A Son of the South Grapples With History

It is not uncommon in recent days to learn of statues that have been taken down by governmental action or sometimes from mob action.   Many of the those statues have been in the South and many of them have been images of Confederate Generals from the period of our Civil War.  Other statues have been monuments to those who fought for the Confederate Army.  There have also been discussion of the renaming of military bases which are named for Confederate generals.

In other instances, statues have come under attack because the principal of the statue had been an owner of slaves.  There have been changes of school names, street names and building names because the namesake of those buildings has been found in disfavor.

I am a born and bread Southerner, a native Georgian and have never lived anywhere else.  I am a graduate of my home state's University, the University of Georgia, which by the way is the oldest chartered state university in our nation.  I love grits.  I wear seersucker.  I say y'all.  I was a college frat boy and still am at heart at times.  I believe there are five seasons, winter, spring, summer, fall and college football. When one says "barbecue" I think of  pulled pork and not a way of cooking. When I want to listen to "beach music" I think of "Under the Boardwalk" and not "Surf City." I check many of the boxes for what constitutes a stereotypical middle aged white southern male.

The current controversies have led me to again explore my Confederate roots.  I have known for many years that my Great-Great Grandfather, John Thomas Brown, served in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as a Captain in the Quartermaster Corps.  I also knew that one of his sons, Tom, a private in the Confederate army, died at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Yet, the question I had never bothered to ask was a simple one---were my Confederate fore bearers the owner of slaves?  To be perfectly honest I had always assumed that they were not.  I have taught American History to high school students.  The history books tell that at the time of the Civil War there around 9,000,000 people living in the states of the Confederacy.  Around 3,000,000 of those were slaves.  Most white Southerners did not own slaves at the time of Civil War. That is a fact, a fact that I taught my students. Thus, based on those statistics it was easy for me to surmise that my relatives were not slave owners.

Therefore I had always made the assumption that my family had been fighting to defend their home and native state and had not necessarily been defenders of slavery.  So it was, that I held a sanitized view of my Confederate past shaped by the prism of regional and family pride.

After studying the Civil War and its causes over the years, I have drawn the conclusion that one of the greatest sales jobs that had ever been done was performed by the Southern slave owning class prior to secession.  I am of the opinion that the planter class had convinced the majority of white Southerners that their interests were aligned with the interests of the planters even though the planters in some ways stifled economic opportunity for the non-planters of the South.  I always assumed my family were among those who were convinced to fight against their own self-interests. My assumptions were wrong.

Therefore, as statues began toppling and more were being removed voluntarily I dared ask the question, "Were the Brown's slave owners?" The results showed that the census records of both 1850 and 1860 indicate that my Great-Great Grandfather was a slave owner.  Thus, my narrative was shattered.  Slavery was indeed a part of what my ancestors were fighting to defend.

Ultimately we must admit that the Civil War was fought over slavery.  All of the other causes that are sometimes given for the Civil War wouldn't have been issues at all were it not for the presence of slavery.

So it is that I am not only watching statues fall, but am also seeing my own myths shattered.

Yet, this is not a binary proposition.  The story is not as simple as me renouncing a heritage for that heritage is far more complex than the matter of slave ownership.  While slavery certainly is a stain on our  history as white Southerners and a stain on my family's history there are other qualities found in those that have gone before me that are worthy of emulation.

As I mentioned earlier Tom Brown, son of Capt. John Thomas Brown, was killed at Gettysburg.  Tom's company had sent a soldier to return with water for the unit but the soldier had not returned and the company badly needed water.

Tom volunteered to search for the missing soldier and to bring water.  He was killed in doing so.  Meanwhile, back in Georgia, Tom's mother, Capt.Brown's wife, had prepared a "care package" for Tom.  Upon learning of Tom's death and the circumstances surrounding it, she directed the package be given to the soldier who was tardy in securing the water.  Capt. Brown personally delivered the package to the soldier.

On the one hand there is the specter of slavery and all the evil it entails, while on the other hand there is a family that in their greatest despair had the character and the resolve to be magnanimous and forgiving.

In the end, my fore-bearers are like all of us.  We are all flawed masterpieces.  Masterpieces because we are created by God and as children of God there is goodness in all of us. Flawed, because we are sinners and none of us can stand unblemished before the world.  Our sin does not obliterate our goodness but our goodness cannot obliterate our sin.  In the end, we are dependent on the grace of God.

Because of stories such as the story of my family, I can't say tear down the Confederate statues and monuments.  Yet, for the same reason I also cannot say let them stand. What is apparent is that it is time we talk about a lot of things. The best approach would be to take the time to learn the intricacies of each other's stories.  In taking the time to listen to each other maybe some white Southerner might learn the story of an Italian-American in New Jersey.  Maybe a corn fed Nebraska farm boy can find something in common with a Hispanic in California.  Maybe all of us will truly learn that Black Lives Matter.

The conversations have to be sincere.  We have to truly be willing to listen.  We have to understand that the worst parts of us live in tension with the best parts of us.  We have to understand that our failures do not diminish our accomplishments.  The outcome of those conversations may not be what any of us wish them to be.  Still we have to be willing to learn.

It goes without saying that there are Confederate symbols that have been abused over the years.  Clearly during the last hundred and fifty years many of us in the South have never fully understood the meaning of those symbols and I for one, had never been concerned enough to learn why certain symbols offend some but do not offend others.  To that sin of omission, I confess.

Sometimes it takes an earth shattering event to cause us to see things differently.  The day Dylan Roof walked into Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston my view of the Confederate battle flag changed forever.  It may well be that the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery may be the moment that leads me to see the Confederate statues and monuments differently. I commit myself to the process of learning.

What I know is that now is the time for courage for all white sons and daughters of the South.  We have some hard work before us.  It takes courage to confront vestiges of our past that might challenge our preconceived notions and ideas. It takes courage to realize that not everything that was once glorified is worthy of glory.  We must be willing to face the truth.  Perhaps if the shouting can die down long enough for us to talk with our brothers and sisters, our fellow Americans, we can find our common ground and stand on that ground together.