Off The Editor’s Desk – 6-28-2017

Is there a movement to sanitize our history?

I recently came across a piece written by Walter E. Williams, columnist of national importance. He suggests that there is a movement to rewrite American History.

I have watched over the years as some people have denied that the Holocaust ever happened and that we did not land on the moon. Sometimes I wonder if our local schools even expose our children to the Constitution? 

George Orwell said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

Williams pointed out that, “New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had a Monument of Confederate General Robert E. Lee removed last month. Former Memphis Mayor A. C. Wharton wanted the statue of Confederate Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as the graves of Forrest and his wife, removed from the city park.” Williams continued, “In Richmond, Virginia, there have been calls for the removal of the Monument Avenue statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart.”

Slavery was a blight on our history, but it is part of our American History and we should not forget what suffering it brought. But to remove any sign of those who were part of it is wrong.

Williams added, “At least half of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners. Also consider that roughly half of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were also slave owners. Do those facts invalidate the U.S. Constitution, and would the history rewriters want us to convene a new convention to purge and purify our Constitution?”

If you have ever traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota and visited Mount Rushmore to see the 60-foot high granite faces of four of our presidents, you had to be awestruck by the sight of that monument. But two of them owned slaves. Should we blow their likeness off that mountain, I don’t think so. Just in case you forgot who the four are: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Now that brings me back to the Constitution and the five rights we enjoy as citizens of this country under the First Amendment. I would ask if you might quiz your children or grandchildren what they are. As a newspaper person it is my responsibility to educate the population and point out when I believe that a government body may have violated one of the freedoms of the First Amendment.

I have attended many, many board meetings over the more than 50 years that I have been in the newspaper business and as a rule, most boards have followed the First Amendment, most of the time without even realizing they were. But on a couple of occasions, some time ago, a local school board may have violated it when a local citizen had grievances to address and it involved a staff member, but the board quickly informed the citizens that they would not accept their petition.

The five freedoms are: religion; speech; press; assembly; and petition.

The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech; or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble; and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Citizens of this country should be able to exercise these freedoms without fear of financial or physical harm.

Thanks for reading!       ~Carlton