, part of it had to do with veterans aging, dying off, communities looking to assert  reinforce whatever doctrine their political power structures desired and a hand full of northern monument companies cashing in. I find it funny that we have over 2,500 mass produced monuments around the country.  This is like the forerunner to the suburban tract house. Take a look at our Union monument and compare to the two in the article below:

(http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/civilwar/cache/monuments/jacksonville-evergreen-cemetery/evergreen-cemetery/head-shot-with-damage_595_FPAN%20logo-white-outlined.jpg)

QuoteWhy those Confederate soldier statues look a lot like their Union counterparts

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/08/18/Interactivity/Images/NJNCStatuesCOMP.jpg?uuid=Dq9ySIRHEeezWRWjYXx2ew)
At left, a Monumental Bronze Co. sculpture of a Union soldier, erected in Westfield, N.J., in 1889. On the right, a sculpture of a Confederate soldier, by the same company, erected in Windsor, N.C., in 1898. (Sarah Beetham)

The nameless figure, known to many as the Silent Sentinel, gazes over town squares and courthouse steps in dozens of Southern towns — but not just there.

Many of the South's Silent Sentinels turn out to be identical to the statues of Union soldiers that decorate hundreds of public spaces across the North. Identical, but for one detail: On the soldier's belt buckle, the "U.S." is replaced by a "C.S." for "Confederate States."

It turns out that a campaign in the late 19th century to memorialize the Civil War by erecting monuments was not only an attempt to honor Southern soldiers or white supremacy. It was also a remarkably successful bit of marketing sleight of hand in which New England monument companies sold the same statues to towns and citizens groups on both sides of the Civil War divide.

It took some years before Southern customers caught on and sought to buy statues of soldiers who were more obviously Grays rather than Blues. Statue manufacturers eventually gave their Confederate models a slouch hat instead of the Union topper that looked more like a baseball cap, and a short shell jacket rather than the North's greatcoat, and a bedroll to replace the Union man's knapsack.

But dozens of statues North and South are all but precise copies....

Quote...In the case of the Confederate statues that have turned into powerful and, to many, disturbing symbols more than 150 years after the war, the Southern women who paid for most of the statues between 1880 and 1920 said they wanted a place to honor their fallen husbands and fathers. But the communities that erected those statues were also looking for a way to assert their doctrine of white supremacy at a time when they were passing Jim Crow laws to codify the separation of the races.

To the Monumental Bronze Co. in Bridgeport, Conn., it was all just business. Union or Confederate, a customer was a customer, another $450 for a zinc statue that could mean whatever you needed it to mean....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-those-confederate-soldier-statues-look-a-lot-like-their-union-counterparts/2017/08/18/cefcc1bc-8394-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.af31062abff2

Then there's what took place locally, which is most likely different for various communities across the country.  During Reconstruction, our political structure was Republican and led by loyalist like Ossian B. Hart.  African-Americans held plenty of positions within that government. I can't imagine it being a coincidence that as early as 1868, we named Stanton after US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.  It's also not surprising that this era led to our mass produced Union monument popping up in Evergreen Cemetery in 1891, seven years before the Confederate monument in Hemming went up. By the time the Hemming monument went back up, the political structure had transitioned to Democratic control, leading to Jim Crow.  This summary of the Hemming statue from the COJ Historic Preservation Office sums this transition period up nicely:

QuoteThe Confederate Monument reflects a period during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when memorials were being erected in towns and cities in both the North and South to honor Civil War veterans.  By this time, the number of living veterans was declining and first- hand memories of the war were being erased.  These monuments were being erected earlier in the North because of the South's war-ravaged economy and Republican political control during Reconstruction.  The movement to erect markers and monuments in the South usually started with the initiative of women's organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ladies Memorial Associations.  In more recent years, discussion has been generated about whether these Civil War memorials in the South had intentional or unintentional political meaning at the time beyond memory and sacrifice.  In the South, most of these memorials were erected after states were considered "redeemed" by white democrats from political control by Republicans.  This political redemption was closely followed by Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise and segregate blacks.  It has also been suggested that erection of these monuments in both the North and the South represented a symbolic unification of the two regions as attention was being directed on developing economic partnerships and less on civil rights for blacks.  However, many of the Confederate memorials, such as in Jacksonville, were erected years after the state was back under Democratic control.  Similar Civil War monuments in Jacksonville during this period include the Monument to Women of the Confederacy completed in 1915 under the sponsorship of the Florida Division-United Confederate veterans and a statue in the Evergreen Cemetery privately placed to honor members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).

