Introduction

The end of the Civil War brought us the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which in turn brought us Confederate statues across the southern United States, including the Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was a group that was founded after the Civil War as a way to commemorate the life of the soldiers who fought and to preserve the history of the Confederacy. The counties of Caldwell, Graves, and Calloway all received statues funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Even though the statues claim to memorialize the Confederate soldiers who fought during the war, they represent treason and white supremacy. The statues have no place in public areas, and all three of the aforementioned counties have their treasonous monuments placed in the courthouse squares for everyone to see.

Recent trends on the subject indicate that this subject matter has been at the center of attention for the past thirty years. Using both primary and secondary sources, it is evident that the majority of historians also agree that the statues should be removed from the public domain. Postcards from the Jackson Purchase region in the early twentieth century help paint a picture of the landscape. Calloway County and Graves County both have postcards commemorating the erection of the statue.

The secondary sources being used to help justify the main argument include a wide variety of sources. For example, online articles as recent as 2019 help provide a modern interpretation on the topic. These articles are relevant to the Belgian cause because the missing hand on the Leopold statue was returned after a fifteen year disappearance. Articles written about Georgia, South Carolina, and Russia help provide a more academic perspective on the controversial topic.

From the end of the Civil War to modern day, over 700 monuments remain to “honor” the Confederate past, with the overwhelming majority of them located in the southern United States. This is because the largest portion of pro-Confederate sentiment can be found in the southern United States.

Jackson Purchase

The statue in Calloway County represents a Confederate soldier in full uniform. Built in 1917, it was funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It resembles a Confederate soldier in full uniform and is located in the courtyard in downtown Murray (pictured below).

The monument in Graves County differs from those in Calloway and Caldwell counties in that it is a fountain. In 1920, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) began construction on the monument after receiving the proper funding. The monument was built after the one in Murray, but it also serves as a reminder that the Confederate sentiment can be remembered through nontraditional monuments like a fountain (pictured below).

The statue in Caldwell County (pictured below) mirrors the one in Calloway County, as it represents a Confederate soldier in full uniform. The statue is on the south side of the Courthouse and faces south in order to face its “homeland.” Like the two aforementioned monuments, the UDC also funded the statue.

The UDC furthered their pro-Confederate sentiment during the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1951, in a letter to Senator George Ed Overby, the author writes in the p.s. section: “we were the first to begin work on a memorial for him [Nathan Stubblefield] and I think it will be fitting for the United Daughters to have this honor [of building his monument],”₁ The notion that this letter does not in itself support a Confederate monument is irrelevant: the UDC still maintains control of special projects in the region. To further explain their impact on the region, another letter written shortly after the first one states “ You [UDC] might be interested in knowing that this office has displayed a Confederate flag in its reception room for the past several years.”₂ This is another prime example of how the UDC indirectly affects life in the Jackson Purchase region.

Georgia

The Confederate sentiment is also embedded in their flag. The state flag of Georgia, for example, sparked an intense debate on whether or not to change the state flag. The article “An Air of Defiance: Georgia’s State Flag Change of 1956,” written by John Walker Davis, highlights the movement of Georgia to change its flag to support the desegregation movement occuring during that time period. Davis notes how the problems arose not because of the problems with the desegregation movement, but rather a “direct attack” on the region. This, in turn, led to a movement to preserve the flag. Davis states “ Around the turn of the century the Confederate flag's visibility became more widespread as commemorations and tributes to Confederate veterans increased. Even then, the keepers of the flag felt it should be displayed only on special occasions and worried about the frivolous display of the Confederate emblem.”₃

Davis provides readers with two unique perspectives when writing by using sources from those who supported the flag change and using sources from those that do not. According to one statement from a Swainsboro man “The idea to incorporate the Flag of the Confederacy into our flag is a good one and should be approved by all Georgians. In fact, it would be better if we used [a] complete stars and bars for a flag. It is one way of telling our government and the world that we will never surrender our sovereignty and principles of life to any Supreme Court.”₄ On the other end of the spectrum, many people who supported the flag change argued that The symbolism and the usage of the flag by white supremacists and segregationists have tainted the use of the flag.₅

South Carolina

The flag debate is not limited to just Georgia: South Carolina had its problems with displaying the Confederate flag from the 1960s to the early 2000s. The flag was placed in front of the State House dome in 1962 to serve as a reminder of the beginning of the Civil War just over one hundred years prior. Intense debate surrounded the placement of the flag on the dome, but after much deliberation, the flag was agreed to be placed there for good.

