am glad to be with the abe lincoln bookshop again. >> thanks very much. we also wish you were here in person because it's so much fun. even having a conversation like this, if it's face to face it's just so much more fun to interact. we will have those times again. >> sure. >> we are coming to the end of this current unpleasantness. we will have those days again. we are here to talk about karen's new book, but before we do that, i also wish to send out greetings and salutations to those of you who may be watching this conversation on c-span book tv. we are recording this event on april 12th 2021, which is the date of release of no common ground. so those of you who are watching this on c-span book tv will be watching this at some other time. but we thank you for your attention to it, and we hope that you will enjoy this conversation if you are watching it later. if you are watching it later, we will still have copies, first edition signed copies of no common ground available. you can order at abraham lincoln bookshop's website. that is abraham lincoln bookshop.com. if you are watching this live on the facebook feed, we are going to put a link to the order form in the comments, so that you can go in there and order the book. we have a special signed and dated book plates that karen was kind enough to sign for us. thank, you karen. these are only available if you order it on the day of the release. we have other book plates, other signed book plates that we will give you if you order it later. but if you order it today, you will get a signed and dated book plate, which will create an effect, a limited edition. here is your limited edition of no common ground. signed and dated. so folks at home, feel free to get out there and order the book. that's how we can afford to put these programs on for you and introduce you to the author of a house divided. a little bit on our guest today, dr. karen cox is a professor of history at the university of north carolina charlotte. she is the author of dreaming of dixie, dixie's daughter, and the remarkable g.o.a.t. castle. she writes about -- she does write in public about the confederate monument controversy, and she does a lot of frequent appearances on the media about that. and she has been thinking a lot about the controversy of the confederate monuments, as it has recently come about. it has come into popular culture. so karen, without me answering the question for you, tell the customers, tell the audience why no common ground, why did you want to write about this now? >> that's a terrific question. i didn't want to write about this controversy, to be honest, initially. mainly because i had been speaking about it since 2017 and been on the road a lot. and finally, the pressure kept building. i also noticed that the controversy wasn't going away. and one of the things that i found myself doing on a regular basis when i would talk to the media was trying to explain the history of these statues. so i was hesitant, but i had a little conversation with myself, i looked myself in the mirror and said you know you are going to write this book. so i think even though i had a hesitancy in writing about it, because i knew a certain period of time about the history of the monuments that would maybe take me up to the first world war, when i didn't know was that first world war up to current events. surrounding these monuments. but i learned a lot while writing this book. and i realized that there was so much more to the story of confederate monuments then just the jim crow era story that we all -- often hear about. i really ended up enjoying writing this. it was a little stressful times because i was on a time schedule, but i did enjoy it and i feel good about the book that i produced. >> good, good. for those who are thinking of buying the book, let me just chime in. i think i can say this without having to ask you a question about it, karen. but there is a difference between a book that is a work of history and a work that is a work of activism that participates in an active way, in a modern political controversy. for any of you who are thinking of buying no common ground, you need to understand that this is a work of history. doctor cox is a professor of history. and it is the mission of the book, i can tell you having read it, to help you understand the context in which some of the modern conflicts and controversies are happening. but the book does not -- it is not going to tell you what to do with your monument in your neighborhood. that does not seem to be the goal of the book. and karen, i don't know if you want to chime in on that, but do you want people to understand they are reading a history book, not able to contribute to a fight. >> it is a history book. it starts in 1865 and takes us all the way up to last summer. last summer's still history. it is a very recent history, it's a very contemporary history, but its history nonetheless. and i thought it was -- i think it is really important for people to understand why things unfolded and have been unfolding for the last five years, six years, since the charleston massacre. why that has been unfolding, and why people should understand that that -- what seems like only a recent phenomenon is a phenomenon that goes all the way back to the 19th century. when the first monuments were being built. it is a book that helps people who are reading this book understand the history of these statues, understand the way people felt about them overtime. and also to provide context for recent events, especially since the charleston massacre of 2015. >> okay. i think that's very important when someone is thinking about picking up the book, to know it is a history book. and as you say, last summer's history. it takes and historians perspective to understood the code