White Police Officers or ex Police Officers, as well as the protests around the world, calling for systemic change in a koning for the simple symbols of White Supremacy, many of which relate to the civil war era. Had thisve already conversation, five years ago in fact. Think back to where you were in the summer of 2015. Vernon and ed now, you graciously gave us your time back then, and we spoke in the wake of a Confederate Flag being taken down in South Carolina, following the murder of nine parishioners at southern annual church in charleston at that time. Edna, i would like to start with you. One of the things he said in 2015 was you were encouraged by the change and the flight coming down, its indra. Movementi think this we are seeing at the moment, at the moment, im afraid it is not permanent. You continued as im afraid that it is the right thing to do because the shooting was so horrific but we will forget and go back to where we were, the underlying issue. I would like to start by asking you, what has been permanent, what has changed in those five years, and have we made any progress on these underlying issues . I think a lot has changed and a lot has remained the same as well. What has changed is that africanamericans and people very much concerned about the conditions of people of color and poor people in general have come together to try to make changes in a way that i think will be difficult for anyone to intervene and stop the momentum, but things have gotten much worse as well. Timelds concerned at the that they would be a backlash because there were certain changes moving in the right direction, and certainly we had experienced that backlash. The last five years have been very difficult, especially for people of color and folks attempting to help turn us in another direction, the right direction i feel. But i think that i am encouraged, this time, as well because we know the last time changes occurred because of the shooting in charleston. Things are changing quickly this time because of a similar kind of violence, but i think it has been, the response to it has been sustained for much longer period of time than i had anticipated, and i was looking the other day at just an image of the people out demonstrating, who were protesting what had happened in this country, what continues to happen, and i was struck by the fact of how diverse the group was. I am encouraged by that, but again, as i was five years ago, i am a bit concerned that it is the flavor of the moment, that people have been galvanized because they saw the death of a man on camera. Many people have died since 2015, and it did not have this kind of outpouring. There was a bit of it, but to see someone lose his life on camera i think is what has made the difference. I dont know that that will be enough to sustain this moment. I hope it does. I hope this is real change, but im not sure that this is what we are going to see within the next two to three years. Thanks, edna. Vernon, i would like to hear your take on that, and you also brought up the concern about a backlash last time, both in this country but also, you know, given what you were seeing on the campus where you teach as well. Well, actually, i am very hopeful, and perhaps even more hopeful than last time. You might remember that i argued flights coming down was not just a massacre. As horrible as that was. Because your legislature, which had to vote on this with the heritage act, with two thirds or three fourths majority, i forget which, had been the same one. All of these things they heard and said before, i think what made the difference and why was worried it may not last is that the families of the people who had been massacred actually spoke about grace and forgiveness. And, ironically, i think that really resonated across a culture of religions as one of the few things that blacks and whites really shared, in many ways, though they use it differently in the south. So what i think now i see is exactly what edna said, and that is people saw george floyd die. It reminded me of the Civil Rights Movement. I actually think this is different than the charleston massacre, which sort of began it and we saw charlottesville and other things along the way, but i really think, like with Civil Rights Movement, this could be a revolutionary moment in a revolutionary time. Part of it is something that has been going on since i went to graduate school before most of you were born. That is that we are getting our history better. And places like the Lincoln Cottage are conveying that history better. People have been misled in extraordinary ways in their interpretation of history. And we now have close to release close to at least of 10 or 20 years of Public High School teachers. And these Public High School teachers are doing gods work, bless them, that they have taught history about not just slavery but particularly reconstruction, this period of interracial democracy, being much more the truth of what had happened than what people have been told. That is, white southerners, former confederates, or children of former confederates and others, wrote a history that was not truthful, but it became the history. It was accepted. That became part of the klansmen and birth of a nation. As Woodrow Wilson said through gone with the wind. And that was generation after generation. And now we are beginning from the rewriting of history, which is not actually rewriting or revising it, but the correcting of the story, looking at what the evidence is an telling it. And telling it. I am more hopeful, and actually think this, like the Civil Rights Movement, is a special time. Im not sure how to compare it with five years ago. That was a massacre. But this is a time, i think, of change. It started then, but i think we really now are beginning to put it all together in a way that we can understand how we got to where we are. That is not just slavery ending racism. That the Voting Rights act in 1965, the great john lewis has just passed on, and think about this. John lewis would not have been