The most common type of monument used was the "silent sentinel" as found in Hemming Park.  It is usually a single soldier at "parade rest" with his hands holding the end of the musket barrel.  The number of "silent sentinel" erected is estimated to be over 2,500 spread out over thirty states with more than a thousand found in the South.  The "silent sentinel" monuments were all made in the North, particularly in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio, using Italian marble or New England granite.  The monument in Hemming Park was made and erected by a Chicago company owned by George H. Mitchell.  Born in 1848, George Mitchell followed in his father's footsteps as a stone cutter working in his native state of Massachusetts.  By 1887, Mitchell had relocated his business to Chicago where he developed a reputation for making large monuments and mausoleums.  He died on February 28, 1905 in Hinsdale, DuPage, Illinois.[1]

The "Silent Sentinel" did not represent any particular person although in some locations people found the soldier to bear a resemblance to a local resident.  For example in Jacksonville, the soldier was supposedly modeled after a local resident and Confederate veteran, Leonard Dozier.  Later moving to Ocala where Dozier served for a time as postmaster, the Ocala Evening Star (June 16, 1898) stated, "The star is pleased to say that the figure of the soldier that adorns the apex of the Hemming monument is intended to represent in marble what Len Dozier typified as an ideal soldier.  The honor is great, but the subject is worthy of the great distinction".  However his name was not on the dedication program or mentioned as the model for the statue during the two-day celebration.  The bronze soldier does have the letters J.L.F., Jacksonville Light Infantry, in the cap which was probably done at the request of Charles Hemming.[2]

Sidenote, I wonder how authentic the Hemming monument really is. George H. Mitchell of Chicago was in the same market as the Monumental Bronze Company.  Here's a similar concept from George H. Mitchell for an 1891 Union monument in Mount Carroll, IL:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-byA25H2uCWE/UNTAi57-xAI/AAAAAAAAACo/4KyT-2nJsx0/s1600/Carl_2.jpg)

The Union one is a little more elaborate, but you can definitely see the design similarities.

Quote from: thelakelander on August 24, 2017, 03:11:01 PM

Quote from: spuwho on August 24, 2017, 12:03:10 PM
I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

I believe the story is much more complex than this. The erection of Civil War monuments for Union and CSA veterans boomed all over the country between the 1880s and WWI. Nationally, part of it had to do with veterans aging, dying off, communities looking to assert  reinforce whatever doctrine their political power structures desired and a hand full of northern monument companies cashing in. I find it funny that we have over 2,500 mass produced monuments around the country.  This is like the forerunner to the suburban tract house. Take a look at our Union monument and compare to the two in the article below:

(http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/civilwar/cache/monuments/jacksonville-evergreen-cemetery/evergreen-cemetery/head-shot-with-damage_595_FPAN%20logo-white-outlined.jpg)

QuoteWhy those Confederate soldier statues look a lot like their Union counterparts

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/08/18/Interactivity/Images/NJNCStatuesCOMP.jpg?uuid=Dq9ySIRHEeezWRWjYXx2ew)
At left, a Monumental Bronze Co. sculpture of a Union soldier, erected in Westfield, N.J., in 1889. On the right, a sculpture of a Confederate soldier, by the same company, erected in Windsor, N.C., in 1898. (Sarah Beetham)

The nameless figure, known to many as the Silent Sentinel, gazes over town squares and courthouse steps in dozens of Southern towns — but not just there.

Many of the South's Silent Sentinels turn out to be identical to the statues of Union soldiers that decorate hundreds of public spaces across the North. Identical, but for one detail: On the soldier's belt buckle, the "U.S." is replaced by a "C.S." for "Confederate States."

It turns out that a campaign in the late 19th century to memorialize the Civil War by erecting monuments was not only an attempt to honor Southern soldiers or white supremacy. It was also a remarkably successful bit of marketing sleight of hand in which New England monument companies sold the same statues to towns and citizens groups on both sides of the Civil War divide.

It took some years before Southern customers caught on and sought to buy statues of soldiers who were more obviously Grays rather than Blues. Statue manufacturers eventually gave their Confederate models a slouch hat instead of the Union topper that looked more like a baseball cap, and a short shell jacket rather than the North's greatcoat, and a bedroll to replace the Union man's knapsack.

