Let’s speak plainly about the Confederate States of America: It was a terrorist nation, using widespread violence for political ends, to maintain the enslavement of a huge number of people. Slaves were regularly and systematically whipped and beaten, and even killed, in order to prevent African-Americans from organizing to obtain equal legal rights. The Confederacy approved of this violence, and even encouraged it.
Roland Martin was right when he wrote, “If your great-great-great-granddaddy was a Confederate who stood up for Southern ideals, he too was a terrorist… I will never, under any circumstances, cast Confederates as heroic figures who should be honored and revered. No – they were, and forever will be, domestic terrorists.”
When Southern Republicans say that they oppose terrorism, but then say that they want to keep memorials celebrating the Confederacy in place, they’re being hypocrites. Among these hypocrites is Republican Louisiana State Senator Beth Mizell, who sponsored legislation designed to create a commission with the power to prevent local Louisiana governments from removing Confederate memorials that they consider offensive.
Yesterday, every single Republican member of Louisiana’s Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to move her pro-Confederate legislation forward. Luckily, there were also 5 Democrats on the committee, who all voted to block the legislation.
Republican Former State Senator Elbert Lee Guillory helped organize support for Mizell’s bill, saying that without monuments celebrating Confederate leaders who organized terrorist violence against African-American slaves, his children and grandchildren could not “have full access to history”.
Isn’t it more important for Americans to remember that the Confederacy shamefully denied African-Americans access to life and liberty?