text. you are a historian of the south. the books you have written before have been about the south. and so what -- can you tell us what in your personal experience made you want to study the history of the south? >> the simple answer is that i grew up in the south. it was all around me. whenever i was an undergraduate history major, when i wanted to write about was what existed in the state of north carolina. i grew up in greensboro, my masters thesis was about female academies that were planter daughters going to school. there were actual buildings that i could go visit and see that. i was very interested in my local history. and since this time, it is my interest in this that has been because these were things that were happening in the locales that were wherever i have lived. i got interested in the united daughters of the confederacy in the late 80s. the 19 80s, because i was working for a museum of history. there had been a confederate woman's home there. my colleague had salvaged some lumber from that home and made benches from them. he came to me one day and said, would you research this home and tell me what it's about? when i make these benches, i like to give a little history behind it. that sent me down the rabbit hole that became dixie's daughters. so everything is really about the local, and i often feel like we learn a locally tells us a lot about what is going on regionally and nationally. >> well, there is a saying that all politics is local and it has been my experience as a student of history that all histories local. >> i agree with that. very much. this is the thing about the whole monument issue for people to understand is that monuments are very much local objects, they have their own individual histories. and if people really want to know about their local monument, they can't read a book like mine that provides the broader context, but then they can go to their local libraries, maybe their local newspaper and learn more about the monument and -- in their community. let's jump into the book. my own personal historical preference is for the older the history the better. i hope i don't spend the entire time talking about 1865 through 18 -- but that is my favorite period. so first to dive into the story of the confederate monuments. one of the most important aspects of this book, to me, is it's revelation of the role that women played in memorializing the civil war in the south. so can you tell us about how white women of the south became the curators of the memory of the confederacy? >> with men coming home from war, having suffered a terrible defeat in the south, women sort of took up the work of memorializing the confederacy. they had been in -- women during the war had been members of soldiers aid societies. those soldiers aid societies manifested themselves as ladies morial subjugation's after the civil war. initially, this was a period of grieving. so those first monuments went into cemeteries and women were responsible for recovering bodies from a battlefields like gettysburg, and returning them back to the south where they could have a proper burial in a confederate cemetery. but it was not known -- especially in the early decades after the civil war, the first decade and a half at least, it wasn't -- they couldn't even imagine memorializing themselves in some ways. or their fallen comrades. so women took this up as an extension of their role as wives and mothers in their communities. they also, as the years went on and they continued in this memorialization process, they develop some leadership skills. they develop fundraising skills, they developed public speaking skills. and so, it became something that they could do outside of the home but still have the protection of their role in traditional gender roles. they are not trying to buck the gender system. but at the same time, that's exactly what they were doing in their roles as leaders of this movement. so while it began as a ladies memorial association, it then extended by the 1890s to the united daughters of the confederacy. a new generation of women, white women in the south joined the memorial associations in doing this. i keep thinking of -- i've often said that the u dc was an opportunity for southern women to have a career. they might not be able to go out into the workplace, especially the women of the middle and upper classes. they might not have done that. but they could have a career in the udc, and they could apply their education and be active in their communities and do all of these things that i just mentioned. fundraising, speaking, they would even be lobbyists, political lobbyists. that's exactly what they were. fund-raisers, just amazing fundraisers. it's a combination of the way in which the war changed women 's lives and helped lead them to become more public women. but with the caveat that they are in the south and so it is very much geared towards confederate memorialization. and at least on the surface, it's not a challenging traditional gender roles. >> right. i'm going to share something that -- while we go through this conversation i'm occasionally going to share things that we have abraham lincoln bookshop. usually when i do this, i try to sell it to you. some of the things we're going to share here in this program don't ssri have a lot of value, in terms of money. although there are extraordinary valuable historically. i'm not really pitching this to you, but one -- karen, i am going to give you one chance to talk about one particular udc person, and that is miss rutherford. we don't need to go all the way back to dixie's daughters here, but i do think the people who are interested in confederate monuments will want to go -- there is a project going on, and there are people behind this project. here we see these pamphlets she