Many statues offer lessons for current generation to heed

There are several historical markers in and around the town square of the small Southern town where I was born. Among them are a memorial to veterans of World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, another to veterans of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and a water fountain erected by the Humane Society.

In the center of the square, a granite obelisk rises perhaps 15 feet high, with verses etched on the four sides of the base. The last line of one reads, “’twas Dixie’s bonnie flag.” A few steps away, on the lawn in front of the old courthouse, facing the obelisk, stands a marker whose narration concludes with the hope that the town “never forget or repeat that horrendous day.”

That day was Oct. 21, 1916, the day Anthony Crawford, a wealthy black farmer, was lynched. Almost exactly

100 years later, on Oct. 24, 2016, the monument was dedicated to Crawford and seven other county residents who were lynched after the period known as Reconstruction, and the federal protection it offered, ended.

I remember, some years ago, attending my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in that town and pushing my daughter’s stroller around the square to where two girls, cheerleaders, were selling cups emblazoned with the name of their high school. I bought a cup and thought about telling them that they were making history, sitting there together, but it was my daughter’s nap time, and we moved on.

In fact, those two girls didn’t need me to tell them my story, that, when I was their age, over past the obelisk, near where the memorial stands today, my grandmother stopped me as I started to hand my grandfather’s campaign fliers to one group. “Don’t give one to them,” she’d said, “they don’t vote.” The girls could see the obelisk from where they were sitting. They could walk right up to it and read the history of a movement and a set of beliefs that are now, mostly, history. And today, in case they needed a more stark reminder, they could read the story of Crawford’s life and death.

I lived in that town only a few months, but if I lived there today, and the matter should ever come to a vote, I would vote to leave them up, leave them all up. The kids who now attend school together need to know it wasn’t always that way and, as a history teacher, I know lessons from teachers and textbooks are not enough.

I remember the day I was campaigning for my grandfather as if it were yesterday. But I have a hard time believing it really happened. For that, I need monuments and memorials and statues. We all do.