Three years ago a history conference was held in Richmond. It was a panel discussion about how to interpret the war at your institution during the sesquicentennial. The first panelist was a sociologist who had created a survey with the question, what caused the Civil War? He asked a number of White people and they said, States Rights. He asked the same number of Blacks and most said States Rights. With that he declared that clearly the black people were just as stupid as the Whites. At the end of the session, a person from the audience asked this question, “If the War was about one cause which was slavery, then how can we explain this to people?” A historian on the panel said, “People need to leave their ancestors at the door!” This comment was not directed at Northerners, but Southerners. I was very upset by this comment. I wrote a speech explaining why we cannot leave our ancestors at the door. We must continue to remember and honor these men and women.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 05:45:31 +0000
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