Not history for some

The Confederate flag was not flown over state capitols much until after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. It was a direct response to protest court-ordered desegregation, not to promote our “Southern culture.”

Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens stated that “The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions regarding our peculiar institution— African slavery as it exists amongst us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization … the negro is not equal to the white man; … slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

Texas, in its declaration of causes impelling secession, said that “the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits … should exist in all future time.”

The war was not a romantic rebellion to protect righteous and honorable fundamental beliefs. It was a rebellion to protect indefensible practices and beliefs of many people, even if they fall under the guise of “states’ rights.”

A poll in 2011 revealed that less than half the people in Mississippi and North Carolina and slightly more than half of Georgians were happy the North had won the Civil War, which seems to indicate that way over half of whites in those states would have preferred to see white domination continue in some form or the other. A 2005 poll showed that over 20 percent of people in Georgia, North Carolina and Mississippi still believe that interracial marriage should be illegal.

While a significant portion of Americans, including my own northern born and raised father, believe that Confederate monuments and symbols should be remain in prominent places as historical markers for the nation, a frightening number of other people believe that they should be left as markers to support their views of white supremacy, bigotry, hatred and violence.

JEFF BAKER Bentonville