allowed to vote. He could not go to troy university. I mean, this was 1965. I like to tell people, i talk about the 14 generations, figuring 25 years as a generation. We have had 12 generations of White Privilege laws. And two generations of not. Some of that is coming together in a very excitingly. I do think some of that is taking a fact and coming together in an exciting way. I think things are going to happen. The media helped publicize is ae floyd, but there media empire that spends things in ways, and if you are only looking at that one media outlet, you are getting a very different story. You cant even make up your own mind without having the facts presented to you. Its the best we can do and be objective, the media works in other ways, too. We will have to see, but i am more hopeful than i have ever been. Ms. Mast thats great. That is good perspective. I would like to pickup on something that you just talked about, vernon, that also came up in your comments edna. And it is this talking about the dialogue that we can and need to have, but also how our perspective can change, and then you also mentioned, vernon, this idea of, you know, the history that has been taught for years, and years ago, we all talked about how the north was likewise complicit. So, one of the common refrains you here when people call for taking down monuments or memorials or renaming things is that doing that is the racing erasing history or that attempts to maybe to tell a more complete story that might contradict that version, that that is revisionist history. As highly respected historians, how would you respond to that . We can start with you, edna. No, i dont think that removing a symbol is the erasing history. I dont believe in destroying these monuments. I think you remove them, put them in a proper and a proper location. You put them in a museum and you create a park just for them, that does exist in this country or elsewhere. It gives us all the opportunity to look at the history of the se symbols in a different way. If you have a monument on the sidewalk or on public property, people are not going to stop to read what might be on this thing. They are going to pass it, and theyre going to assume, ok, this is a monument to a great person. They are not going to take the time to find out what this person did that he would be celebrated in this way. But if you take it down, you put it someplace where you can actually explain the complete history of this, that is very different. But i dont believe in destroying. I was taken aback recently when i learned that there was this attempt in washington to remove the freedmans memorial from lincoln park. I thought that was very ill advised, to say the leaf say the least. That is an understatement. People need to understand first the history of that monument. It was built by formerly enslaved peoples, many of them veterans who had fought for their freedom and for the freedom of their people. They paid for that monument. Does the monument represent black people the way i would like to see it . No it does not. Did the people who paid for it have a say in how it looked . No, they did not. But it is supposed to be a celebration of freedom and i dont think you take that down. You cannot see that in the same light that you would a monument to a confederate general. They are two very Different Things. But, if people are concerned about what that monument seems to suggest in terms of the role of black people in their own liberation or lack thereof, then you put Something Else beside it and you show what the true story is. That one you dont take down. The others you can take down and put elsewhere. Destroying them serves no purpose, from my perspective. And you are certainly not shortchanging history by removing them. You are not erasing history at all. You are acknowledging that there is a problem with this symbol in a country that is supposed to be wedded to the idea of liberty , justice, and equality for all people. Ms. Mast thanks, edna. Vernon, your thoughts . Prof. Burton i agree with everything edna said. I think each monument must be looked at separately. Each plaque, each historic house. And i have said this before i think i said it the last time we talked. You know, people dont learn their history from the books that we historians right or i would have a larger educational fund. But they do learn it from the Lincoln Cottage, from the monuments we put up, from the public history we tell. That is where it comes from. That is why i have such an affinity for illinois, because it is the land of lincoln. I think that is a great message versus the land of calhoun in South Carolina or clemson. But you need to look at each one and i am reminded of the judge when he went back and sort of pardoned the friendship nine these were the first students that went to jail and did not take bail in rock hill, South Carolina. They accuse them of rewriting history. He said, you cannot rewrite history, but you can right a wrong. And i think that is a good distinction we need to make. You have to ask at each memorial, what was it about . You have to look if youre looking at people i was part of that generation that helped destroy the idea of heroes in history. And we mightve been wrong. When we learned that jefferson at that time, we were not even sure, probably had a mistress who was underage. That is, what else can you call it . Then we sort of started throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think you got a look at the total contribution of an individual. What was the arc of their life like . Take the good with the bad. The other thing is when people are talking about art very few of these confederate monuments are true art. Believe me, they had plaster of paris, little forms and pumped about as fast as they could and sent them out. There may be some that truly are art, and those i think should be preserved. We have to remember, these are put up and here is something i started talking about recently and put in the recent book that im writing what does it mean in nearly every Courthouse