With the first two of nine victims of the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting laid to rest and the Confederate flag coming under fire, one man weighs in on the subject.
Kenneth Wallace, the Minden chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, says the Confederate soldier statue at
Jacquelyn Park in Minden should have come down a long time ago.
“I’ve advocated for years personally against the Confederate flag,” he said. “It’s offensive to me because of the reasons it was founded on. It’s offensive because of what my ancestors went through. It’s a misrepresentation, and it’s really sad to me that it takes the deaths of nine people to really start looking into that.”
Nine people were gunned down in a black church in a Bible study in Charleston, and Dylann Roof reportedly confessed to the murders.
He called the shooting in Charleston senseless and says the behavior that led to these deaths is learned.
“(Dylann) Roof’s behavior is learned,” he said. “That type of stuff is learned, and I remember reading when John F. Kennedy was assassinated and (Dr.) Martin Luther King Jr. says a culture of hate created this, and this is similar. It’s a climate of hate.”
He says Roof admitted that reading about the ideology and it’s the same ideology based on the Confederate Flag.
“It’s like a swastika,” he said. “You’d never have that on a license plate or a flag. This individual had taken on that ideology of white supremacy, and it’s really sad.”
He talked about Alexander Stephen’s Cornerstone Speech, an impromptu speech delivered in Savannah, Georgia, in 1861. Stephens was elected the vice-president of the Confederacy during the time President Abraham Lincoln refused to recognize the South’s secession. Stephens argued in the speech that the cornerstone of southern greatness lay in slavery and white supremacy.
“You have this Confederate memorial and you have this World War II veteran, and it’s a misrepresentation to me when you can’t honor this man,” he said.
He spoke of John C. Jones, a black World War II veteran, an Army corporal and veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. Jones and Albert Harris, were victims of a lynching in the 1940s in Minden.
The statue was erected in January 1933 in memory of the Confederate States Army from 1861-1865.
“The statue was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy of Minden and was dedicated on Lee-Jackson Day in January 1933,” according to the United Daughters of the Confederacy. “It was to honor the Confederate soldiers and was unveiled by Alberta Glass, Minden’s last surviving Confederate veteran.”
As for the Confederate flag? Wallace says he understands it’s a part of history, but like others, he believes it belongs in a museum.
11 comments
Kenneth Wallace is nothing but a racist of the highest form. Keep your sorry ass out of my neighborhood.
Geez..I guess taking this down destroying the glad is going to end all hate and racism right??? How about people just be kind to other people regardless of their race or heritage taking cultures away will not stop this people will wake up and get a clue people! !!
Most people that pass by the statue in question think it is that of a soldier from years gone by. It being a Confederate memorial isn’t very obvious unless you get up close enough to read the writing engraved on the statue’s base. There are many things in history that might be offensive to some but what about the majority? Why do the PC police get to decide what is ok and what must be sequestered to a dark dusty museum? This assault on a symbol of Southern Heritage has nothing to do with hate and slavery–but is part of the well orchestrated efforts to “fundamentally transform” our nation. Get over it NAACP! The war between the states wasn’t about SLAVERY, as many uninformed want you to believe.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~ George Orwell
Our history is just that..”history” we should embrace and emphasize it so the coming of age children have a chance to avoid making the same mistakes, if everyone wasmore concerned with truly caring and helping others who are trying to better themselves and our world we would waste less time and energy on things that should be left as they are. At some point in the future when an area has a large popluation of japanese
Well if they gonna do that then let’s take down all the Martin Luther King stuff and the Malcom x stuff and any thing else that has to do with their so called heritage. The flag doesn’t represent any thing other than the southern states but it is being made out to be a symbol of hate for the few idiots in thus world who have used it for personal gain. It is a shame that people are trying to take away from history.
Wasn’t that statue like the only thing standing after the big Tornado that Minden experienced way back when. I think the statue’s nose was broken from that storm.
NO THE CONFERATE STATUE SHOULD NOT COME DOWN.
. Why can’t all you people understand that the statue stands for more than just a war. It stands for all the loved ones lost during this horrible time. It stands for a true patriot for the south and this part of the country. There were many whites and many black people that did and still do love the south. Its our heritage. Its our land and it is a way of the south that no northern person could possibly understand. there were many black people that fought to preserve the beautiful, friendly, kind, and gentel way of life so many years ago and even today. That statue did not then nor today stand for slavery. The south may have lost a war but it was not fought for the obolishment of slavery, it was fought over money. the north was so envious of the south, the beauty of the land, the hard working people, dedicated people both black and white that all they wanted was to destroy what they didn’t have. I honor the south, my heritage, the confederate flag, all the people who lost their lives but I have never approved of slavery in any form or fashion. Had it not been for the land owners who provided homes and food and education to the ones working the farms, there would still be many uneducated people walking around in the united states. So don’t stomp on my heritage, my southern flag or the statues that remind us each day that freedom doesn’t come cheap. there is always a price to pay. NAACP, go find something else to do with your time. Why don’t you do something to help the young black people and the sr black people to have educations and food on their tables and teach them to be proud they are from the south. I read a book once call “Unknown Facts of the Civil War”. In this book it told how President Lincoln’s father in law continued to own slaves on his northern plantation for 7 years after the civil war ended. Wish I had kept that book. just food for thought. don’t know if its true, just read it in a book. Guess I will get a lot of hate mail for this but I’m old and I don’t care.
NO THE CONFERATE STATUE SHOULD NOT COME DOWN.
. Why can’t all you people understand that the statue stands for more than just a war. It stands for all the loved ones lost during this horrible time. It stands for a true patriot for the south and this part of the country. There were many whites and many black people that did and still do love the south. Its our heritage. Its our land and it is a way of the south that no northern person could possibly understand. there were many black people that fought to preserve the beautiful, friendly, kind, and gentel way of life so many years ago and even today. That statue did not then nor today stand for slavery. The south may have lost a war but it was not fought for the obolishment of slavery, it was fought over money. the north was so envious of the south, the beauty of the land, the hard working people, dedicated people both black and white that all they wanted was to destroy what they didn’t have. I honor the south, my heritage, the confederate flag, all the people who lost their lives but I have never approved of slavery in any form or fashion. Had it not been for the land owners who provided homes and food and education to the ones working the farms, there would still be many uneducated people walking around in the united states. So don’t stomp on my heritage, my southern flag or the statues that remind us each day that freedom doesn’t come cheap. there is always a price to pay. NAACP, go find something else to do with your time. Why don’t you do something to help the young black people and the sr black people to have educations and food on their tables and teach them to be proud they are from the south. I read a book once call “Unknown Facts of the Civil War”. In this book it told how President Lincoln’s father in law continued to own slaves on his northern plantation for 7 years after the civil war ended. Wish I had kept that book. just food for thought. don’t know if its true, just read it in a book. Guess I will get a lot of hate mail for this but I’m old and I don’t care.
Let’s drape a skirt around it with a rainbow flag.
Keep the statue! This monument does not glorify slavery. It honors the soldiers who fought for an independent South.
Slavery was an institution of the United States. Slavery was wrong then and It is wrong today. We should concentrate efforts on ending present day slavery.
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