But dozens of statues North and South are all but precise copies....

Quote...In the case of the Confederate statues that have turned into powerful and, to many, disturbing symbols more than 150 years after the war, the Southern women who paid for most of the statues between 1880 and 1920 said they wanted a place to honor their fallen husbands and fathers. But the communities that erected those statues were also looking for a way to assert their doctrine of white supremacy at a time when they were passing Jim Crow laws to codify the separation of the races.

To the Monumental Bronze Co. in Bridgeport, Conn., it was all just business. Union or Confederate, a customer was a customer, another $450 for a zinc statue that could mean whatever you needed it to mean....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-those-confederate-soldier-statues-look-a-lot-like-their-union-counterparts/2017/08/18/cefcc1bc-8394-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.af31062abff2

Then there's what took place locally, which is most likely different for various communities across the country.  During Reconstruction, our political structure was Republican and led by loyalist like Ossian B. Hart.  African-Americans held plenty of positions within that government. I can't imagine it being a coincidence that as early as 1868, we named Stanton after US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.  It's also not surprising that this era led to our mass produced Union monument popping up in Evergreen Cemetery in 1891, seven years before the Confederate monument in Hemming went up. By the time the Hemming monument went back up, the political structure had transitioned to Democratic control, leading to Jim Crow.  This summary of the Hemming statue from the COJ Historic Preservation Office sums this transition period up nicely:

QuoteThe Confederate Monument reflects a period during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when memorials were being erected in towns and cities in both the North and South to honor Civil War veterans.  By this time, the number of living veterans was declining and first- hand memories of the war were being erased.  These monuments were being erected earlier in the North because of the South's war-ravaged economy and Republican political control during Reconstruction.  The movement to erect markers and monuments in the South usually started with the initiative of women's organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ladies Memorial Associations.  In more recent years, discussion has been generated about whether these Civil War memorials in the South had intentional or unintentional political meaning at the time beyond memory and sacrifice.  In the South, most of these memorials were erected after states were considered "redeemed" by white democrats from political control by Republicans.  This political redemption was closely followed by Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise and segregate blacks.  It has also been suggested that erection of these monuments in both the North and the South represented a symbolic unification of the two regions as attention was being directed on developing economic partnerships and less on civil rights for blacks.  However, many of the Confederate memorials, such as in Jacksonville, were erected years after the state was back under Democratic control.  Similar Civil War monuments in Jacksonville during this period include the Monument to Women of the Confederacy completed in 1915 under the sponsorship of the Florida Division-United Confederate veterans and a statue in the Evergreen Cemetery privately placed to honor members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).

The most common type of monument used was the "silent sentinel" as found in Hemming Park.  It is usually a single soldier at "parade rest" with his hands holding the end of the musket barrel.  The number of "silent sentinel" erected is estimated to be over 2,500 spread out over thirty states with more than a thousand found in the South.  The "silent sentinel" monuments were all made in the North, particularly in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio, using Italian marble or New England granite.  The monument in Hemming Park was made and erected by a Chicago company owned by George H. Mitchell.  Born in 1848, George Mitchell followed in his father's footsteps as a stone cutter working in his native state of Massachusetts.  By 1887, Mitchell had relocated his business to Chicago where he developed a reputation for making large monuments and mausoleums.  He died on February 28, 1905 in Hinsdale, DuPage, Illinois.[1]

The "Silent Sentinel" did not represent any particular person although in some locations people found the soldier to bear a resemblance to a local resident.  For example in Jacksonville, the soldier was supposedly modeled after a local resident and Confederate veteran, Leonard Dozier.  Later moving to Ocala where Dozier served for a time as postmaster, the Ocala Evening Star (June 16, 1898) stated, "The star is pleased to say that the figure of the soldier that adorns the apex of the Hemming monument is intended to represent in marble what Len Dozier typified as an ideal soldier.  The honor is great, but the subject is worthy of the great distinction".  However his name was not on the dedication program or mentioned as the model for the statue during the two-day celebration.  The bronze soldier does have the letters J.L.F., Jacksonville Light Infantry, in the cap which was probably done at the request of Charles Hemming.[2]

Sidenote, I wonder how authentic the Hemming monument really is. George H. Mitchell of Chicago was in the same market as the Monumental Bronze Company.  Here's a similar concept from George H. Mitchell for an 1891 Union monument in Mount Carroll, IL:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-byA25H2uCWE/UNTAi57-xAI/AAAAAAAAACo/4KyT-2nJsx0/s1600/Carl_2.jpg)

The Union one is a little more elaborate, but you can definitely see the design similarities.

