virginia. they will talk about how these monuments influence memory of the war, and how public perception, particularly of confederate monuments, has changed. this is about 50 minutes. >> we will reconvene the panel. it has been a good day so far. what we will do is recognize you, you raise your hand, wait for the microphone. if you've got a question, it should be referred to one of the panelists, please designate that, and please try to stick to questions rather than statements. and let me start with a question that we got in virtual space. my name is mike powell. we are the largest roundtable in the u.s. i've have gone to great lengths to keep politics out of the roundtable. this topic, monuments, has elements of both history and politics. what do you think should be the role of roundtables, if any, on this issue? we thought that was a very good question. -- civil war pops buffs, who know more about the general public, what should we do about this issue? tom, i will ask you first. brown: [indiscernible] if you think that you are keeping taught six out of it, you're probably kidding yourself. of it,ing politics out you're probably kidding yourself. my device would be to try to have an environment in which you can have political discussions and recognize it is a political discussion. >> tim. no question.ore: i don't see how you can avoid politics in the war. but roundtables have a really gratifying ability -- and i'm aware of how a different perspective can be brought in a certain sense. they are really interested in history, and in some ways, you let it come out with the sharper edges of what you want to say and let the history speak for itself. >> irvin? dr. jordan: the problem with roundtables in the south is they are pro-confederacy. i was going to suggest the hisleman consider having roundtable with a free and open public debate in the area, but i can see a large segment of the local population not wanting to participate just because it would be sponsored by a civil war roundtable, and pro-confederate. -- look at about this audience. how many african-americans are in this audience? i'm always amazed at the low turnout of african-americans in civil war history roundtables in discussions like this. >> jim, you were waving your monty!"ke"pick me, it's your turn. >> i agree with urban. some people -- i agree with ervin. some people are using their superior knowledge about the civil war because they are in civil war roundtables, reenactors and all the skies of things, and using them as a against themunition 19-year-old african-american recently graduated from high school who explains why she is the lee-jackson double equestrian statue in baltimore, for example. talking past each other. on the other hand, since i just argued the truth will set you free, i think the facts about secession and the confederacy and the civil war and reconstruction and so on are absolutely useful. unfortunately, these can be heavily ideological conversations in which facts do not make much of an appearance. if you do use primary sources, you may be know what you're talking about, you know? so, in the civil war roundtables i have been in, like washington, d.c., these folks know lots of stuff and they are quite useful, important members of the conversation. >> christie? christy? coleman: i have been roundtables.veral i do agree with dr. jordan's perspective that when it comes to civil war history, african-americans, because they were taken out of the narrative at the beginning and the national narrative where freedom rightven versus earned or -- they do not engage with this of history for very real reasons. i grapple with it when i go out the role ofbout african-americans in the war. i get this awakening, right? that at the same time, there is still a hesitancy. i do think civil war roundtables in thatart of -- so, case, if you are civil war roundtable, whether you are in chicago or washington or here in , or wherever you happen to be, the key is you can decide how best to help your community look at the history. especially if you do not have a museum or historical society there to help guide the conversation. that would be my suggestion. by the way,ust say i first met dr. jordan 22 years ago as a member of the chicago they war roundtable, and would refer to me as "their tokens seven or." -- "their token southerner." [laughter] not want to talk about whether you leave the statues alone or you move them. can you put up appropriate interpretive signage with the statues that contextualize, not but what is the statue off, when it was put up and why and what has been its controversies, if you will, over time? is that an effective way to deal with the discussions we are having in the country today? me put that to you first and lets his mother's -- -- let's get some other -- professor loewen: i think one of my slides said "contextualize this monument." contextualize it so heavily that neo-confederates would be the ones trying to deface it. you know? , althoughre, so far the commission there came out with the recommendation to move to of four statues, so far, they have not moved any, but they have put up one plaque in front of each of them, and let me just read you a phrase from this plaque. let's see. the one about the lee-jackson dual equestrian statue that some people are very, very proud of. this is after a whole paragraph. these two