Civil War Memorials and Race

I understand that Governor Romney probably had World War  II monuments in mind when he mentioned that the war memorials around our country make no reference to race or religion....  But I want to call your attention to the North Carolina monument at Appomattox Court House.  It's placed just about at the spot where the war ended -- at least for the people in Lee's Army.  Notice that it lists the North Carolina "White Population" and the "Military Population." (Click on the picture at right to bring up a larger and more readable version.)

But, you might say, that was all a thing of the past by Romney's lifetime.  Well ... it just so happens that I taught on Thursday -- yeah, irony of irony, isn't it -- Rice v. Sioux City Memorial Park, a case out of Iowa that denied injunctive relief to a widow of a soldier killed in Korea who wanted her husband (who was part Native American) buried in the Sioux City Memorial Park. (The Memorial Park's contract restricted burials to white people.)  But you probably think -- ah, what the heck, such un-American behavior was certainly over by the era of the Vietnam War.  And in some ways you're be right about that -- but only after there was a federal lawsuit in Birmingham.

Comments

[cm]

I understand that such a hopeful sentiment about a post racial sensibility is uplifting and perhaps Romney was speaking of World War II monuments. Still, monuments don't bring us together by evading the existence of race factors, but perhaps,by making us re-examine them. Do Tuskegee Airmen memorials mention race, or do they take it for granted that people know? Either way, don't we have to take race into account when we consider their story?

In Philadelphia, across from the Franklin Institute, you can find a 1934 monument that celebrates "the heroism and sacrifice of all Colored soldiers who served in the various wars engaged in by the United States of America..." Look at that and consider that it was not until 1948 that black and white soldiers were buried in the same sections of Arlington National Cemetery.

[Alfred Brophy]

Thanks for this, CM. I don't remember ever seeing that monument near the Franklin Institute, though I'll certainly look for it next time I'm in Philly.

[Matt]

Here's a few pictures of it:

http://dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0006568.htm

I'm sorry to say that, while I'd seen it several times (at one point I spent a lot of time at the Franklin Institute) I never looked at it closely enough to know what it was exactly. I'm glad to learn.

[Alfred Brophy]

Those are really good pictures -- I plan to take some of my own next time I'm in town. I'd love to know more about why this went up in 1934. That's about the time that the United Daughters of the Confederacy's monument to Hawyood Shepard -- a black man killed during John Brown's raid -- went up at Harper's Ferry. It's also the time that African American civil rights activism was really gaining momentum.

[JohnMickey]

Thanks for sharing such a precious knowledge about the information of North Carolina monument. I also got a useful information about civil war history from this blog.