More than anything, the Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen until that time, and both sides were Americans. The put it in perspective, the loss of American life was worse than any other war, and in fact rivals the combined output of *all* conflicts we've ever been in, even though our total population today is much higher than it was then. There are monuments to earlier wars and their veterans, but in terms of our losses, we've never faced anything of comparable scale before or since the Civil War. With many lost in every town and county, it's not surprising that the Civil War created the most monuments.

Southerners were mostly forbidden from erecting monuments before Reconstruction ended in 1877. They started going up pretty immediately after that. St. Augustine built one on private property in 1872, and rebuilt it in the Plaza de la Constitucion in 1879 after Reconstruction ended, pretty steadily.

But that doesn't explain why they really exploded only in the 1890s into the 1920s. That would be like Vietnam memorials really taking off today. Additionally, the monuments of that generation had less and less to do with the soldiers, and were more about celebrating the Confederacy, its generals and statesmen, and abstract ideas like our "Women of the Southern Confederacy" monument.

It's the same time frame that Jim Crow led to the "nadir of American race relations", and white Southerners finally cut down the last vestiges of the gains of Reconstruction. Locally, this is when the Old City Cemetery plots and grandstand were built, Confederate Park was renamed, the Jacksonville's Women of the Southern Confederacy was erected, and the namings of Kirby-Smith and Robert E. Lee schools took place. It's also when Palatka got a Confederate monument and the Olustee battlefield was preserved and marked with a large Confederate monument, and no Union markers. After this period, there were few notable local Confederate memorials until the 1950s, the Civil Rights era.

Quote from: Jim on August 24, 2017, 03:00:47 PM

Quote from: spuwho on August 24, 2017, 12:03:10 PM
I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

I'm pretty certain it had far more to do with Plessy vs Ferguson in 1896 along with hundreds of states and local laws that were racially repressive during the next 2 decades than an economic crash in 1893.

I never expected my brief research to be exhaustive by any means.

I wanted to see what was happening in the general life and culture that would lead to so much monument building.

True the Civil War impacted every state, but what drove it to happen some 20 years after?

It was a pov I hadnt heard much on and so I was checking it out.

QuoteAfter the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

The description ignores/radically minimizes the racial reality of what was happening across the south during the 1890s.  It glazes over the increase in lynchings, poll taxes, literacy requirements and other vesitages of the lily-white movement. It's romantizing history in a manner that's very similar to how the "Lost Cause" minimizes the role of slavery and racial oppression.  No way around it, this era can't be sugar coated.

Quote from: thelakelander on August 25, 2017, 06:13:31 AM

QuoteAfter the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

The description ignores/radically minimizes the racial reality of what was happening across the south during the 1890s.  It glazes over the increase in lynchings, poll taxes, literacy requirements and other vesitages of the lily-white movement. It's romantizing history in a manner that's very similar to how the "Lost Cause" minimizes the role of slavery and racial oppression.  No way around it, this era can't be sugar coated.

As I said earlier, it was not meant to be exhaustive, just a snapshot of what was happening at the time. Just another POV not a sugar coating.

Things happening in one space does not negate actions in the others. It is additive.

Totally understandable. I was just pointing out it's not really applicable to what was taking place in Jax at the time, based on detailed historical information on our history from multiple reliable sources.

Quote from: spuwho on August 24, 2017, 11:11:31 PM

Quote from: Jim on August 24, 2017, 03:00:47 PM

Quote from: spuwho on August 24, 2017, 12:03:10 PM
I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

I'm pretty certain it had far more to do with Plessy vs Ferguson in 1896 along with hundreds of states and local laws that were racially repressive during the next 2 decades than an economic crash in 1893.

I never expected my brief research to be exhaustive by any means.

I wanted to see what was happening in the general life and culture that would lead to so much monument building.

True the Civil War impacted every state, but what drove it to happen some 20 years after?

It was a pov I hadnt heard much on and so I was checking it out.

The answers you seek are right here in this thread.  Jim Crow laws.  Go research that.  We are talking about hundreds of local and state laws that  decimated the rights of blacks in the south.   

Quote from: Tacachale on August 24, 2017, 05:27:08 PMMore than anything, the Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen until that time, and both sides were Americans.