men became subjects of the lost cause movement. scholarshipnt refutes these claims. these are representations of lee and jackson that helped perpetuate the lost cause ideology which advocated for white to premises, portrayed whitey as benign, -- supremacy, portrayed slavery as benign, and justify secession. that's all. but it still does not compete impaired to the magnificence of the possibility you are supposed to stand in awe of the statue. tom brown, you have seen a heck of a lot of statues. have you seen it done well? tim said,brown: as there is a mismatch between having the monument, which is kind of having an instrument of memory and the signage, but if you had something that someone could listen to on their phones that would be accessible and appropriately attractive and brief, especially if it is something that could give you the story as you're looking, then the modern interpretation could go with looking at the monument instead of competing with looking at the monument, and i think it would be even more effective than it is right now. president rawls: that's an interesting question that we museum professionals really appreciate. i remember having someone in the an exhibit was labeled, talking about south carolina's secession. and i had him read it and he said, but you didn't mention this and you didn't mention this and you didn't mention this. i said, good, say it how you would like to say it and use 70 words. because if it is more than 70 words, the visitor will not read any of its. -- read any of it. one of the difficulties, as jim out, you ared limited to the number of words and technology may be the way to get beyond that. tim, thank you for that. perspective as someone in english is you are looking at a very complex literary text. and i don't think there is a final word on it. they should last forever. .hey should be there i find them-- vexing. i really find them interesting. read lee -- you could three volumes. i would not write it. you could do three volumes of what they are saying. so, i think the final word is just unobtainable. president rawls: last question from the audience. >> thank you. i think my question would be for first.wen i notice many of the u.s. army bases in the south seem to be named for generals of the rebellion. is this something that occurred after the nadir, or was it for that -- before that? ewen: yes, after 1890. it is incredibly problematic. it's astounding white supremacy. who knows, 70% of the folks enlisted in for bening are probably african-american. for were one of those, or that matter, give me a little credit, if i'm a white person stationed at fort bennett, i have problems with that name. and a couple of them, in addition, were terrible generals and kept losing. -- i't know what you would do not understand why you would enemy and foran someone who kept losing. >> thank you. under most that is statues, what are the basic real estate questions that need to be asked? one of the easements, the titles, the original funding? are they potentially located on land in state or federal landmarks? >> tom, do you know? professor brown: think there'll be a lot of those -- i think the answer will be there will be a lot of answers to that question. else jump?ne >> off than they were placed on publicly owned land. it's not clear that they deeded messiahor example, the -- the municipality. for example, in knoxville, it is on the county grounds, county owned land. it makes a difference right now and it's a good question to ask. the county executive has decreed the statue will be leaving that site. exactly where it is going and win is another issue. -- this iso go there also interesting -- there is a big crater around it. it.can still see part of he is out there in the crate because he got vandalized once and this is going to stop it. stops the protest because our are you going to protest a bunch of plywood? it's already taking away the import of the statue. but the city claims an interest in the matter. the udc may be still owns it. they donated, but maybe they just loaned it. there are questions for each one of these. jordan: the lee-jackson statues were donated by one man who lived in the area and made his fortune. he purchased the land and he paid for the statues, and i think sometimes, if it wasn't for him, the statues would not have existed. i don't think charlottesville would have spent that kind of money to erect those statues. lawyer, we are probably part of the few individuals who read the deed. there's another clause this is subject to the administration of the city manager, the city government. so, there is that. a lot of these are done by private individuals. there's probably land now. but it was a private donation. that remains to be seen. >> i do want your work for the .ational park service lee went on record not approving any kind of construction for any kind of confederate memorial. in fact, i told visitors he was one of the first people to bailout on the confederate experience. why has this point not been brought forward? dr. jordan: because it does not fit the lee mythology. that's not being flippant. any anti-confederate sentiments lee expressed after the war have , even by hisburied admirers and apologists. they don't talk about his anti-confederate statement that he made. he told young men after the war, put your uniforms away and forget. but you don't hear