Square in the south, in front of the courthouse is a statue to the confederacy, often with words that ring out White Supremacy . Clearly, they were erected with that in mind. But what that is basically saying is, as i was saying john , lewis could not vote in 1955 or to go into the courthouse register may have to getting in trouble, even if it was good trouble for john lewis. That is still a symbol for many people to say, dont expect to get a fair share hearing of justice here. This is built, there is a symbol here of White Supremacy. Nowhere on public land should there be the kind of statues that send that message. Now, i perfectly happy if people am want to buy the land and put it somewhere or in a graveyard that is kept by the daughters of the confederacy, they put it up. I am not saying not to display it. But there are many of them that have rather offensive language. Some dont, but there are some of them that are very explicit what it is about and i think that when you are paying taxes as a citizen and that is offensive to you, it shouldnt be there. Im not talking about a personal offense, but to you as a group of people, as citizens in a democracy. I think those are some of the things you want to think about when we look at and im happy to elaborate. Ms. Mast vernon, i think that is a great thing to elaborate on. There are two Different Things and there are many different ways to look at meaning. But you raised both the context of where it is if it is in front of a court, for example or the legislature, public land versus private and also when it was put up. Prof. Burton and why. Theyve made it clear why it was put up. Ms. Mast yeah, so when, why, and where. Can you talk more about the themes of that behind a lot of these monuments and memorials and the naming of things that are coming up now . Prof. Burton oh, absolutely. One of the things and let me point out the confederate monuments, and you can deal with all of these you have native american and so many other things but they are not just about honoring our dead soldiers, which is what was what we hear. They were also a part of the American South, white south, refocusing the narrative of the civil war. They died defending southern liberty and freedom from a n oppressed Central Government in washington. They were all put up at the height of jim crowe 1850s through the 1920s was the height of it. Its the reconciliation of north and south at the expense of , particularly, African Americans, leaving out the africanamerican soldiers who lincoln said made the difference in winning that war. The reunion of the soldiers. It is ironic to me that robert e all letss for furl the flag, never fly again, lets build no monuments. There was to be a monument of robert e lee, they should say this is the man who said lets dont have monuments and lets listen to him, maybe. But thats not the way, ironically, his monument has been put up. And people were explicit about what they were doing. This is where people learn their history. Ive looked at all the Southern State houses the South Carolina one, have to be careful on that because i have a 50 minute lecture on that, but every single statue of an individual there, there is not one africanamerican, and every one of them either argued strongly for White Supremacy, owned slaves, and were against the Civil Rights Movement and v. Board. Own i used to give a lecture saying nowhere is there the name of an African American on the statehouse grounds. I had to change that because i think it was an appropriate thing to do, and they should be credited for it. Strom thurmonds family added his africanamerican daughters name to the list of children. So there is an africanamerican name, but it is not exactly the way that we we have people like the great Benjamin Mays or the wonderful congressman, Robert Smalls who made so many contributions. And children, like i said, i was a generation that worked so hard to get rid of the idea of heroes, but i changed my mind. We need role models. At least alternative role models. I dont want to tell people how to think, but how do we know they were always blacks and whites in the Southern States and every state ive ever looked, at every place i have ever looked, who stood against the grain. It goes against this idea too, well, that was a different time. You will find some of the most and temp antiracist right people white People Living courageous lives at that time, so what does that say about the excuse that well, that was different time . You should know better. Did i go off track on you there . Ms. Mast i like your comments on that too, about how the place and the why and the where affects the meaning of these things. Prof. Burton again, i do want to say i not against people am having for what it means to them and i am not even doubting we need to be sensitive to this that it is important to people and they believe this. You are not going to stop them from believing it from yelling at them, actually. And we need to engage in dialogue of what it means to others. I love harvey gantt, the later mayor of charlotte. He integrated clemson. He once said, if you cannot appeal to the morals of a south carolinian, you can appeal to his manners. I say, do you know that this is hurting other peoples feelings . Do you really want to do that on public property . You can do what you want to other places, but when it is public property, taxpayers property, then that is a very different thing than you having the personal right to be wrong. Ms. Mast i like that. The personal right to be wrong. Edna, go ahead. Prof. Medford i should point out that vernon was one of my very first graduate professors , and i remember distinctly we had a conversation in class once where he was asking me to on aldrichws philips american slavery. I took the position that there was nothing worth knowing about aldrich philips because he was a the history he wrote was inaccurate, from my perspective. And vernon taught me, as a historian, to be objective. And i have always attempted to do that, but as an africanamerican