No to take away from the main point of your post but this is grossly inaccurate.  The Civil War might not even make it to the top 20 at that point.  Bloodiest for the US population only?  Sure, but world?  The Taiping Civil War (fought almost at the same time as ours) claimed between 30 and 100 million lives.  Ours? Less than 1 million.  And don't ask Native Americans about casualties. 50 - 100 million there as well.

Jim Crow laws didnt build monuments.

Quote from: Tacachale on August 24, 2017, 05:27:08 PMMore than anything, the Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen until that time, and both sides were Americans.

No to take away from the main point of your post but this is grossly inaccurate.  The Civil War might not even make it to the top 20 at that point.  Bloodiest for the US population only?  Sure, but world?  The Taiping Civil War (fought almost at the same time as ours) claimed between 30 and 100 million lives.  Ours? Less than 1 million.  And don't ask Native Americans about casualties. 50 - 100 million there as well.
[/quote]

You misread my comment: I said "loss of American life". It was by far our worst conflict in terms of losses. I did say it was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen up to that point, which depending what you count, it was.

Quote from: spuwho on August 25, 2017, 10:58:00 AM
Jim Crow laws didnt build monuments.

Neither did an economic downturn in 1893.

But if you to want to talk contributing factors, I don't advise arguing against every credible report on the subject ever written.

Quote from: Jim on August 25, 2017, 11:43:09 AM

Quote from: spuwho on August 25, 2017, 10:58:00 AM
Jim Crow laws didnt build monuments.

Neither did an economic downturn in 1893.

But if you to want to talk contributing factors, I don't advise arguing against every credit report on the subject ever written.

Non sequitor.

Sure, laws that marginalize the majority of the local population's ability to participate in political decisions can lead to certain types of monuments being built. You simply have a cause (Jim Crow laws) creating a situation that leads to several different reactions (monuments/commemorations added from a viewpoint based upon those in charge of the political structure).

An example would be Santo Domingo. It's been around since the 15th century. When Rafael Trujillo took over, he renamed it Ciudad Trujillo, to honor himself and built a lot of monuments and structures to himself.  After his assassination in 1961, the place rightfully was renamed Santo Domingo. In this case, laws marginalizing the population didn't rename the city. The dictator in control of the Dominican Republic did.

For a bit of context as to what was going on in Jacksonville at the time, African-Americans were relatively well represented in local government in 1887, 10 years after Reconstruction ended. When LaVilla was an independent city, it always had sizable (though not proportionate) African-American representatives. When Jax annexed LaVilla and other suburbs later that year, it led to a contentious election. Black and white Republicans were able to form a successful ticket with the Knights of Labor and cleaned up in the elections in both 1887 and 1888; Mayor C.B. Smith became the last Republican elected until 1995, and there were multiple African-Americans in City Council, as well as appointed positions, including policemen.

That was troubling to the white Democrats and the Democratic-controlled state government. The post-Reconstruction constitution of 1885 authorized the state to intercede in local government. After Jacksonville's Republican government thoroughly botched the response to a yellow fever outbreak in 1888, the state government stepped in with a bunch of measures to keep the elected officials out.

First, the state instituted prohibitively high surety bonds for elected officials, which none of the black representatives could afford. With them frozen out, the state installed new representatives more to its liking. Then, the state dissolved the city charter and replaced home rule with a system in which the City Council would be appointed by the governor. This government then passed a number of other disenfranchising laws targeting African-Americans. By the time home rule was restored in 1893, African-American influence in the government had been greatly reduced.

It was after that point that the white Democratic government started allowing Confederate monuments.

Damn....

Interesting quotes from the paper "Learning How to Jim Crow: Jacksonville, Florida's White Progressives, 1887–1892" by Jay Driskell:

