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Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy
In Down Along with That Devil’s Bones, journalist Connor Towne O’Neill takes a deep dive into American history, exposing the still-raging battles over monuments dedicated to one of the most notorious Confederate generals, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Through the lens of these conflicts, O’Neill examines the legacy of white supremacy in America, in a sobering and fascinating work.
When O’Neill first moved to Alabama, as a white Northerner, he felt somewhat removed from the racism Confederate monuments represented. Then one day in Selma, he stumbled across a group of citizens protecting a monument to Forrest, the officer who became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. O’Neill sets off to visit other disputed memorials to Forrest across the South, talking with men and women who believe they are protecting their heritage, and those who have a different view of the man’s poisonous history.
When O’Neill first moved to Alabama, as a white Northerner, he felt somewhat removed from the racism Confederate monuments represented. Then one day in Selma, he stumbled across a group of citizens protecting a monument to Forrest, the officer who became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. O’Neill sets off to visit other disputed memorials to Forrest across the South, talking with men and women who believe they are protecting their heritage, and those who have a different view of the man’s poisonous history.
262 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2020
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September 4, 2020
Down Along With That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy by Connor O’Neill is a book about the Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the KKK Nathan Bedford Forrest, the monuments that honor him, and one white man’s journey to reckon with the legacy of the Confederacy and White Supremacy. O’Neill has written an amazing book that weaves the biography of Forrest and his impact on the present day very nicely. The book specifically focuses on the campaigns to remove Forrest monuments in four cities: Selma, AL; Murfreesboro, TN; Nashville, TN; and Memphis, TN. O’Neill does a phenomenal job providing the views of supporters and opponents of the removal of the monuments in all four cities. As can be expected some of the four stories end with these structures coming down while others remain standing to this day. O’Neill does a great job in this book showing that the erection of these monuments were more about responding to racial tensions than they were to actually commemorate Southern/Confederate heritage. A recent Southern Poverty Law Center study bears this out using data. As you read this book you will learn that Confederate monuments were used as “palliatives” for Americans to console themselves of the racial changes that were happening in the country at the time of Civil Rights movement and the end of Jim Crow. Near the end of this book O’Neill leaves us with the important question about what happens after the monuments comes down. Readers will learn that bringing down the monument is the easy part, tearing down the “thought monuments” and other structural forces is the hard task that remains. Readers of history and race relations will enjoy this fascinating work.
Thanks to NetGalley, Algonquin Books, and Connor O’Neill for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on September 29, 2020.
Review first published in Ballasts for the Mind: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...
Thanks to NetGalley, Algonquin Books, and Connor O’Neill for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on September 29, 2020.
Review first published in Ballasts for the Mind: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...
September 24, 2022
As some of you have recognized throughout the years I have quite eclectic bookshelves and an even larger obstacle of verbal recall d/t medication (which was why you did not see the word I wanted to use for quite the large lo but I messaged someone and BAM ! There was the word.) Anyway I have a massively inquisitive mind (which was stifled as a child. I’m the poster child for “WHY?).so when I buy books like this one, or about nazis (which is also on my TR shelf right now), or segregation (you get the idea) I always feel guilty (that damn Catholic childhood again). I think I do it because I just don’t understand WHY? Why do these events happen? What is it that goes through people’s minds that they think it’s okay?
I also have a hard time giving these reads star ratings too. How can one rate devastation? And hatred? And prejudice?
So that’s all I wanted to say.
December 21, 2020
This was a bit of a mixed bag reading experience. At first, I wasn't sure what exactly the book was getting at, as it started highly biographical-- something I wasn't looking for. As we proceed, however, O'Neill starts looking grounding the historical context in the current pushes to remove confederacy monuments. At the end, he also really brings it home in terms of the ideas of how these monuments aren't just history divorced from their racist origins. He talks about the fractured way Americans view our own history and highlights this by speaking to defenders of monuments and those who are not only fighting symbols but systems.
That said, the presentation wasn't very uniform. It didn't always flow well and you ended up with chapters that were much drier than others.
This is also framed with O'Neil, a white man, wrestling with this history. Anyone who has ever experience racism as a non-white person will find this a difficult perspective to access.
October 29, 2020
In 2015, the author became interested in Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest when he stumbled upon one of his monuments in Selma’s Old Live Oak Cemetery. It happened to be the 50th anniversary of the march over Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, where hundreds of black demonstrators were assaulted by Alabama police. The former statue had been stolen, and the Friends of Forrest were preparing to erect a replacement in Confederate Memorial Circle. I was unfamiliar with Forrest, but apparently this general, slave trader and KKK grand wizard is much beloved all over the south and he has many monuments. The author chose to focus on only four if them. He used the “Forrest monuments as a lens to look at race, memory, and the legacy of the war”.
People who still disingenuously claim that these monuments honor heritage rather than racism need to look at the timing of the erection of these monuments. It didn’t happen at the end of the Civil War, but rather it happened during moments of racial tension. In Memphis, a statue was erected as the city imposed Jim Crow laws. In Murphreesboro, a university building was named after him at the height of the civil rights movement. In Nashville, a statue was raised by a white supremacist as backlash to multiculturalism. Selma chose to honor him right after the first black mayor was elected. The book also briefly covers Forrest’s life, including his pre-war slave trading, war exploits, post-war role with the KKK and his veneration as a symbol of white male superiority.