woman, it is very difficult to be objective when you are confronted with a monument to someone like a lee or a jackson or whomever who was so intimately associated with the confederacy, or even someone like Thomas Jefferson, who can be seen by the average american as a great statesman and as a historian i can see him that way as well, but as an africanamerican i have to remember that this man who claimed that americans were entitled to certain rights did not extend those rights to people of my color. And so it is very difficult to separate oneself and say this was a great american, he just made a mistake here. His whole attitude about black people, his willingness to enslave black people, tarnishes his reputation, from my perspective. So it is very difficult to see him in any other way but to see any of these confederate monuments in any other way. I thought long and hard about whether or not we can at least tolerate a monument to a confederate soldier, just an average confederate soldier who had nothing to do directly with the war except to fight the war. And it is very difficult for me, although i understand that these people fought for what they believed was right, what they believed was right was wrong and i dont know that we can ever just excuse that. And so i would be in favor of removing any kind of monument that supports the idea of a glorious cause for the confederacy or a glorious cause for the southern people, people leading thehe nation you know, not being willing to accept that their in creating another country because they wanted to continue practices that did damage to a whole race of people. Yes, states rights was certainly a part of it, but its also about supporting a society based on slavery, and thats very difficult for me to get around. Prof. Burton let me just add one thing. Theres only one place i disagree with you. That is, i think a lot of those common soldiers did not believe in their cause. I really do. I think thats part of the myth we created and finally we are getting some novels and history to show that as well. There were desertion was not just because they wanted to go home, but figured out what this war was. Ive often said the big mistake was, what people have accused me of misunderstood lincoln when i argued he was a southerner. They said, he thought common southerners, those who did not own slaves, would not fight. But remember, lincoln defined the war at first not about ending slavery and edna has explained that very well in her book, which i was happy to get to be a reader of but about preserving the union. It became a war about slavery. Ive often wondered what would happen now if in fact lincoln had said, we are going to end this war against slavery. I dont think he would have been able to have got a guard to go down from the north to fight the war and im absolutely sure, in fact, we will never know, whether southerners would have fought if they knew the war that they were fighting for was not about their ability to leave the union, but to end slavery. I think part of it, a lot did dessert. I think part of the myth is this commitment to it. Ive had this argument with a lot of sons of the confederacy. You are dishonoring my great grandfather. I said, your great grandfather was drafted. He did not want to go. They had to come and find him under the wagon and then he deserted. So just how much do you want to honor this place . He wasnt about honor, he got forced into it. We forget that. The south was divided. When you take all the black soldiers who fought for the union who came out of the south and every single state except for South Carolina had a regiment of white soldiers who fought. And those who fought ran off to tennessee and joined union and things. Weve created this myth of the unified white southerner who is committed to slavery and all the other things. It just was not true. Will medford vernon, i let you win this one. Prof. Burton i dont have to win. We can disagree. But i think we are playing into peoples hands when we say i really do believe and most people dont agree with me but i do think an elite group of slaveowning and many who had visions of empire, slave empire and spreading slavery, because everywhere in the world except the United States was going back toward monarchy. That is why lincolns last best hope, he really meant it, that democracy was failing everywhere. Napoleon and maximilian, all of them had been republics or democracies. So these white confederate leaders had a vision of this very elite group that democracy doesnt work. Anyway, that has nothing to do with monuments. Ms. Mast i think it does because it gets to where we started, where we were talking about symbols versus the systemic change needed. So i think thats a good question for us to end on before we turn it over to the queue and q a with everyone joining us here. Where do we go from here . What is the thing that you two think deserves attention right now . How can we make sure we are not having this same conversation in five years . [laughter] prof. Burton like we did five years ago . Prof. Medford i think the first first thing we do is ensure democracy does not die. Because i think we are headed in the wrong direction at the moment. And Voter Suppression is just one of those examples of it. And so, first and foremost, we have to get ourselves together in that regard. And once we have secured democracy as best we can, we can talk earnestly about what we need to do to go forward. We have never been willing to really, seriously talk about what the issues are in this country. And vernon, i remember when i was rereading what we had talked about five years ago, you had talked about the fact that we are talking past each other. We really arent very serious about what we are doing. Im hoping whats happening out there in the streets now, whats happening in terms of people making certain that voters are registered, making sure that people are able to get to the polls, im hoping that will lead to some serious discussion about what else needs to be done in the country. I am very fearful