people say that. you don't hear them say that very often. davis and lee -- they are symbols. they symbolize. importance is more important than their private views. as individuals, that is not their import. at their import is is --symbolic dr. import there import is symbolic of the cause. >> interesting. >> how about here? >> hey. i'm jerry of richmond. we talk a lot about context. there's quite a be very different context. and the problem seems to go beyond context. it seems to get the balance and scale -- context alone might not do it. my question for anybody is, might we be able to step back and look at this problem in a larger kind of context and think of those monuments as being part of the greater richmond slavery history? lumpkin's jail and think about the slaves, and think about how we bring all of this together to tell the whole story and in so doing establish a greater context for the monuments? ms. coleman: i think that was what i was talking about. not think, that is exactly what was talking about. not to say we have not had passionate conversations, but the landscape has been changing dramatically, especially in the last 20 years. and since it has been changing and richmond is discovering rings it never knew, i came to richmond in 2008. i came to richmond in 2008 to become a part of this community, and even after short nine years, there -- even after a short nine years, there has been a remarkable change. this is how they chose to commemorate the says quote -- the suspect -- the sesquicentennial. it was the only state to do that. it was a deliberate decision to have conversations about the war and its impact on the municipality. errs -- and this .as stunning to me most richmond errs did not realize that richmond burned because of the confederates. right? that their idea , it is theat burned heart of its commerce. it is the hearts of what the confederacy wanted to destroy, and because it disappeared from the landscape, again, the landscape. it became much easier to put those away. when they began to discover because of that work, the narrative got bigger, and because the narrative was there wereger and groups, large and small, and richmond is the kind of place where richmond takes a long time is thes always organic other thing. this is not government that pushes things. this is an organic movement of people saying, it is our community. if our communities are going to be just, if we are going to tackle the injustices of racism and economic disparity and all these things, we have to change the narrative. we have to get the narrative's rights. is so our landscape beginning to do that. i have to say one thing that , this me -- of course makes perfectly good sense, this idea of putting women on monument avenue, i absolutely love that. let's put civil war women or over there. we have remarkable women in richmond's history that are gauging -- that our game changers. again, adding to the narrative. now. am calmer it's funny. when i finished this morning, my daughter was sitting in the back ad she said, mama, you had little too much coffee when you're talking. [laughter] >> yes, in the center. from charlottesville, virginia. thank you for today. i've been hearing the word "reconciliation", often in different ways. my question of -- is about the growing reconciliation movement in the united states to grapple with legacies of racial harm. as we hear more and more calls for reconciliation, we're going to have to grapple more with what that means. i have been hearing from several reconciliationm being used more in the context -- civilwar museums war memorials. so, my question is, as the u.s. tries to figure out what reconciliation might mean, what you think the interpretation or reinterpretation of civil war might mean, especially in a conversation about how it has repair reconciliation to racial harm? coleman: first of all, one of the things that has been annoying to me is we tend to place white supremacy as a solely southern phenomenon. in fact, it's part of the reason why the white north and the white south were able to reconcile and frame this narrative of brother against brother, ok? so, the idea of reconciliation, the question that you asked me about how can communities reconcile, for one thing, you are assuming that there is hopeciled -- part of my when i get up to go to work every day, i hope that instead of what we are talking about, it make our we that it is recognize not just a circle we are looking at. the reality is it is a sphere. substance, weight, dimensions. somethingll see remarkably different. the question is, do you want to hold it in your hands? this is the thing to me. and ifkeep doing this you are helping people begin to see that the fiber is far more frankly,- and quite pulling threads is not necessarily taking something away. it may reveal something more .owerful this is been suggested many times. my near gender, my mere ethnic identity has been questioned at times because i'm one of those people who says, it's not the statue who worries me. i am the person who says, let's expand this. let's expand out. let's talk about who we were at these moments in time. that's what the generations are asking. that is what i see every day. , it is very easy to wet ourselves to one idea and not want to change anything. it's the things that have reinforced this. .