is passing out that are teaching and pitching a privileged version of the civil war. when i say privileged, i mean a subversion of the civil war the privileges the confederate memory of the civil war. it's called the lost cause. a lot of people listening to this know about the lost cause. but even as monuments, they have a real project behind them, and that is to tell our story. >> exactly. gilbert rutherford was like a one woman pr machine for the iodice. she wrote all of these scrap books about various aspects of confederate history. she wrote a lessons, lesson plans that could be used in public schools. she went on a speaking tour addressed in the style of the 18 50s. she was really living it up as this sort of representative of the old south in some ways. the old south and the confederacy. she really felt it was important that history could provide a defense of the confederate cause. so her work supplements the work of those women who were really focused, and primarily focused on the monuments themselves. they are all working together. the monuments are part of with eu d.c. did. the history, the education component, all of these things are working together to support what the eu d.c. is doing. their agenda is far reaching and monuments are part of it but so is that history. and that history is something that also gets told during these monument unveilings, for example. >> let's talk about one monument unveiling. because of course, there are thousands of these monuments. but the first one that really gets some ink in your book is the dedication of the monument in augusta, georgia. >> yes. >> it's one of the early ones. can you fill us in, maybe as a representative example. tell us about that augusta monument and how that pointed the way to what came after it. >> i think what's really interesting about the augusta monument is that it's really one of the earliest that comes out after reconstruction. once federal troops have left the region and they had left georgia, they began -- ladies memorial associations began organizing an effort to place a monument on a main thoroughfare within -- in augusta georgia. so this was 1877. it was 1878, 1879 when the unveiling takes place. what's interesting about this is that it becomes more ceremonial. it becomes more celebratory of the confederacy. they've moved beyond b reeve mint and now they are going to be focused in on the celebration of the confederacy. that's what makes the augusta monument a little different. and what do you see in that is some of the rituals of monument unveiling that are evident right away. one of which is there would be all kinds of ceremony just for laying the cornerstone of the monument. even before the fundraising had been completed. and then a couple of years later, the monument itself would be unveiled. and then there is all this ritual i say shun around having parades, military style parades, everybody is encouraged to decorate their homes with confederate battle flags, as well as the united states flag. and there are speeches being given and children are involved. and so it is one of the first that actually incorporates a small statue of robert e. lee, it's the rise of the cult of lee. but very, very early on. >> let me follow that up with something that has to stick in a lot of people's brains when they hear you say that. did you just say that these dedications, that the ceremonies were considered by the udc and people as ways to express patriotism for the united states? >> the augusta monument is pre-udc, but you are correct at these unveilings, there was a sense that first of all, we were going to honor the confederacy and confederate soldiers in our confederate military leaders. we are also going to say that they are making the argument that they weren't really traitors of the nation. they were very much patriots and defenders of the constitution. especially the tenth amendment and defending states rights, because that was their argument all along. and so they don't see that there is a disconnect between having loyalty to the confederacy and loyalty to the united states. >> okay. this does bring us up to what has to be the most -- and you've already talked about the cult of robert e. lee. but probably the first confederate monument a lot of people think of is the one featured on your jaw asked jacket. and that is the robert e. lee monument on monument avenue in richmond. and if you'll bear with me for a second, in order to make the point that these monuments don't just bring up out of the ground, people put them there and they mean something to people. and the people that put it there tell us what they are thinking. so if you will bear with me, i'm going to take a minute to read a little bit of archer anderson's dedicated free speech about robert e. lee and what he is telling us that that monument represents on may 29th, 1890. anderson says, in a conclusion to a speech must have been about 90 minutes long, let this monument then teach to generations yet unborn these lessons of his life. let it stand not as a record of civil strife, but as a perpetual protest against whatever is low and sordid in our public and private objects. let it stand is a memorial to personal honor and never broke to stain of nightly valor without thought of self, a far-reaching military genius on soiled by ambition, of heroic constancy for which no misfortune could ever hide the path of duty. let it stand for reproof and censure if our people shall ever sink below the standards of their fathers. so, i know that maybe the first time you are thinking about that. but overall, what is archer anderson telling us that we are supposed to think about that? well, he and many other speakers of the day in these unveiling speeches, first of all they want you to connect the history. they want the