because of what im seeing, not just in terms of whats happening to africanamericans, but whats happening on the border to immigrants, to people who really do believe that there is an American Dream that they can be a part of. I have friends who are Asian Americans who are afraid to go out to certain places, even before the pandemic because of the way they are treated. This is in the United States. We are no longer an example for the rest of the world. We were not serious before this about true inclusion, but i thought we were moving in the right direction. And now what im seeing is we are definitely going the wrong way. So until we can get those issues under control that divide us, we are always going to be in this situation, just waiting for the next thing to happen that is going to galvanize us as a nation, just to have it all collapse because we are not serious about solving the underlying issues. Prof. Burton i started out about, i believe this was a revolutionary moment as was the Civil Rights Movement, and those will be the two i will experience in my lifetime. Theres something about good revolutions are both exhilarating and there is a time for wariness. And i think edna has hit on both of these. Worrye of the things that worries me is and before we started this, i know edna heard me talk about this way back in 1974, even. I agree with edna completely about, lets get rid of these statues and the one that really one to me there is dr. Sims, one of those on the statehouse in South Carolina who operated on africanamerican women without anesthesia and is celebrated as this father of gynecology and things. Theres not any contextual thing about this at all. Know,s how i think, you what do we do if you keep Woodrow Wilson or jefferson, you have got to contextualize that there were great words spoken, but deeds are less than what we would want from anyone. The big issue for me is this it is a revolutionary moment. It is a good revolution. But we have to be wary. One of my wariness is, is the renaming of then tillman hall, we say, like when we took down the Confederate Flag off the dome and then put it in front of it, then took it down and put it douseum, which is fine people then say, great, we have ended racism . We havent. All of these things, the statues , our history. They are symbolic of problems that are historically created. We created racism. Theres clearly no such thing as different races. But there is such a thing as racism. And we created it by making laws. We started with laws that made it even illegal not to be racist. Segregation, it was illegal for people to be in integrated situations. No one is upset, in fact, that we took down the signs that said only or white only or no irish allowed. But people sure get upset about a symbol that says the same thing. Which would be confederate statues and other things. Thats just to give you a comparative perspective. That is why i really believe i in the history. I take my religion seriously, but if i didnt take my faith seriously, i think history would be my faith. History helped put us in this mess and history, i think, can get us out of it if people just understand that we were not just taught to be racist. We were legally made to make other people less than their potential. That even if you were a black veteran in world war ii, you could not go to the white school afterward, to university. Some of them were Great Schools that you could not use the g. I. Bill to buy a home in a place where it would accumulate wealth so that your family could then go to college after world war ii. Your children, because of redlining, because of covenants , which went back to 1911 in minneapolis, where george floyd was, which said you cannot have a black person in this neighborhood, which is the good neighborhood where you invest in a home and then you get the equity and the money and that so whereas africanamericans make a lot more money than they used to, the wealth gap is still there because wealth is passed on, is accumulated, is part of heritage. We never had a reconciliation commission, as other places like south africa has. And im hoping this is part of what will be coming. I am hoping that in november, with a different situation, i am hopeful and pray that we can actually take advantage of this good revolution going on. I think it is being stymied in many ways now and used as a backlash and i hope it doesnt work to bring out the negative things and i dont want to get into politics very much, but thats the other side of the Voter Suppression. People know better now. Not trying to excuse ben tillman, but they know they can mobilize people and separate partisanship and race these days, and by trying to disenfranchise through the very same methods i was Expert Witness to ldf in texas and the judge quoted me the in person voter id laws are nothing more than a poll tax on poor people as a way to keep them and it has been shown over and over again and we are using the exactly the same methods that we used in 1890s to disenfranchise people or make their vote the diluted so it doesnt have the meaning of other peoples votes, which you cannot do in a democracy. Democracy depends on the belief in the ballot and people having the vote. Erin i would also argue a free society demands we know history and its complexity and nuance this has been a great conversation. We have 15 minutes and we have a lot of wonderful questions, so im going to turn it over to joan. Some of these questions are along the same lines, but they are about different specific monuments, so im going to let you, joan, facilitate how to ask these questions of edna and vernon. Joan thank you. Because we are running low on time, im going to do my best to make these sort of rapidfire questions and i appreciate everyones patience as i do that. We had two questions that were related. One of which was from tom who wants to know, should we take confederate memorials off of all National Park service lands, including battlefields . Theres a bill that has gone through about that. Should we do that . The