Stop Embarrassing S.C.
As if Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott aren’t embarrassing enough, South Carolina seems to continuously experience epic fails and embarrassment during this political reality show – season 1. If you don’t believe me just check out this clip of one of our beloved Republican Senators getting dissed on the world’s stage:
Well, two of South Carolina’s State Senators are determined to carry on the legacy of continuing to embarrass the good ole citizens of South Carolina buy hanging and clinging on for dear life, to the sad memories of the Confederacy. But this time there’s a twist; instead of another General Lee statue or another remnant of one of their confederate ancestors, Bill Chumley, R-Woodruff, and Mike Burns, R-Taylors have decided to sponsor a bill would honor African Americans who served in the Confederate army.
The Confederate Agenda
Yes, to further justify this Confederate agenda, they will now use the legacy of slaves who fought for the confederacy during the Civil War, and design an African American Confederate Veteran monument. Along with creating a monument, they also plan to devise an agenda to promote this piece of history inside South Carolina class rooms.
Chumley, a supporter of the confederate flag, believes the flag is an important aspect of history. He also admits that they realized they didn’t know much about these black soldiers and called these slaves the, “forgotten heroes”. The bill they proposed states,
“While there is representation of those African Americans from South Carolina who took up arms for the Union, there is nothing to show the contributions, sacrifices and honor of their Confederate counterparts.”
A False Narrative
These senators’ real reason for pitching an African American Confederate monument may have an underlying agenda, according to critics. Some who do not support this bill believe that this is a slick way of being able to argue the importance of the Confederate flag. The Senators have denied that this is tied to a plan to bring back the Confederate Flag to our State House. However, the real concern is that these Senators may not have an understanding regarding the real reason many African American fought for the confederacy during the Civil War. In order to tell the real story of these African Americans, one would need to research the varying elements involved in deciding to have blacks participate in a war that would have been a catalyst of keeping them enslaved.
Cover of Harper’s Weekly May 10, 1862
The Root covered this conversation back in 2015. There are many researchers who disagree that these black soldiers were in support of fighting for the continued practice of slavery. Actually, many of these men were given promises of freedom if they fought for the south. Also, according to The Root, many of the slaves involved in the war were really there to do the dirty work and manual labor that white soldiers did not want to do. The article stated that these African American soldiers were, “laborers, servants and teamsters. They built roads, batteries and fortifications; manned munitions factories—essentially did the Confederacy’s dirty work.”
Basically, these senators are trying to rewrite history by convincing Citizens that black soldiers were in support of a war that would continue to hold them and their descendants as slaves. These Senators are on the verge of presenting a false narrative that African American soldiers were in support of slavery, and fought equally beside their white brethren – we know that’s BS!
The Root article also says that the term ‘Black Confederate’ according to many historians, “betrays a pattern of distortion, deception, and deceit in the use of evidence. The very term Black Confederate is “meaningless,” “a fiction,” “a myth,” utter “nonsense.”
With almost every Civil War historian disputing the fact that there were thousands of blacks fighting for and in support of the South, it would be a huge error in judgment and a total and complete insult to these black men and their descendants to erect an African American Confederate monument.
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