children to learn that history. which is one of the first parts of that quote. somehow, this memorial is there to teach lessons. and then there is also an element of what you said. a long piece, i just want to do my best here. i think one of the things is one of the things about the le moyne meant particularly this one enrichment, there are several monuments to robert e. lee but the one enrichment on monument avenue is really, it's about reestablishing southern masculinity in a lot of ways. li represents that for him. his masculinity is untarnished. somehow that monument doesn't just represent lee but it represents all southern men and confederate soldiers. basically to allow them to hold their heads high, to not be thinking about to feed but to be thinking about their own heroism. i think this is the thing that many of these confederate soldiers, these veterans who spoke at the unveilings we're trying to do. they were trying to reclaim their masculinity, several decades removed, or at least a few from duffy. it becomes this little historical amnesia, bound up in this monument. asking people to move on, but to think about it in a way that is reflecting on that as a moment of heroism, as a moment where that had been a just cause, and reclaiming their masculinity in spite of defeat. >> again, they are determined even then to declare that they will write. >> exactly. there is never this confession of guilt in any way. and admission of they were wrong. it's a ways the lost cause was a just cause. for many of them they believed it was a sacred cause, that god was on their side. they even turned it into that, as well. if god is on their side and then there is no way this could've been wrong. >> the next thing i want to get on to here, is the second chapter of your book, but i do want to tell anyone who is thinking of getting this book, it does a lot of great stuff! if it only did one thing, it's one of the things you do in chapter two, which is demonstrate that there was never a time when everybody accepted the stories about these monuments. there is, for the purpose of this conversation with the lee monument, can you take us just a few minutes to introduce us to a man named john mitchell, and editor of a newspaper in richmond there. tell us why we need to be listening to john mitchell's opinions that he stated at that time. >> right, i wish i was reading from that. i could use his own words. john mitchell was the editor of the african american newspaper called the richmond plan a. he was very much a critic of what he saw going on. on the one hand he said, well, we understand people want to memorialize their leaders. on the other hand, they are taking it a bit too far! he was also concerned, he was raising a red flag here that what he saw going on at the same time that this monument was being unveiled was that he very much understood that there was a move away from the progress that was brought on by reconstruction. the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment. especially the 15th amendment, the right for african american men to blow that provided for that. he was really concerned. he was right! there was a movement afoot to disenfranchise black man. he saw it coming. part of that response to the lee unveiling is he published the 15th amendment in the paper. he also published responses from other black newspaper editors around the region and what they saw happening there. they were horrified! they look at that and what was happening there in richmond and said, you know, these men were traitors! they fought against the united states, they took up arms against the united states. how is it that these men can be celebrated, not only for taking up arms against the united states but also for fighting a war that would've perpetuated slavery. they recognized what was happening in richmond and 1890. >> right. one of the things that you see happening throughout this book is it helps us to understand that the monuments are not static. they do not just sit there. as we were talking about, they don't get put up by people who just walk away. also, it is very tempting right now while we are in the midst of a controversy about, well, they have always been there and therefore they have always been accepted. this book tells us, no! >> no. >> no, they were not! there has never been a day when these monuments did not have somebody throwing up their hands and say, wait a minute! i have an opinion about this to. >> exactly. >> but 1928, certainly lost cause memory had done a lot to infiltrate or dominate what's people thought about the civil war. the monuments were an important part of that. let me share just briefly, something, i think it's a who. here is a number of man, giles cook, tyler lyon, a number of very important white southern man in 1928 trying to tell the state of virginia that they must not, or must repeal a resolution of respect whom they call a barbarian. line tyler, they are not a shouting red faced ignorant kind of man. he is one of the most important intellectual thinkers of the 20s in the south. it seems to me that part of the creation of these monuments, in that time now, i guess the teen, 20, and 30's, it is totally away for memorialization. it really is a fight for a victory, a victory for white supremacy in that time. i don't know if you feel the same way about tyler lyon, and all that. he is not part of your book but do you see that happening during that time? >> well, in many ways the confederate marked me minced that were placed on the southern landscape during this period were being placed on the grounds of global court houses and state capitals. this is where justice is supposed to be served, where laws are made, the kinds of laws being made are legalizing segregation. there is lynchings taken place on the lawn support