A ‘part of our history’ or a ‘slap in the face’?
after dark.
In 2013, word spread that Granvel Block, then Texas division commander for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, had quietly bought a small plot of land near Interstate 10 for less than $10,000 and acquired a city building permit to construct a Civil War monument. The local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and several residents attended a City Council meeting to oppose the project.
The monument also sparked an online petition and an editorial from a local newspaper, the Beaumont Enterprise: “The last thing Southeast Texas needs is a large memorial to the Confederacy,” it said. “Simply put, it would be divisive and offensive.”
Still, when the newspaper conducted an online poll asking, “Do you want a Confederate monument here?” more than 70% of respondents clicked “Yes. The Confederate Army and Civil War are part of our history.”
Block responded by publishing a lengthy “Call to Arms” on his group’s Facebook page.
“If we do not stand up when our ancestors are being attacked and break the stigma that our opponents attempt to attach to anything Confederate, we run the risk of everything Confederate as we know it, being condemned and exterminated,” he wrote. “These new Confederate memorials will be the turning point, and will open the doors and dialog for an accurate account of history to be taught.”
Rather than just follow the “easy path” of honoring ancestors “in the ways which are acceptable,” he argued, the group should focus on challenging the idea that the war was fought over slavery.
Yet in a sign of how controversial the monument has become, Block now declines to meet with reporters or speak on the record for fear of upsetting his wife.
In a telephone interview, Van Slyke, the local brigade commander, said that although slavery “may” have been a “small part” of the war, it was pretty far down the list.
Karen L. Cox, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that those putting up new monuments to the Confederacy represented a minority point of view.
“They continue to believe in the sort of version of history that mythologizes the Confederacy and its heroes, but it’s so obvious it’s disingenuous,” she said. “They’re not honoring history; they’re commemorating the principles and objectives of the war.”
While Orange city officials decided they could not legally stop the monument there, they sought to limit its impact by regulating the size of the Confederate flags and placing restrictions on parking. In 2013, the council passed an ordinance to limit flagpoles to 35 feet tall and ban any flags larger than 4 by 6.
While many people prefer not to talk about the monument, defenders aren’t hard to come by.
John Broussard, 54, an industrial electrician, and John Shaver, 33, a millwright machinist — both white — said those who criticized the monument, and its position near a street named after a slain civil rights icon, didn’t understand it.
“I don’t think it’s intended to be malicious to any race,” Shaver said. “A Confederate memorial on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive could bring the community and two racial groups together. Being a Confederate monument, the first thing that pops up in your mind is segregation and slavery, but it isn’t about that.”
Nathaniel Colbert, 68, an African American and retired plant operator who lives on the other side of the interstate less than a mile away, believes the monument was a deliberate insult.
At first, Colbert said, it really bothered him to drive by the memorial. Now he just whizzes on by in his pickup truck, barely noticing it.
“It’s an affront, but I’ve dealt with ignorance most of my life,” he said. “Right now, it’s just the beat of the drum.”
‘They’re not honoring history; they’re commemorating the principles and objectives of the war.’ —Karen L. Cox, UNC Charlotte professor