this is a six pounder model, my brother and i ve built this, we looked it over and he said, yeah, i can make those so that s first what we thought, why not? , that was a hot day. when you re out there and you re in your uniform and you see the flags, is there a connection to the past? is that what hinges yes, there is a connection to the past. yes. if you re interested in history, it s ten time better than reading about it in the book. so, i guess it gives you a greater appreciation of your forebears and the suffering they went through. is that appreciate dampened at all for you by the fact that they were fighting for the cause of the slavery states? have to get into the mind of what the 19th century mind. or get into the 18th century mind. it is pretty hard to do. you have to do a lot of reading. the library is full of reading about why people decided that it was worth fighting and dying to own people and send people. i don t
the idea that these are men of their time. certainly that they were men of their time, but that it s exactly what we, say that we forget? they re having this conversation is kind of weird with people who are able, somehow, to separate, you know, african slavery and the inferiority of black people. let s, say they are great guys who had a lot of accomplishments. that s hard to square. can you imagine this filled with people and tear gas, police on horseback s, baton beaten bloody out here? but this is stone cold history. alabama play such a crucial role in some of the most infamous periods of violence, right?
war. and the nation and denial. halted by and fiddler passed and the stories it refuses to tell. from flags and monuments in the town square, to cemeteries. we, the living, continue to grapple with how to confront this singular event of national trauma and the horrific system of slavery and its roots. and will continue doing that, during this reckoning in america. it s what s compelled me to explore how contested and personal this event remains. and in the months after george floyd was killed by minneapolis police, many monuments were taken down in the united states. that is also what happened in 2017, after heather was murdered in charlottesville, virginia. while protesting a white supremacist demonstration. 30 confederate monuments came down that year. that s the year i began studying our country s stone ghosts. what it means to people who built them, and what it means to people who tore them down.
history and a lot of respect. but they let that country in the position that he was appointed to. not one that he wanted. since we re dealing with the facts who do a lot of jefferson davis is that he supported the expansions of slavery even before the civil war before he came the president of the confederacy. he did believe that black people were inferior to white people. in your mind, does that tarnish his legacy at all? what bothers me the most is exactly what you just said. the statements he made and reference to the slaves were his own feelings about their status. and i cannot say that i support that. but, again, it s the link the perspective of the time in the place that he lived. it is not the most favorable aspect. but it is part of his character and we have to understand that. i have to wonder, are you welcomed in those groups that are so staunchly pro confederate? they don t want to see anything happen to any statues, they don t to see anymore plaques, are you welcomed i
but their support in defense of robert e. lee and the rest? well, they aren t the ones that started it. defending it, yes, i can understand that. but they are not the ones who started it. had the people not wanted to tear down a beautiful monument, it would ve not happened. perhaps they should be moved to somewhere where they can be respected, not in a place of public display where it s doing nothing but sending us a certain kind of message. i totally disagree with you. it happened right here, we commemorate it right here. what do you think of jefferson davis? he is my personal hero. i think he is one of the greatest men in american history. what about him, obviously, being someone who supported slavery? should that diminish or tarnish his legacy? no, because he was not the only one. i think growing up in this community seven miles from briers feel, going to a school named jefferson davis, they can destroy what they can, but they can never destroy the legacy of the man.