As a result of the intense debate, the viewpoint that it represents southern heritage continued to grow. According to Walter Sullivan, a prominent southern literary figure at that time, “The flag represents the past, tradition, of course, but not in any abstract sense: people, rather, real individuals who lived and fought and suffered and died and who remained, while they lived, willing to die for what they believed in.”₇ The flag itself was a symbolic piece of culture, and remained important to the common southern man.

Even though the argument made by Sullivan and others proved to have an impact, the viewpoint where the flag represents oppression and racism ultimately won the battle. In 2000, the flag was taken down in front of the dome. Nonetheless, it is still seen as a symbol of the Confederate cause and its past. David Blight, in Race and Reunion, states “slavery “was good while it lasted, good once it was gone; no Southerner fought in its defense and no Northerner died to end it.”₈ This myth, along with the combination of no competing narratives in the region for generations, led the common southerner to believe that the Confederate flag (and the aforementioned statues) are simply an (albeit falsified) embodiment of their heritage.

Belgium

Continuing on the international front, Belgium has seen an increase in the amount of dissatisfaction with the Leopold statues located in Brussels (the capital) and Mons. In 2004, the statue of King Leopold II (pictured below) was vandalized, when the left hand was chopped off a slave. This mimicked the punishment that would be inflicted on natives if they did not produce enough rubber. The group De Stoeten Ostendenoare claimed responsibility and agreed to return the hand if Belgium would acknowledge its past. They further argued that Belgium’s colonial past was ridiculed with corruption, greed, and savagery. Tracy Bibo-Tansia, a Belgian parliamentary assistant and vice chair of the Women’s Council, cites the statue as an embodiment of a mass murderer. Last year, she called for the statue’s removal and stated, “I live in Elsene, and if I’m sitting on the 95 bus going past Troon, it’s disturbing to see the statue of a mounted Leopold II.”₁₄ Bibo-Tansia speaks for all Belgians of Congolese origin when she states how it is hard to feel at home when a statue that murdered her ancestors sits in the Belgian capital.

Protests that erupted in 2017 about the statues forced the government to press its hand. Even though the statues still remain, Belgium has come a long way in understanding its colonial past. Hopefully within the next few years, the statues of the mass murderer will finally come down, and citizens like Bibo-Tansia will not have to hurt her eyes looking at them.

Conclusion

The United States had made significant progress in removing the Confederate monuments and flags, but they still have a long way to go before sufficient progress is made. The statues in the Jackson Purchase (and the outlying Caldwell County) are still standing to this day for everyone to see. The flag was removed from South Carolina’s dome after a decade-long battle and debate to get it removed.

On the global perspective, Russia is still struggling to accept its new form of democracy. The need to go back and commemorate the communist leaders during the Soviet era remains strong. This inability to accept the change has led to political and civil unrest, and will continue to do so unless something is done about it. Meanwhile, more monuments should follow in the footsteps of the VDNKh. The once glorious communist now holds modern meaning and value. Belgium, on the other hand, has made progress in understanding its past and the atrocities committed under King Leopold II. Protests and petitions have appeared to help Belgium’s case. Although the statues are still standing, significant process has been made, and only time will tell if the statues will be fully removed.

Regardless of how much progress has been made, there needs to be a stronger push to have these statues and monuments removed. The statues represent the evil of humanity, and to keep treasonous, backwards, or statues dedicated to mass murderers is not progress for civilized countries.

Bibliography

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Stanard, Matthew G. "Reminders and Remainders of Empire, 1960-1967." In The Leopard, the Lion, and the Cock: Colonial Memories and Monuments in Belgium, 65-94. Leuven (Belgium): Leuven University Press, 2019. Accessed February 24, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbtzks3.8.

Southern, Genuinely, Proudly Black, James E. Clyburn, and Alfre Woodard. "The Confederate Battle Flag." In Blessed Experiences: Genuinely Southern, Proudly Black, 147-60. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctv6wgcjm.23.

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/current-affairs/calls-removal-statues-leopold-ii

https://sma.ie/calls-for-the-removal-of-leopold-ii-monuments-in-belgium/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/22/statue-missing-hand-colonial-belgium-leopold-congo

http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/belgiums-brutality-in-africa-haunts-refurbished-museum/