Kyle Whitmire of the Birmingham News is writing a series called “State of Denial” which looks at how Alabama tells its history, valorizing the Confederate past and ignoring and distorting Black history. This article looks at the Alabama capital at Montgomery and the Lost Cause history that is written in stone there. Whitmire describes the Capitol building:
It’s here that Alabama governors take their oaths of office. It’s here that George Wallace declared “Segregation forever!” It’s here that Black civil rights activists, including John Lewis, finished their march from Selma. It’s here that Martin Luther King Jr. demanded America fulfill its obligation to secure voting rights for all.
This is where Jefferson Davis took the oath as the first and only Confederate president, and there’s a little brass star to mark the spot. To the left of the steps is the statue of Davis, a cloak over his shoulders, his hands resting on a slab of pink granite, donated by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1940.
At the southeast corner, there’s an eternal “Flame of Freedom” left by the American Legion to honor those who served and remember the lives lost in the other American wars. That monument is about six feet tall.
…The scandal here isn’t only that more Black people aren’t honored. The sin is what else has been ignored, and the silence exposes the guilty. This building is where the rights of generations of Black people were stolen, not once but twice.
And again — in 1901.
It was here they unreconstructed Alabama. It was here that they proudly, explicitly embedded “White Supremacy by Law” — an actual sub-head in the minutes — into Alabama government. It was here they consolidated political power in the Legislature — and away from city and county governments where Black majorities might decide their own affairs. It was here they disenfranchised Black voters for most of the 20th century. It was here they opened the door for Jim Crow, segregation, lynchings, convict leasing and all sorts of oppression.
But this place doesn’t need another statue or one more bronze plaque on a wall. It needs ribbons of yellow tape.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
This author and those like her should have to research and write a similar article about black people so their faults can be clearly identified, Her ability to cherry pick and exaggerate in the expanse of her Story is not questioned. We are more than tired of these bashing trashy articles that find nothing good about our white race in the South. Nor do we ever see anything about the good treatment we rendered to black people in our communities. Since this author has never seen any good here she more than likely is a carpet bagger seeking fame and fortune at our expense.