Quote
The discussion of the bill [to remove home rule] in the state legislature reveals the clear connections that Jacksonville's white progressives made between disease, development and disfranchisement. In the House debate, Representative Frank Clark of Polk County, defended the bill declaring it was necessary to free Jacksonville, "that great city on the St. Johns, the metropolis of the State, from an incubus that has oppressed her people and paralyzed her interests for years."lviii Clark's choice of the word "incubus" (a mythical male demon that preys sexually on sleeping women) could easily have described the specter of black political power as much as the recurrent threat of yellow fever. In the minds of his listeners, it likely evoked both. Meanwhile back in Jacksonville, the Florida Times-Union urged passage of the bill as a "wise and righteous measure," arguing that few "men of capital would lend a half a million or more ... dollars to any city subjected to the miserable ward system" of government.lix The Times-Union expressed concern that any funds raised ought to be under the firm control of "men chosen for their preeminent fitness alone without regard to partisan influences." lx The racial subtext here was quite clear. The day before the bill was up for a vote in the state house of representatives, the paper declared that "under the present charter, there is no hope of electing honest, capable, faithful officials. An experience of two years has demonstrated this fact."lxi [The Republican government had badly mismanaged the yellow fever epidemic.] So long as there was the possibility that black men would have any influence over the dispensation of the "half million or more" dollars needed to modernize the city's sewer system, fears of Jacksonville's black majority would continue to trump the terrors of yellow fever. When the bill stalled in the state senate, the Times-Union demanded to know: "Shall the negro rule or shall the white man rule?"lxii

On Monday morning, 8 April 1889, the Florida House passed without amendment, House Bill No. 4 on a vote of 55 to 7.lxiii Once it became clear that the bill would soon be law, the racial subtext became even more explicit in letters to the Times-Union. "Five Ladies of Jacksonville" applauded the return of "decent government," recounting their experiences of being "elbowed off the sidewalk by negroes walking three abreast, and defiantly refusing to give an inch of the way." Another correspondent related how he had witnessed a seventy year-old lady elbowed off the sidewalk by "three negro women ... Do you suppose," he asked, "if our day police force was not made up entirely of colored men, such astounding indecency would be permitted?" Yet a third letter writer described his hesitation at chastising a black paper boy for insolence due to the presence of a "colored policeman."lxiv Though white Jacksonvillians certainly welcomed the promise of a healthier city, they also looked forward toward an urban future in which white supremacy was secure.

http://www.jaydriskell.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2013-AHA-Learning-How-to-Jim-Crow-Driskell.pdf

Charleston's proposal to address on of their Confederate memorials. This plan would add a plaque to a monument memorializing the context of the environment surrounding its installation:

http://abcnews4.com/news/local/city-takes-first-look-at-plaque-that-would-add-slavery-context-to-john-c-calhoun-statue

Quote"This statue to John C. Calhoun (1782 - 1850) is a relic of the crime against humanity, the folly of some political leaders and the plaque of racism. It remains standing today as a grave reminder that many South Carolinians once viewed Calhoun as worthy of memorialization even though his political career was defined by his support of race-based slavery. Historic preservation, to which Charleston is dedicated, includes this monument as a lesson to future generations.

It was erected in 1896, replacing an earlier monument begun in 1858, three years before the Civil War (1861 - 1865). Calhoun served as Vice President of the United States under two Presidents, as U. S. Secretary of War, as U.S. Secretary of State, as a U.S. Senator and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. A brilliant political theorist, he was the author of two important works on the U.S. Constitution and the Federal Government.

A member of the Senate's "Great Triumvirate" that included Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Henry Clay of Kentucky, Calhoun championed state's rights and nullification, the right of an individual state to disobey/ignore a Federal law with which it did not agree. Unlike many of the founding fathers who viewed the enslavement of Africans as "a necessary evil" to possibly be overcome, Calhoun believed/advocated the institution of slavery as "a positive good."

The monument was erected at a time when many South Carolinians still saw the Confederacy a noble experiment based on its commitment to slavery. They believed in white supremacy and enacted decisive legislation legalizing racial segregation, ideas now condemned by all and universally recognized as repugnant to the United States of America's core ideals and values."

Would something like this work for Jax?

Yes.

^I think it could work. It's also something that's relatively easily achievable. However, I expect that a lot of the people most active in the removal effort would not find it sufficient (and the "leave 'em up" folks would hate it).

a great solution and well-worded plaque.

what's brilliant about such plaques is that one can only object to the verbiage if you are an ignorant racist.  Look forward to ridiculing the morons who do

Quote from: Tacachale on November 08, 2017, 01:14:29 PM
^I think it could work. It's also something that's relatively easily achievable. However, I expect that a lot of the people most active in the removal effort would not find it sufficient (and the "leave 'em up" folks would hate it).

I'm in the "leave 'em up" camp and think this would be great. I suggested a similar a solution during the more heated debates in other threads a few months ago, yet was branded a racist and confederate sympathizer.  ::)

I think added context like this would be best because it would tell the historical timeline of these monuments.