houses across the south, adjacent to these confederate monuments. confederate monuments are absolutely representative of a culture of white supremacy across the south. so, you know, while women are behind the movement to place them on these courthouse lawns, they are being supported, they are supporting the legal machinations of white supremacy that are taking place. yes, they are all together. i think it is really important that we point now that women, white women of the south, are just as violent in their thinking about race as the men in their lives. they would not blink. they may not be there, or they might be there at a lynching on the courthouse lawn. but they certainly endorsed these things. the way i feel about confederate monuments, confederate monuments provide a cultural underpinning of this system of white supremacy that is being legalized across the south during the same time. >> do you see that as a change from the, if you want to call a, original purpose of monuments? is it an evolution of the next thing that makes sense? >> i think what is going on is in the beginning in the 1890s, you have to think about the backdrop of these confederate monuments. the backdrop in the 1890s's an increase in racial violence, an epidemic of lynching, disfranchising of black male voters. all of this in just one decade. this continues on into the 20th century. you might need to repeat that last par [laughs] this is the backdrop. i mean, -- it is hard to separate the monuments out from what is actually taking place at that same period. >> okay. okay, that makes a lot of sense. the monuments, a monument, these monuments -- i guess any monument is a conversation. >> right, and they are being used by these ubc members to teach children. i actually teach -- the member of women in the late 80s that were in the children of the confederacy when the early you dc was leading this movement. they would tell me about not only the portraits of their military leaders and heroes that were in the classroom but the fact that there udc leaders would take them down to the local confederate monument to come part some history about that. that is the thing about these confederate monuments. they are never static. it is something where the children are taught to be taught lessons of the lost cause, the state rights. it wasn't about slavery. the sort of things. these things were happening. and then monuments are ritualized every year every confederate memorial day there is a another ritual, there are more speeches. that goes on for a few generations. what you will see in my book is by the time you get to the 1950s and the civil rights movement the rhetoric of confederate memorial day speeches has become about communism. or, anti communism. that is obviously a reaction to the civil rights movement. >> yes, in fact you are anticipating where i want to go with this. those monuments are already up by the 1950. by 1955 when emmett till mint is murdered in. . mississippi, can you continue to explore this idea of how did the civil rights movement change the conversation about the monuments between those who were in power in the white supremacist south, and those who were having that power be used upon them? >> right, i think what you see, what you discover is that during the civil rights movement, first of all, civil rights leaders are very upset about confederate iconography in general. it is very often the battle flag. the battle flag is used by segregationist as a tool of intimidation. those things are mobile! whereas confederate monuments are stationary. the complaint about confederate memory and the ways in which y children are still being taught in these ideas of the lost cause, they are being talked about by civil rights leaders. you can see that really pick up right around the civil war centennial. 19 61 to 65. it also happens to be the most heated period of the civil rights movement, when it is at its most intense! so one of the things i write about, one of the changes is the civil rights act of 64, the voting rights act of 1965. it is then you begin to see black voters are going to elect people to office who are going to represent them around the issue of confederate iconography. one of these cases a talk about the merit of march, the ways in which the merit of march, which was about registering voters. but he called the march against fear. it was a march from memphis to jackson, mississippi. they would go into communities and the purpose was to register voters. it is there that they coalesce around confederate monuments. the statues are in the town square, the center of town, or they are on the courthouse lawn. which is also where people might need to go register to vote, at the courthouse! so, it is a confrontation with confederate monuments. it is a reclamation of the space that confederate monuments sit on, and have dominated, for so long. and so once you see that happening, by the 1970s he will begin to see individuals who are civil rights veterans who are being elected to their local city council for the first time. and they begin to challenge why, you know, they are representatives of government now. they are going to challenge these monuments on the courthouse lawn. this takes us to a great topic. one of the people you talk about is harvey gantz from charlottesville. >> in charlotte. >> charlotte, north carolina. >> charlottesville, it's easy to mention that. >> he did that in the city where you live. >> right. so harvey gantz, for people who may not remember, he was the first black student to integrate into clemson university. he moved to charlotte in the 70s, he was elected to the city council. and in 1977, 112 years after the civil war, there was a local guy, a group that wanted to put a confederate monument on the grounds of city hall in charlotte. most