Opinion: Anderson's Confederate Memorial Belongs in Museum

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Statues have largely lost their place as a public tribute, but the practice is not gone entirely. 

In Anderson the two statues were erected in recent years, both to honor African Americans: one for “Radio” Kennedy at T.L. Hanna High School following the movie about his life and one of our county’s greatest war heroes, Freddy Stowers at Anderson University. Stowers was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the first African-American to receive the award, for his bravery during World War One, fighting under French command because the United States still did not allow African American combat soldiers.Worker install the Confederate memorial in downtown Anderson in 1902.

But it is the Confederate monument in downtown Anderson is getting all the statue attention this week.

Tuesday night, Anderson County Democratic Party Chair Tonya Winbush asked county council to move the statue to a museum. Winbush started a petition for the move, and now has more than 22,000 signatures supporting the effort.

On Wednesday, vandals sprayed paint parts of the base of the monument. Security video is a bit fuzzy, but at least two individuals are in the photos causing the damage. 

It’s unlikely the issue of a monument to the lost cause of the Confederacy in the middle of downtown Anderson is going away quietly. 

We are hardly the only community in the state (and nation) facing the challenge of what to do about such statues or other elements bearing the name of those who fought against the United States in the Civil War, or those who were adamantly pro-slaverly.  

South Carolina law complicates the issue. Twenty years ago lawmakers made compromises to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse in Columbia by passing the Heritage Act of 2000 which forbids the moving, renaming or modification of any “monument, marker, memorial, school, or street erected or named in honor of the Confederacy” without the support of two-thirds of both the house and senate.

This complicates matters significantly for local authorities seeking to make changes. There are few loopholes in the act if public property is involved. 

Charleston removed a statue of John C. Calhoun this week, a move made possible only because the statue is on private property.

Earlier, Clemson University moved drop Calhoun’s name from the school’s honor college, which was allowed because it was the name of a department. But the university’s board of trustees also approved changing the name of Tillman Hall, named after the notorious Sen. “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, back to “Old Main,” the name the building was previously know as until 1948. But the legislature will have to approve this move due to the Heritage Act. 

Anderson’s Confederate monument hasn’t moved in 118 years, but the message it conveys, truth of history has moved beyond Southern provential sentimentalization of the War Between the States.

What began as an idea on Declaration Day in 1886, eventually led to a group which raised the funds for the statue which was dedicated in January 1902 in a ceremony that featured the Clemson College band playing “Taps” as the statue was unveiled. A series of speeches and a parade of Confederate veterans were also part of the event. 

At the top of the monument stands Anderson native Major William Wirt Humphreys, who despite being injured in several battles, served throughout almost the entire Civil War, returning to Anderson where he served in a number of prominent positions. Humphreys is buried in Old Silverbrook  Cemetery. 

The monument also includes two inscriptions which may have resonated with Confederate veterans in 1902, but which today are both offensive and baffling to the modern mind.

The first, ironically on the monument’s South side, reads: 

"The world shall yet decide,

in truth's clear, far-off light,

that the soldiers who wore the

gray, and died

with Lee, were in the right." 

The truth, examined in any light of enlightenment, clearly cannot possibly conclude the cause of the Confederacy was in any fashion as “right?”  

The longer inscription on the monument’s East side extolls the chivalry of the South’s cause, a myth largely put forth in later years by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Some continue to insist the War Between the States was fought over states’ rights and other economic issues. But any issue of economics is tied to the South’s refusal to end the practice of slavery, which allowed the ownership of other human beings.

And while there were certainly foot soldiers who may have never owned slaves, those who sent them to war certainly did it to protect their right to own slaves. 

Most other civilized nations had long abandoned the practice, even though indenturement had continued for some groups, such as the Irish. 

But support for slavery as an economic engine and philosophical justification was deeply embedded in the minds of Southern leaders.  

Slavery was about the economy and maintaining the lifestyles of wealth plantation owners and others, making it a central part of the formation of the Confederacy.

Add to the argument, praising the heroes of a group which waged war against the United States of America less than 100 years after the nation waged war for the concept “That all men are created equal,” should serve as an affront to true patriots.

There have been no public monuments or statues praising England’s King George III or any of his generals anywhere in this country. Likewise there should be no monuments or statues of Jefferson Davis or any of his generals memorializing their efforts on town squares. 

It’s long past time to move these monuments and statues to places where they can be properly preserved and used to teach the full measure of history, not seek to errantly glamorize localized versions which are steeped in nostalgia and racism. 

These tributes to the past belong in museums, and Anderson’s monument would be well served by moving it a few blocks over to the grounds of the Anderson County Museum. The museum is one of the best in the country for its size, and would be the perfect spot since inside there is already a substantial exhibit on the Civil War. 

Such a move is not, as some cry, an attempt to destroy history. Instead it enhances history by preserving such artifacts and putting them in context in a place where learning about the past is part of a sacred mission. 

History is preserved in great details in books in every library in the country, as well as in various art forms. Moving the statues and monuments to places where they will be seen in context and the full light of history for generations to come. 

In spite of the clear evidence, there remains division among locals about the monument. One local group has started a petition asking Anderson County to begin the process of this move. To date more than 22,000 have signed. Another group with a counter-petition to keep the monument downtown has more than 8,000 signatures. 

The debate is far from over, and will likely be discussed during citizens’ comments at county county meetings for the foreseeable future.

But to paraphrase the words on the monument, it’s clear: 

"The world has decided

in truth's clear light,

that the soldiers who wore the

gray, and died

with Lee, were never in the right.”