second part of that question comes from bruce, which is can we do anything about confederate monuments on private land, or is that just up to the people who own the land . Edna i will start. Ive always felt people can do whatever they want to do on their own property. I might not like it, but i have nothing to do with something that is owned by someone else. But if im paying to maintain a monument because it is on public land, and it is offensive to me, then i should not have to pay for that. So i would call for removal and if we are talking about a National Park, i agree with vernon that these Historic Sites are doing a much better job with telling the complete history than used to be the case. And so, perhaps with a bit of tweaking of the history, not just simply having these monuments there for people to draw their own conclusions, but using those as teachable moments to explain what this history was behind it. I dont have a problem with that. But Something Like the monuments on monument avenue, those kinds of things, that kind of stuff needs to be removed. Im happy to see they are doing that. That it is happening all over the country, and i think its high time that it did. But that doesnt mean we are destroying the history. We are just putting it someplace else and being very open about exactly what happened. Vernon i think you have to look at each one separately. I feel very strongly, as edna does, about the public property. I get angry and i have to pray about it because i see people around me here i live in South Carolina, flying the Confederate Flag, and its all i can do to not want to go and take the flag down ive actually gone a couple of times when i have had friends, i asked if they would mind removing their flags out of courtesy. Sometimes this works. I do think it is a chance to reexamine our history, but i like the way things were done by mitch landau and having meetings which brings in dialogue. As we look at specific ones and a Community Comes to grips with its heritage and history, we were successful in greenwood, South Carolina to take away the monument, even though there was the heritage act, which segregates the soldiers that fought in world war i and world war ii, the korean war, and replaced it with one where the unit, the soldiers were not segregated. That was a Community Effort and i think that was one way we are able to make a difference. The other thing is alternative role models such as the great dr. Benjamin mays in my hometown. The only monument that exists to an individual now is to ben mays, the great theologian, one of the three greatest theologians of the 20th century. His most famous people being Martin Luther king jr. When i was growing up, the only historical plaque was to the caning by preston brooks, so we were great at football because we realize the only way we were going to get recognized was to beat the fire out of people. You send messages with what you memorialize and who you memorialize. I think its important to get some alternative role models, especially women, recognized as well because they are giving us alternative models about what democracy means. One of the problems has been the American South and South Carolina in particular, we just dont criticize anybody whos ever been elected to office. Thats the way it was in the textbooks. If you were president , you were a great person. A lot of people still feel that way today. I think weve got to learn to think critically and one way we can think critically is be more honest about these people who do have monuments and we have ways to do this now. With the digital revolution, you can hit a thing on your phone and get a full lecture on the horrors of what this person was really like. Edna before we go to the next question, may i respond to a member of your audience who just there are southern taxpayers offended by lincoln. Let me just say lincoln did not fight against his own nation. Lincoln did not hold people enslaved. I think what we need to remember is a wrong was done to millions of people of color. So when the descendents of those people of color, those people who were wronged, see an image, a symbol of that oppression, then of course we are not going pay a by having that for having that symbol maintained. We need to understand what this is about. Its about oppression, not mayor anyone elses concerns because i just dont feel good when i see a southern monument. It is much, much deeper than that. Joan thank you, edna. The next set of questions that are related to each other are about specific monuments and to vernons point about catalyzing canonize and a president. Folks are curious what the two of you think about Thomas Jefferson, the jefferson memorial, and the washington monument. Edna vernon, im going to let you take this one first. Vernon [laughter] edna knows the story and hes a friend of ours and a dear person. When i was in graduate school, i found out about jefferson. Id grown up in 96 and loved jefferson and discovered he had a child mistress, pretty much. Not only owned slaves i just became furious with jefferson. So when i went out to illinois to teach, i didnt even have my phd. The first class i had, edna was in, it was 8 00 on a saturday, wasnt it . Drove all night to get there. I just finished and showed up to class and i had read a book by a professor at illinois who is a dear friend and i adore him to this day. But i thought this is great, hes writing, attacked jefferson, i cant wait to meet this colleague and i get there to discover he doesnt like jefferson because hes a monarchist. That is my historian friend. I realize, oh my gosh, there was a little balance here going on im mad at jefferson from the other side and it sort of taught me a lesson about you have to look at the whole thing. A man who can write these great words, if he wrote them, youve got to wonder since we are assuming he wrote equality and liberty, justice, those things that is important. That is important that somebody would write that declaration. I had thrown that out, i was so mad at jefferson, i would have