of the time, these things would have gone on without question. and even though the monument did end up on the grounds of city hall, harvey gantt as one of the earliest members of the city council in the years that the voting rights act passed calls this into question. and he has such a grasp of history, and what that history meant to him. he had been brought up in charleston south carolina, he was keen surrounded by the confederacy in charleston, south carolina. the history that he learned was that in the black public schools in charleston, and that he had grown up with, was a history that was actually more factual than the lost cause. and he felt that it was very important that he speak up as a representative of the black community and say, these monuments, if the confederacy had one, our ancestors would have continued to be enslaved. he didn't feel like a confederate monument being placed on the grounds of city hall in 1977 was truly representative of the new south. and charlotte, which of course claims the mantle of a new south city, he said this is not the way you do it. >> yeah, he i think is one of the more -- harvey gantt is one of the more interesting characters. you introduced him in this book, and part of the reason is that he reminds any of us that think that these things are non controversial or have previously been uncontroversial, they always were. have always been people willing to speak out against them if there were people willing to listen to that. >> and i should mention, too, that he became charlotte's first black mayor. and he ran a very strong campaign against jesse helms for u.s. senate in 1990. he didn't win that, but i think the fact that he was so successful scared some people. >> right. making, for the purposes of our conversation, making his voice an important voice in the debate. gosh. i'm looking at my next question here and you've kind of already answered it. but the time of the civil war centennial had all sorts of controversies and problems involving that. and you don't necessarily dive into all of that except to say that the confederate monuments played a big role in some of the problems of the messaging of the civil war centennial. did you see more of a pushback from the people who wanted to put up more monuments and wanted to defend this privileged confederate access to common ground at the time of the centennial? or did things change? >> push back against placing these things? yeah. during the period of the civil war centennial, it was the most intense period of the civil rights movement, their focus is that yes, they notice these things are there. but they are very much focused on getting the civil rights act passed and the voting rights act passed. and so when the civil war centennial, at least in the south, was basically a lost cause centennial. in the ways in which it was commemorated. and so you saw new monuments go up, not an explosion of monuments. they were probably 20 new monuments in the 19 50s and another 20 in the 1960s. but they might spend a lot of money on them, $150,000 by the state of alabama for a new monument adickes bergh. and the disparate military park. there's not so much pushback at that point, and there's a lot of pushback on confederate iconography. primarily the flag, but it's really that post civil rights, post centennial where you begin to get the push and pull. this starts to take place throughout the region. >> okay. to some extent, you are also starting to tell us about -- here we start talking about the phrase common ground. we are talking really about -- that's a lot of what we are talking about here. the town common, or common ground. but there are also these monuments in other places that are common space. and not all of them are the town swear. are these confederate monuments also being brought into the controversies and the debates in the post civil rights? >> when we think about -- what you might be referring to is those on battlefields, national park sites. for some people, those are controversial. but i think with the national park service, you at least have historians there who can contextualize the monuments that are there. every decade since the civil war, there have been new confederate monuments belt. and even up until the last decade. that is interesting all by itself. but i think what you are seeing enough again, these things that -- yes, they exist in other places. they might exist in a local park, like the nathan bedford forrest monument existed in memphis at one point. there was -- and so, those also should be common ground. even along monument avenue in richmond, before anything was removed, it was supposed to be a public space. it was meant to be a shared space, but it's not really. i was visiting a friend last november and she said, black folk never felt comfortable in those spaces. she's african american. she said, we just didn't feel comfortable in those spaces. and so it's not common ground, it's not shared. it isn't shared. and some people are okay with that. there are people who say that's fine we don't need you anyway. but not on a city scale. not in these cities that say that they are talking about being models of diversity, for example. those sorts of things. and they are not really looking at the ways in which their city might be marked by confederate memorials, by confederate street names. and so i think that some cities, like even the one i live in in charlotte, have been reckoning with that. what do we do? what do we do with this confederate memorial landscape? >> right. and i'm not going to ask you to answer that question. >> that's okay. >> i told people, it's a history book. we just have a few minutes left, but i do want to take it in order for us to talk about the most recent history. that may be the reason why they pulled you