> a question down here >> i'm wondering when we will expand this discussion -- and professor jordan, you can speak to this briefly -- when will we expand this discussion to the founding fathers and the challenges of liberty and slavery. it seems to me that we have covered a lot of ground today and you have provided great food for thought. what needs to be done with regard to our founding fathers and their statues? >> i can speak to that. the point is not so much the individuals, that washington was a slave owner, jefferson was a slave owner. the confederacy was a project designed specifically and exclusively to perpetuate slavery. that is a different topic. that is not jefferson being a revolutionary in 1776. his slaveowning background is not irrelevant. >> tim? >> just a quick comment. frome we remove washington name from every grade school in america that has it, i think we need to ask the question, did we name it washington grade school -- is that why he is famous? did we name it that because we value him owning slaves? i think the answer is no. despite him owning slaves, we named it that -- but relevant if he owned slaves. we didn't do it because he owned slaves. for that matter, washington did kind of free his slaves. kind of. wife freed them before she died. it gradually dawned on him. that everyone on the eadntation wanted him d except her. [laughter] >> i live in richmond. it has been a great day. it has been a great discussion. one of the high points is that it has been pretty balanced. that in theinking national state of affairs there doesn't seem to be a very good talents. thinking about the national political situation that moved towards populism, what is going on in washington -- how does this discussion fit in that context? i am not normally given -- the election have been three months ago. look at where we are now. as a civil war historian, someone who looks at the past to deal with the present and the future, i am alarmed by the vehemence, the hatred, the angry rhetoric. i can assure you there are parallels between the rhetoric of 2016 and 1816, at least according to my own research. i am terribly concerned. we have individual saying "hail, trump. hail our victory." it reminds me that american democracy, regardless of what you might think, american democracy is extremely fragile. extremely fragile. i do not believe the house will fall. i don't believe the republic i'm terriblyt concerned about how we americans are dealing with each other in short time span since our last president. to sound like an alarmist, but that is how i feel. commentseciate your and the comment about the state of our country. perhaps if we all told our friends that you can have civil discourse over subject of controversy where honest meaning people can disagree. perhaps a lesson can be learned from this session today. i think we had a civil discourse about hot topic. before you ask your question, koski at's give john round of applause. [applause] >> he thought this topic up. he developed it in his mind. he was the one who invited the participants. as dr. jordan said, he strong-armed some of the participants who said no. john would not let them say no. john, who would you like to ask what of? anonymous for an question. i will ask a question calculated to get them throwing their chairs at each other. we had a wonderful presentation this morning about the soldier monuments that represent the majority of monuments north and south. it wastext we heard about mourning the dead and the sacrifices of the men. it is not only a southern phenomenon, it is a national phenomenon. them.rd the background of en suggested they are not as innocent as represented by their inscriptions, poses, and artistic quality. , the debates,hts are not only about lee, jackson, they are not the only statues under debate. i want to ask all of you, given the collective of what we have what about the common soldier monument? those built to memorialize the dead and the men who served. have been either removed or there are plans to remove them. what should be done with those? all, many of them, most of the ones that went up at first, are at cemeteries. i don't hear -- i don't think i ,ave heard of any requests shall we say from the black community? or white. i've not heard any requests to remove them or take them down. i have a particular problem with may be the one at arlington, because that is kind of a federal government involvement. many people completely misconstrue it on purpose, i think, to assert there were huge numbers of african americans in the troops, which is not the case. maybe that one at the very least needs a lot of contextualization around it. .hey are ok with it if we take the one from a gum or from the position of power, if we put it at a confederate cemetery, or any other cemetery, they are ok with that. we have hadhink much debate about common soldier monuments. there is one in louisville. it is part of a pattern that is community decisions. one kind of community is colleges. the one in louisville, it is on the university of louisville campus. those are ones that i would describe as college cases rather questions. community one is about jefferson davis and has expanded to people like lee and other generals. i'm not heard a lot of controversy over common soldier monuments, and i would be surprised to hear it, really. there's something about the common soldier that is really