The Mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney, has started the process of possibly removing the Confederate statues from Monument Avenue in RIchmond. One of those is of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, probably the most effective of the generals under Robert E. Lee (and whose death in a shooting by his own troops at Chancellorsville probably doomed Lee’s 2nd effort to move North which was stopped at Gettysburg).
In response, there is a response at Slate titled The Monuments Must Go, written by Jack and Warren Christian, great-great-grandsons of Jackson. The piece is subtitled “An open letter from the great, great grandsons of Stonewall Jackson.”
It is well worth the read.
Allow me to offer a few snips from it.
Here are the first two paragraphs:
We are native Richmonders and also the great, great grandsons of Stonewall Jackson. As two of the closest living relatives to Stonewall, we are writing today to ask for the removal of his statue, as well as the removal of all Confederate statues from Monument Avenue. They are overt symbols of racism and white supremacy, and the time is long overdue for them to depart from public display. Overnight, Baltimore has seen fit to take this action. Richmond should, too.
In making this request, we wish to express our respect and admiration for Mayor Stoney’s leadership while also strongly disagreeing with his claim that “removal of symbols does [nothing] for telling the actual truth [nor] changes the state and culture of racism in this country today.” In our view, the removal of the Jackson statue and others will necessarily further difficult conversations about racial justice. It will begin to tell the truth of us all coming to our senses.
They note the Jackson statue faces North (as if to oppose the forces of the Union that came from there).
They note that Jackson was reluctant to fight and taught Sunday School to slaves and was clearly loving to his family, but go on to say
But we cannot ignore his decision to own slaves, his decision to go to war for the Confederacy, and, ultimately, the fact that he was a white man fighting on the side of white supremacy.
While we are not ashamed of our great great grandfather, we are ashamed to benefit from white supremacy while our black family and friends suffer. We are ashamed of the monument.
They tell us of jackson’s sister, who became a staunch Unionist and abolitionist and write
Though she and Stonewall were incredibly close through childhood, she never spoke to Stonewall after his decision to support the Confederacy. We choose to stand on the right side of history with Laura Jackson Arnold.
They state clearly
Confederate monuments like the Jackson statue were never intended as benign symbols. Rather, they were the clearly articulated artwork of white supremacy.
and provide historical evidence of that fact.
And then there is this paragraph:
Ongoing racial disparities in incarceration, educational attainment, police brutality, hiring practices, access to health care, and, perhaps most starkly, wealth, make it clear that these monuments do not stand somehow outside of history. Racism and white supremacy, which undoubtedly continue today, are neither natural nor inevitable. Rather, they were created in order to justify the unjustifiable, in particular slavery.
They do not claim to speak for all of Jackson’s descendants. But they note that many in their extended families have worked often as clergymen and educators seeking justice in their communities. That leads them to state
our sense of justice leads us to believe that removing the Stonewall statue and other monuments should be part of a larger project of actively mending the racial disparities that hundreds of years of white supremacy have wrought.
They hope descendants of other Confederate generals will join with them in this project.
Read the whole piece.
Pass it on.