back in to make you write this. >> it is the reason. >> give us some perspective on how this conversation and controversy changed again maybe starting with the massacre in charleston. >> this is the thing right? it's been -- what we see is this pattern since then. there is always been racial violence around these monuments. i don't want to ignore that longer history. but in the most recent history, there has been -- where there has been terrible tragedy, racial violence in charleston, and massacre, and then you see dylan roof with the confederate flag, laying across his shoulder. it made people -- basically what has happened is that what had been a regional conversation and controversy became a national one. with charleston. it was exacerbated by what happened in charlottesville, and once again, a terrible tragedy. people were killed. there was violence there in charlottesville and then last summer, we had a policeman kill george floyd. and currently he is on trial for that. but in the south, the reaction to what they saw in minneapolis was to turn on the confederate monuments. because confederate monuments represent to them, to a plurality of southerners, not just african americans, systemic racism and white supremacy and police brutality that is borne out of those two things. and now, we are seeing these statues which are mired in the politics of divisiveness that exists and has existed and has been building for the last several years. it has become a national issue, not just a regional one, but a national issue. that is probably why we are having -- why i wrote the book, why are we still having this conversation. and lastly, i would just say that the ways in which the south has responded with white legislature and the gop that dominates southern legislatures throughout the region, the response to all of this is to pass monument laws, or something they call heritage protection acts. that means that they are doubling down on preserving these statues and what that does is it creates a situation such that they have taken away local control. so a community that might want to remove a monument can't do it because of state laws. and so rather than protecting the monuments, they've basically invited vandalism of these monuments. because they can't get the moved, so out of frustration, people will turn on them and vandalized them. like they did last summer. >> and if nothing else, this demonstrates something that maybe -- it is certainly challenged my thinking in my head. monuments aren't permanent, they come down all the time. in fact, it's pretty easy to pull down a lot of them. and certainly, a lot of communities seem to be having to reckon with the fact that something they thought was permanent and was never going anywhere -- whether you're talking about a literal monument or the attitude of these people, it does change, it changes quickly. and it can change violently. i won't -- i want to use that term carefully. because there is physical violence against people. but also violently in that, down came the monument. it was not permanent at all. >> no, they are not permanent. they do not have to be permanent. they are not really reflective of communities in the 21st century. really, the statues are a reflection of the jim crow era and the white supremacy under which they were built. there are people, i think while this is a divisive issue, my experience is and speaking to community organizations, including churches! some of my audiences are churches, they are people that are religious people who are thinking, their mind is still open. understanding and learning the history, figuring this out for themselves. it is not just michael to tell them what to do. my goal is to give them the information and let them grapple with that. people need to grapple with a. >> right, something that definitely does not pretend to give prescriptions to what someone is supposed to do. you know, it does share -- here looking at your dust jacket. this is the last thing i want you to talk about as far as a topic is concerned. something really strange and unforeseen happened last summer on monument avenue. i certainly did not see and what we are looking at there being what would happen in a confederate monument controversy. i know my mind was either, it stays where it goes. >> right. >> it wasn't until i saw this happen, and i'm so glad you chose this image as you just jacket, there are many ways that we can wrestle with these monuments. they are, they are on common ground! therefore, they are battlefields themselves as people contest what we are going to do with them. >> well, i want to just point out for folks that while there was some vandalism. spray-painting, et cetera. the image on the cover shows an example of protests are. having people rethink these monuments in the context of our own time. but also happened, after a period of time what happened around the grounds of the lee monument. people were having barbecues, pick up basketball games, they were registering voters, they have reclaim that space in a very positive way. this very often gets overlooked because of the spray-painting but it's, you know, there are ways in which people can express their disagreement with these monuments, the statues, being in their communities. this is just one example but a very powerful example i think. >> right, right, i agree. i think that was a very powerful example. like i said, we cannot talk about everything, karen. i know that you wouldn't want to. there is so much more in this book than just a few things we could talk about today. all history is local. this book, no common ground, we'll help us to understand how the history of confederate monuments is a ground of history. it comes from local communities, just like people need to make decisions now about what they're