Confederate legacy Robert E Lee encourages racist legacy of US push name | Race Issues News

While he continues to fight over the racial relations and symbols that the United States worships Confederates Those who fought to perpetuate slavery in the 1860s are exploring new perspectives for communities across the country to remember one of the most famous leaders of the rebellion: General Robert E Lee.

To date, scores the name of Lee bears the names of buildings, roads, monuments and institutions. Thousands of children are educated in schools named after Lee; “Robert E Lee Day” is still celebrated in January in a few states, and the appearance of the late general appears on dozens of monuments and memorials in the city.

Lee, a decorated Virginia military officer who fought for the U.S. before the Civil War and married George Washington’s family, was responsible for some of the Confederate’s most important victories in the fight to protect slavery.

For some, Lee was originally a man who maintained loyalty to his state in Virginia; to others, the decision to fight the federal government in an attempt to break the U.S. turned him into a traitor.

But some are thinking of continuing their adherence to Lee or changing the way they approach the man who bequeaths Americans to this day.

“What’s happening in our communities is a decision that must be made by people who have long since died, rather than us today,” said historian Adam Domby and author of The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory. Al Jazeera. “There is a difference between knowing the Civil War and celebrating the Confederacy, and I think that’s the crucial distinction we need to make.”

In June, many institutions agreed to rethink Lee’s view or completely abandon his name: Lee’s first home, near Washington, reopened to DC for the public, after a years-long renovation, a view of his life. to emphasize. Black slaves; A Florida school named after Lee dropped her name; The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, voted to remove its state from public lands; the Virginia Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments to remove the state in Richmond; and a university that bears Lee’s name dealt with a heated debate over whether or not to keep the same name.

“Lee has always had a special place in the national imagination,” said Eric Foner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the Civil War. he wrote In The New York Times. “The ups and downs of its popularity reflect changes in key elements of American historical consciousness – how we understand racial relations, the causes and consequences of the Civil War, and the nature of a good society.”

Lee’s legacies XX. It underwent rehabilitation in the first half of the century. They celebrated in brilliant biographies, remembered as an institutional name and remembered as a southern hero in public bronze and stone showcases. In 1975, members of the U.S. Congress, including now President Joe Biden, regained their citizenship after Lee’s American citizenship.

But in recent years, as Americans have begun to recalibrate their relationship with flawed men in history, the image of Lee has fallen.

“It’s hard to set a blanket rule, but Lee’s worship seems increasingly inappropriate now,” Foner told Al Jazeera.

In Jacksonville, Florida, a district school board with several schools named after Confederate icons changed its name last week. Lee, which opened in 1928 as a segregated institution, changed its name to Riverside High School.

The decision came after five tough school boards that filled the discussion hours. Many neighbors spoke out in defense of saving the school’s name. A general confederate also appears as a sports pet, a survey (PDF) found that 59% of the residents of the community attached to the school agreed to the change.

Virginia struggles with Lee’s legacy

Although estimates of Lee’s estate are from many states, the debate has been particularly intense in Virginia, where he was born.

In Charlottesville, where the white supremacists march In 2017, the city council on Monday voted to remove Lee’s statue from a local park and remove another statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson from the area. City council members first proposed the removal of the state in 2016, which led to years of public debate, legal challenges and demonstrations for and against the removal.

“We hope to transform our downtown parks by removing those racist symbols of Charlottesville’s past,” the council said in a statement.

In the city of Richmond (Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy), the 13-tonne Lee statue has served as a lightning rod against the controversy surrounding a horse for years, but served as a symbol of the debate when protests erupted around the world in 2020. George Floyd.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam last year call for the removal of the statue, which is now 18 feet high on a base covered with graffiti. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week.

The University of Washington and Lee, the University of Lexington, Virginia, where Lee was once president, canceled calls this week to remove Lee from the school, but agreed to take steps to make changes to the institution. After months of discussion and more than 15,000 comments submitted to the university management, the school finally made the decision.

“Although we heard extensive support on the campus for its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, we found no consensus on whether changing the name of our university is in line with shared values,” the university concluded.

The letter apologized for “worship of the past confederation” and the use of slaves. The university diploma with Lee’s image will be updated without his appearance and the campus chapel that bears his name will be renamed the “University Chapel”. The school also pledged to stop the “founders’ day ”celebration held on Lee’s birthday.

After years of renovation work, Lee’s home in Arlington, Virginia, reopened to the public in June, but made major changes to its historic buildings and interpretive signs. The mansion, located in Arlington National Cemetery, received a $ 12 million renovation that raises the stories of black slaves who now live on the property.

Arlington House, The Robert E Lee Memorial, formerly known as the Custis-Lee Mansion, as seen from the flower garden, has been reopening publicly since 2018 at Arlington National Cemetery on June 8, 2021 in Arlington, Virginia. [Andrew Harnik/AP Photo]

The historic bookstore that once stood in the slave quarters was not a space that was moved to a building to tell the story of plantation slaves.

“That was one of the main goals of this project. To raise the story of the slave and slave community at Arlington House, ”Aaron LaRocca, a National Park guard, told Al Jazeera.“ We attach importance to these stories. We are putting it in the foreground. “