Quote:
Originally Posted by billethkid
As measured by today's standards/views.
What did the folks who decided to have the statue made and placing it where it is/was....thinking when they decided to go forward?
The will and intent of the people of the past cannot be measured by the distorted special interests of today.
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The statue was erected in 1890, on Monument Avenue, which existed to glorify and celebrate people who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Glorify and Celebrate - the people who rejected the Union (which was, at the time, what we know now as the United States of America) and fought against it. This war, this Civil War, was the culmination of an attempt to overturn the government. An insurrection of "monumental" proportions (pun intended). The population in Richmond was mostly wealthy white people and poverty-stricken black people. The abolition of slavery only happened 25 years prior, so most adults living there were former slaves with no job, no prospects, few people willing to actually PAY them to work. I would venture to guess that the blacks living in Richmond would not have been very happy to see the figure of their former oppressor be placed proudly and prominently in their town center.