going to do, they have always needed to make decisions about this common ground and what they are going to do with confederate monuments. no common ground provide you with excellent contacts to understand the history of these monuments, before we get into someone else making a prescription of what we are going to do with them. thank you, karen, for giving us that. is there anything else you want to tell us about the book before we finished? >> i'm just glad it's publication day! i am very happy about that. [laughs] i think there will be some surprises in there when people read it. i think it is an accessible read. someone tweeted that their mother said, i'm learning a lot from this book! that is the best review i can get. when you handed off to your parents or grandparents and they learn something from it. >> even though you have a lot of work to do to talk about this book, let's say the book itself is in the past. what are you looking forward to doing now that you have wrestled with this particular topic? >> well, you know, i completed research for a completely different book that i had to set aside. that book, hopefully, i can get to some of that this summer. or at least organized that material, about a tragedy that took place in notches, mississippi known as the rhythm from fire. it is still one of the deadliest fires in the history of our country the top five but makes it unique is all of the victims were african american the story that i want to tell gets into an understanding of the jim crow period in this city in the south. but also the connections to chicago because there was a ban from chicago playing that night. there were lots of migrants from natchez who lived in chicago who were directly affected by this tragedy. there is some memorialization that happens. on the landscape but also through jazz and blues songs. >> i am different looking forward to reading that! i am sitting in chicago, anything, any book, that tells me a little bit more about the great migration and what was happening on both ends of that migrant trail in very interesting to me and other people here. and you found another reason to write about natchez, mississippi. >> it is little town i fell in love with when i wrote a coke castle. it is a fascinating place, a fascinating place! i like all of these connections. like i said it's a local story but it has regional and national connections. >> okay. well thank you, again karen. for those at home, this has been dr. karen cox her book is no common ground confederate monuments and the ongoing fight for racial justice. the book is available from the abraham lincoln bookshop, there is a link in the comments where you can go to get it. it is $24. we will ship it to you with a special day of publication signed book leaf, only today, the 12th of april 2021. me too -- founder toronto burke recently discussed her life and work supporting black women and girls. -- >> this is the reality of being a black woman in the world, the reality of being a black woman on the internet. quite frankly, a dark skin black women with the nose picasso face, big lips, and a lot to say! people would rather talk about what i look like than when i do they, the amount of people who have said things like, you couldn't have gotten rate. why would someone want to rape you? well, i was cuter when i was seven, does that help me. does that make you feel better? you know, i just wanted to put in peoples faith! it's just like anything else, it is -- but it is something i own. i look at the mirror and i think, i'm all right. i'm cool. you know what i'm saying? if other people have an issue with that -- we have friends, my friends say, girl, you're fine. let's be real about what is out in the world my friends and my family would say you're beautiful this year that that's great but the actual world finds 1 million ways to tell me i'm not worthy i'm not beautiful when i did when i was young's i conflated that with the reason why i was violated the reason why i was abused i think that is what happens a lot of times when you are dealing with multiple things at the same time. it's not just the sexual violence, it is the sexual violence as a young black girl, in america, in particular! and all the data is. i just want to be right in peoples faith with it. talk about the dishonesty, right? people act like but i look like is an affront to them, right? so, you get mad at me? you know, as you read the book i don't want to give a lot of ways why i took on that anger. because, i got anger to. we can do that if. if that's what we are doing. if you cursing i'm cursing. if you're fighting, i'm fighting. this is about ugly black girls in the box to? i got it! i'm just desperately trying to find something to cling to that says i am just as good, or better, or worthy in some wayne. it is not just the fight of healing from the trauma, it is all of the things you have to carry on with the trauma. >> to watch the rest of this program visit book tv dot org, used to search box at the top of the page to look for toronto burke or the title of her book, unbound. welcome to free library of philadelphia., my name is jason freeman i am a producer and editor here at the free library events office. i'm pleased to be here, and excited to introduce today's guest deborah willis. deborah willis is a ph.d., author of opposing view the african -- from
Related Keywords
Charlottesville , Virginia , United States , Georgia , Charleston , South Carolina , Alabama , North Carolina , Toronto , Ontario , Canada , Richmond , Mississippi , Chicago , Illinois , Americans , America , American , Abraham Lincoln , Robert E Lee , Deborah Willis , Harvey Gantt , Harvey Gantz , John Mitchell , Tyler Lyon , Karen Cox , Gilbert Rutherford , Charlotte ,
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.