taken a sledgehammer to any monument. But now, i look at it and say youve got to look at the whole picture. So it is a tough question. Same thing with someone like washington. Would you have had a United States without a George Washington . Spending the rest of my many, many years washington was not at the top as he has moved up among the evaluation, but how he treated democracy. How he wanted to step back. The father of the country yes, he owned slaves. And he punished slaves and other things. The overall thing is he was it is complex. But theres a large framework there and you have to decide which of it you are going to set. But the whole story of jefferson needs to be told. The whole story, if you are going to celebrate jefferson, you also say this man, or he claimed not to believe in black equality, though he writes all men are created equal. At the same time, he certainly felt himself or he, at the most, was attracted, lets put it that way, if he did not love and an africanamerican young woman who was underage and things. That story needs to be told. What i worry about with what edna is saying is i can just see a mythology growing up after this election of a lost cause, if it goes away, i hope, with another role model i dont like. And i think that is our nature, to make more of people than they are. We are complex. Edna and i know, we go round after round on lincoln. Thats a good example. There are africanamericans beside southerners who would not want to pay taxes to have a picture of lincoln there and i think that is their right. To me, theres no way you cant look at the large picture, you would not have a United States if it wasnt for lincoln and, what i like about the ark of his life is that he grew and changed in a direction toward greater equality for all and support for africanamericans as citizens as opposed to some who went the other way. Wilson is a more complicated character in that way. Hes from the south that he was much more like northerners about Race Relations and things and youve got the issue of his trying to bring peace to the world, though it failed and this idea of those things about democracy. So you have to look at each one and make those decisions. He is the one who segregates the federal government. Since lincoln, it had not been segregated. But it is as much as a reaction as part of being part of the Democratic Party as him. So it is really complex on these kind of people. When you get to complexity, you can have legitimate arguments, but theres some people that theres no complexity about. When i was talking about the civil war, i try to tell my friends when they are flying the Confederate Flag in my face that i had grandfathers on both sides that fought and died for the confederacy as well, but imagine how you felt at 9 11 or if you had been around for the japanese bombing of pearl harbor. Thats what brought the north into that war. The confederacy fired on the United States. It was the same kind of reaction. That is when i said, if that hadnt happened, im not sure lincoln could have raised forces to preserve, let alone to have ended slavery. That evolved when people learned what slavery was really like. It was like the killing of george floyd when soldiers got , to the south and saw what it was. You can document again and again and again what they were saying i dont care about slavery, im not fighting to end slavery, i dont care, they were racist as can be. They got down south, and blacks who were enslaved, help them, help them and all kinds of ways to win battles even when they were not soldiers and they saw what slavery was firsthand as opposed to what people wrote about it and said about it, its not all that bad and all this, they became ardent abolitionists. It was a Civil Rights Movement, people just didnt believe it was that bad in the south. It was not until newspapermen and Television Cameras caught dogs attacking children and water hose taking the skin off of people that you saw, its not until george floyd is losing his breath second by second that people believe that this really happens. So i think part of it is just not knowing. Erin we had a question that will be our last question but i think it is really relevant to that and i want to thank everybody for the robust discussion occurring in the comments. Theres a lot of interesting points being made. But the final question we will ask for tonight is what role we talked a little bit about george floyd as a catalyst for the current upswing in the discussion on this front. What role do you all think the pandemic and other aspects of the Current Situation have had in catapulting this to the forefront of american conversation again . Edna i think what has happened is that the pandemic has actually slowed things down. I think if there were no pandemic, you would see many more people in the streets and the changes occurring much more rapidly. I think some people have stayed away because they are truly fearful of this pandemic, as they should be. So i think more than galvanizing people to go out into the streets, it has slowed the momentum a little bit. I know we have seen things escalate, but i think you would see much more of that if we did not have the concern with covid19. And if i may go back, i would just like to respond to the question about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The words that jefferson wrote are beautiful, but the words did not apply to the people who were enslaved, apparently. And apparently did not apply to the women either or to the native americans who were not even considered a part of this emerging new nation anyway. And by the way, someone asked how old was Sally Hemmings when he took her as his mistress, vernon, i believe she was 15 years old . Vernon some say 14, but you are probably right. About then. Edna she was a child. Vernon the words you would say edna in the terms of George Washington, yes, washington left instructions for his enslaved population to be freed when martha died, but he could have played such an Important Role earlier than that. He didnt have to