quite affecting. a soldierield was during the war. just lost any faith in the meaning of what they were fighting for because he saw so much death. i think the common soldier necessary. -- it is necessary to and whatwhat they did they took responsibility for. , the the hospital's places for the wounded are where the monuments are. it is saying something about how citizens took a role in the destiny of their country. has real import, for better or worse. it is meaningful. they're saying, it is hallowed ground. the ground is important. where the dead are is important. decentuld add that no person would want to desecrate anyone's grave. even the worst slave owner in history, i would not desecrate their grave. years ago during construction a confederate soldier was found. it was decided to have a ceremony for him in richmond. the whites were concerned about what the black community's reaction would be. the spokesman for the black community made a profound statement. judge. "god will we have no objections. he can't hurt us now." that has been my attitude. especially for the common soldier. >> lewis martin, charlottesville. paul goodloebout mcintyre, that is the reason those two statues are in charlottesville, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to afford something like that. my grandparents, great aunts, great uncles, and their friends would have been in the park when the statue was dedicated. what i have been hearing since 2015 was that the statues were put up with a white supremacist animist. when i was a student at the university of virginia, i had a number of friends from new england, a number from boston. was i was in the army, i with men from boston. their grandparents, great aunts, and great uncles felt the same way about the statue in the 54th massachusetts as my grandparents felt about the robert e lee and stonewall jackson statues. to commente for you about why there would be a difference from people in the south and people in the north. my experience in life has been we are all pretty much the same. another issue, i heard you speak about adding to the narrative and changing the narrative. i think everyone agrees we should add to the narrative. when you talk about changing the narrative, that sounds orwellian to me. >> changing the narrative implies that the questions being asked change or because the questions of a new generation are often different, the narrative changes. it is not that you are trying to become orwellian, it is that generations ask a different question. generations of women are asking the question, "what role did we play?" we didn't sit around making socks. what else did we do? because they are asking the questions, and this scholarship is there, the documents are there, we find the information and the narrative changes. it is added to. it is not just the narrative that women are doing this thing or that thing. you understand? that is what i mean by changing the narrative. expanding the narrative means as we know those things we make space for even more questions to be asked. when there are more questions getting answered, our narrative continues to expand. it is never a zero sum game. me, the earlier question about our political positions -- it is always presented as a zero sum game. that somehow if i open this up and make someone else's voice a always been the american experience that i have to give up some thing. equality has never meant oppression. about howscussion shall we remember, if you hear nothing else from me, that is what i hope that you will take away from the experience today. and what we have been so desperately trying to do in our institutions, and in museums like ours around the country. cannot make the united states and the confederate states morally equivalent. it is bad history. , all ofy said to you you, that the united states did not go to war to end slavery. pretty soon, it did go to war to end slavery. it continued in the war to and slavery. at that time, all kinds of folks in the united states army, and at home, tol. too.- and at home, they became less racist towards african-americans. instances here the idea of cognitive dissidents. if you do something against slavery, it is hard to say "slavery is right because black folks are inferior and they need do." told what to what you are doing makes no sense. and people don't like to say to themselves, that makes no sense. change their attitudes. there was opposition in the united states army and across the north to the emancipation proclamation when it came out. by 1864, they were in favor. erland is one of the few places in the world to vote out slavery -- maryland is one of the few places in the world to vote out slavery, which they did in their constitution in 1864. they had not counted the absentee ballots. they were 9-1 to freedom. dissidents and that people had come into contact with african-americans fighting next to them, telling them the best way to get jackson, which road to get to vicksburg. they came into contact with them in ways they have never done before. the united states gradually became less racist, leading to amendments, 15th and the good things past during reconstruction. the confederate states, too. having spent four years on the behalf of white supremacy, found it impossible to argue or black .quality in 1866 and 1867 the confederate, officers in particular, formed the core