Abstract
Especially in the South, the legacy of the American Civil War (1861–1865) remains entrenched in social conflict. To honor Confederate war dead, hundreds of monuments were erected in the South during the Jim Crow era, an overtly racist period beginning a generation after the war ended, up to the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. This essay examines three prominent public Confederate monuments in the state of North Carolina—located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Bitter controversies over the fate of Confederate monuments in public landscapes have pitted coalitions of Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists against leftist anti-racist counter-protesters. Some argue that monuments are “neutral” historical markers that honor those who died for their beliefs; others argue that they encode and empower intolerable racist ideology. Should such divisive “objects of remembrance” be allowed to remain in public places? This essay explores the responsibilities of designers who purport to represent a broad and increasingly diverse constituency and the function of public memorials for constructing narratives and counter-narratives.
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Notes
- 1.
Hayden cites the creation of a memorial to the Biddy Mason Homestead. While the formal narrative of the founding of Los Angeles privileges the colonial legacies of wealthy white men, the actual story of the city’s founding reveals negotiations between men, women, and people of a diversity of racial and ethnic backgrounds. When the City wanted to build a new multi-modal transit center, the site analysis revealed that the site was the location of a founding-era homestead owned by an African American woman who helped Black immigrants get established and begin their lives in the city. A memorial wall featuring impressions of artifacts used by a diversity of early Los Angelenos sits in juxtaposition to its urban context as a provocation for visitors to consider place history from different points of view (pp. 168–187, The Power of Place 1995).
- 2.
In a circular chain of transactions, the cannon were initially seized in 1861 by Confederate fighters from the Union Navy Yard at Norfolk, VA; later repurposed for Fort Caswell, North Carolina; blown up in 1865, the final year of the war, and then presented back to North Carolina by the United States War Department in 1902 (UNC Libraries http://docsouth.unc.edu/commland).
- 3.
‘Black Wall Street,’ roughly two blocks from the monument site, was home to Mechanics and Farmers Bank (founded in 1908) as well as North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (founded in 1898). Some of their founders were connected to the formation of NC Central University, an Historically Black College that anchored the prosperous Hayti neighbourhood near downtown Durham.
- 4.
Durham Police showed tremendous restraint by not engaging protesters at the time of the incident and instead documenting the event for forensic evidence for later prosecution. This decision backfired, but the lack of police aggression reveals a different relationship between police and citizens than what was present nearly a century ago.
- 5.
In support of “Silent Sam” protester Maya Little, an “unofficial” statement tweeted by Malinda Maynor Lowry (UNC History Department) and undersigned by over 30 members of the UNC community indicates strong opposition to the monument: “As members of the History Department and the broader UNC campus community, we write to reaffirm our belief that the 1913 monument known as Silent Sam is a festering wound on the campus. Abundant historical research documenting its racist origins makes clear there is no place for such a monument on a campus that claims to welcome all of its diverse members. We support our student and colleague Maya Little and other members of the campus community who employ their right to use non-violent civil disobedience to protest this affront to the Carolina Way.” Twitter post May 2, 2018, accessed via the web: https://twitter.com/malindalowery/status/991652584665550848 (July 21, 2018).
- 6.
Students of UNC Chapel Hill have also complained of the mis-use of the Unsung Founders Memorial as a place of utility rather than a place commanding the same reverence as Silent Sam. The scale and location of the small figures, symbolizing the multitude responsible for constructing the University, are at the perfect height for a foot rest. People using the memorial often inadvertently polish the figures as they rest their feet on their heads. This habit has been seen as disrespectful by the same groups that argued for Silent Sam’s removal in the first place.
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Elen Deming, M., Boone, K. (2019). Symbolic Conversations in Public Landscapes of the American South: Revisiting the Confederate Legacy. In: Berr, K., Jenal, C. (eds) Landschaftskonflikte. RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22325-0_30
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