come right out and say this is wrong, we need to do something about it. He could have used his moral authority, if he had that, during the time he was president to try to move the country closer to that kind of equality that Thomas Jefferson had talked about. And instead, what he did was he hunted down people who ran away from his farms. Stopped hunting for that poor woman. When hercules left, the cook, he tried to bring him back to the plantation. So if he was truly someone who believed in the rights of all people, the basic humanity, he would not have done that. He would have just let them go. In terms of Woodrow Wilson, i dont know what to say about Woodrow Wilson. [laughter] he is saying some really vicious things at a time when we needed moral leadership. And he did not present it. He tried to do so many other things for the world, but he needed to stop in his own country and tried to make changes. And im hoping as we go forward, we will have political leaders who are willing to step forward and do that. Vernon i wanted to add that thats an not important point, it was just amazing when you look at this. I do think he thought slavery ,as the wolf by the ears because he wrestled with it and they made those choices. With the pandemic and it also underscores, if you look at the data, how historically africanamericans and other minorities have less Good Health Care and are more vulnerable. All of this is related. That we just forget sometimes. It is a complex story, but we have to understand it. And i have hope people are beginning to understand it in a way they never have before. Erin i think that is a good, hopeful note to end on. Edna, vernon, thank you so much for taking the time and thank you all for joining us. Sorry we couldnt get to the comment section, it was exploding toward the end there. It was wonderful and really great conversation happening there. Thank you all for joining us this evening. I hope you learned a lot tonight and there are a lot of resources being shared and can forward to having next conversation with all of you and i hope you can take this forward and feel hopeful about positive change in our country at this time and i want to wish you all good health and good hope for the future. Thank you all. Vernon thank you for all you folks do. You do a good job. What a great job you are doing and i think its making a difference. Having dialogues like this i wish i had a chance to talk to everyone there. Again, i have my own strong views, but i try to be respectful and i think we have to be respectful of other peoples heartfelt views. Edna absolutely. Erin i agree. Its important for historians and educators to find ways to really Work Together to make sure that more complete story and dialogue is happening at all levels. A really important partnership. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv on cspan3, were each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs about our nations past. The 1918 flu pandemic altered American Life in ways that are familiar to those living in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. This sunday, Christopher Mcknight nichols accounted how the nation the lessons we might learn. Here is a preview. U. S. As troopshe came back from france, from the east coast cities involved in the war new york, philadelphia, boston you see people taking the advice of Public Health officials. Despite warnings, lots of cities and states going ahead with major events, business as usual. September 28, 1918, the philadelphia liberty bell parade, the largest date largest parade today. Help support the war, this was an era when the u. S. Attempted to finance as conflicts on the back of its civilians, we no longer do that. Image of an aircraft traveling down a parade route in philly. What you might know about what that next is how horrific super spreader it was. Doctors urged Public Health officials and the mayor to cancel the parade. They were fearful that hundreds of thousands of people jammed along the route would be a problem. It was a huge one. Days after the parade, the head of Public Health said something as follows, i will paraphrase now present in the civilian population is some type of flu. Lets not be panic stricken over exaggerated reports. On the other hand, look at details like this the philadelphia evening bulletin reported in some families, there are none left to take care of burying their dead and others cannot get undertakers. Really horrific. After the parade, it got much worse. Up,itals quickly filled they built supplemental hospitals, they also filled up. At one point you were getting 700 plus people dying in one day at its worst. There were horsedrawn carriages to pick up the bodies and they could not keep up, that is how betty got. This is what historians have been hollering since march. There is a great report on the cdc website about the history of the pandemic. This is what we think about with football games, parades, we worry about this kind of moment. Curve could not be flattened and the city was utterly devastated because of that. Learn more about the 1918 flu pandemic this sunday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv. Each week, American History tvreel america brings you archival fills with context for todays Public Affairs issues. Presidency, she reveals first Lady Jacqueline kennedys diplomatic coup in bringing the mona lisa to the United States despite opposition on both sides of it went it. Leonardo da vincis painting was seen as part of the free world. President kennedy use it to promote American Relations with france. 2 Million People saw the mona lisa in washington, d. C. And new york city during the winter of 1963. Ms. Davis is the author of mona lisa in camelot. The White House Historical association hosted this event and provided the video. Rhett this evening it is a pleasure and honor to introduce a friend to the association, and a friend of mine, Margaret Leslie davis. She is an awardwinning author of books about the history of the west
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