of the ku klux klan. they both fought well, we can say that much. in the middle. >> i am a professor. thank you for all of your perspectives. commemorativee landscape was largely violent until the racist violence of 2015 activated perspectives and energized the black lives matter movement to create discourses around these monuments. are you concerned that the potential removal of this considerate landscape might not necessitate not only acquiescing as westory, but also, move forth, eradicating a platform for oppositional voices? >> who would like to handle that? >> i agree entirely with your premise. as you well know, it is something we should bear in mind. thousands of civil war monuments in manynited states, cases the monument was put up to have the dedication ceremony. that is what people wanted even more than this thing that would be there forever. they have been in long decline and are in some form of senescence. zombie in some way. it is an interesting cultural problem. i would offer, as someone who lives in the core of the confederacy and enjoys visiting the fort sumter latecomer appear , the experience of south carolina that although there is a lot to be said for expanding the narrative and adding, well-chosen repudiation is an important part of the toolkit. south carolina removed the confederate flag from the murders ofafter the 2015. it didn't make everything better in south carolina, but it did make it better than it was before. it did, do some extent, disarm confederate legacy at large, because it's most powerful symbol has been repudiated. well-chosenhat repudiation can be an important part of the toolkit. it is interesting, because while that was happening, there was something else going on. while they were coming down, group started going to private property owners and putting up 40 foot tall and 50 foot tall battle flags. all that was going on, even in our own gift shops, we were getting phone calls asking us if we sold battle flags. confederate flags they wanted. for artists, it was an educational opportunity, "which one?" [laughter] >> there was a significant spike in our sale. we had to have an internal conversation about that. it may have come down in public space, but for some it made them even more hardened in their desire to deal with and protect, to reinforce, to reassert the meaning of those things for them. is that make sense? happeningat ends up is this remarkable push and pull. -- you know, certainly, the charleston murders were lightning rod for these questions because of what the murderer had in his hand. what is compelling to me is why is that the first time that that becomes the thing? anything about the four people arrested this week and their rhetoric and plot for terrorism? several of them were foiled. it doesn't get the same attention. we turn a blind eye to them sometimes. we have to be careful. is that fair to put all of that weight on a symbol, a statue, or a movement, like black lives matter? is it fair to fit all that ?eight on them it isn't just a moment. it is all the things leading to the moment. >> let's make one last short question, if we could. .> hello i'm from the north, first of all. i just moved to richmond from louisiana. i went from new hampshire -- >> welcome to the south, y'all. [laughter] >> thank you. exposure to this is new. if we heard about it, which we mostly dinning growing up, it was very localized -- which we mostly didn't growing up, it was mostly localized and was not a hot button topic. ask where you folks think the direction of this discussion goes, especially with my generation. going forward with the millennials coming through, what becomes part of that discussion? do you think it will be about the meaning, may be more about financials instead? where does is go from here, 20 to 30 years from here? your generation will tell the 21st century. mine won't, yours will. monument went up in 2015. a mississippi courthouse confederate monument went up months ago. in 1911,ment peaked but there is still energy that is ongoing. boy with a gun and a flag shows how it can still elicit these powerful emotions both ways. not the generation behind us, it is not the word time generation, it is this generation. it is you all. the generation of the 21st reconcile.l have to gentlemen, i am afraid that we are out of time. you to join me in thanking ms. excellent panel speakers. -- thanking this excellent panel of speakers. [applause] interested in american history tv? /history.pan.org you can be you our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs, watch tours and archival films, and more. american history tv at c-span.org/history. >> next on american history tv, historian john langellier discusses his book "fighting for uncle sam: the fellow soldiers and the frontier army." we will hear about the all black regiments order to defend the western frontier. for nativeences american and african-american soldiers, and the buffalo soldier experience through colorado. tonight, we are gathered to bringr. john langellier new vitality to a subject emphasizing the role of the buffalo soldiers in opening the west. we are fortunate to have him here from arizona. his ba in history and historical archaeology, his ma in history with a concentration on the american west and spanish borderlands with the second emphasis on film history from the university of san diego.