While the book is very well written and illuminating, and there are a few hopeful moments, mostly it is a story of depressing and frightening ugliness that seems to be impossible to stamp out.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
People who still disingenuously claim that these monuments honor heritage rather than racism need to look at the timing of the erection of these monuments. It didn’t happen at the end of the Civil War, but rather it happened during moments of racial tension. In Memphis, a statue was erected as the city imposed Jim Crow laws. In Murphreesboro, a university building was named after him at the height of the civil rights movement. In Nashville, a statue was raised by a white supremacist as backlash to multiculturalism. Selma chose to honor him right after the first black mayor was elected. The book also briefly covers Forrest’s life, including his pre-war slave trading, war exploits, post-war role with the KKK and his veneration as a symbol of white male superiority.
While the book is very well written and illuminating, and there are a few hopeful moments, mostly it is a story of depressing and frightening ugliness that seems to be impossible to stamp out.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
October 28, 2020
As a South African, I have watched us deal with monuments and statues to apartheid prime ministers and colonialists over the past three decades. Initially the focus was on renaming streets and removing some of the most egregious statues. Some remained and became the focus of student protests in 2015 at which stage the remaining ones were mostly moved into storage, private collections or into museums accompanied by similar discussions on the preservation of history versus human dignity as recounted in this book. It's an ongoing process - my mother's former high school named after the late architect of apartheid, H.F Verwoerd, renamed itself quietly last year.
So it was the context to the protests we have seen unfold from afar that made this a fascinating read. The arguments for and against are familiar, but my knowledge of the US Civil War and the subsequent politics of segregation limited. Key concepts and events were referenced succinctly and the format of focusing on four specific monuments which represented these worked well.
The author does not shy away from self-reflection which is required from all of us as we contemplate the events which these monuments represent and the actions needed to move forward. Highly recommend this book.
So it was the context to the protests we have seen unfold from afar that made this a fascinating read. The arguments for and against are familiar, but my knowledge of the US Civil War and the subsequent politics of segregation limited. Key concepts and events were referenced succinctly and the format of focusing on four specific monuments which represented these worked well.
The author does not shy away from self-reflection which is required from all of us as we contemplate the events which these monuments represent and the actions needed to move forward. Highly recommend this book.
October 1, 2020
The controversy over confederate statues and monuments needs to be addressed. Connor O’Neill was in all the right places at the right times to reveal the depths and depravity of the movements to preserve and promote them. He has written a book, Down Along With That Devil’s Bones, to document his recent travels, research and interviews. It is as ugly as you would expect, and less than it could be.
He picks Nathan Bedford Forrest, a name little known outside the southern United States, as his poster child. There are statues, monuments, halls and schools named after him all over the southern states. This estimable gentleman of the south, worthy of everyone’s respect and idolatry, was a slave auctioneer and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, restoring white supremacy to several southern states after the south lost the civil war. That anyone would want to remove his monuments is something for all good citizens to rise up and fight against.
O’Neill visited Charlottesville for the battle over monuments, where one supporter drove his car though a crowd of protestors, killing a woman. He visited Selma, always the epicenter of controversy, Nashville, Memphis, Montgomery and more. Their links to slavery and the civil war are all noted. He asked people for their thoughts, dug into history and followed the removal of statues, often in the dead of night. It’s all very descriptive, with lots of mood setting and color. And minimal impact.
What he found should come as no surprise. Southerners are apologists for their flawed heroes. They willfully ignore the slave ownership, the beatings , the lynchings and the exhortations to slavery as highly ethical Christian living. Instead, they cite heroics in battle, or success in business – without mentioning the business was slave auctioning or that the battles were actually lost.
For whites, the old south way of life has become The Lost Cause, worthy of pity rather than criticism. O’Neill calls it all magical thinking, which also absolves white supremacists of the nastiness of their lives. They love to cite the heritage they want to honor, without the hate it specifies. Magical thinking honors the fighting but not the reason for the fighting, O’Neill says. White supremacy rests entirely on magical thinking.
Down south, the statues, monuments and flags are a ”palliative” to the white victims of the loss of the civil war. Their civil war statues always face north, i.e. never retreating. Entire universities gather in football stadiums to wave their rebel flags and hoot and holler like the victors they were not. It is (and is meant to be) a very intimidating sight, especially for black students. Weekly, throughout the fall months, every year. Blessed by the administration as good clean fun. Inspiring future generations of white supremacists.
Nathan Forrest was a self-made man. He came from the dirt poor, learned to buy and sell, and found slaves the best commodity to move. His Negro Mart, situated right between his home and the Calvary Church (still standing) on Adams St. in Memphis, saw over a thousand slaves sold every year, providing Forrest with profits of $50,000 (one million in today’s dollars) every year. He stored them there, beat them bloody and sold them off, either in auctions or to passing shoppers. He bought farms and plantations to be worked by the slaves he was unable to sell at his standard 20% markup, so the overall profits remained stellar. He was rich enough to fund his own regiment when the civil war broke out, and led it to several victories, as well as numerous defeats, for all of which he earned great praise – and the rank of lieutenant general in the confederate army. He was famous for slaughtering northern soldiers after the battle was already won, and making the rivers run red with their blood.
When the war ended, the prospect of racial equality led him to join the emerging KKK, which soon made him its leader. This allowed Forrest to command all kinds of troops again, this time committing all kinds of murder, arson, threats and intimidation in order to prevent blacks from assuming any kind of role in society. Instead, the KKK placed whites back in control like they had always been, infiltrating the police, the courts and civic institutions to ensure enforcement. When he had “redeemed” six states for white supremacy, he finally took his retirement, and catching dysentery, died at the age of 55, a hero for his exemplary life.
O’Neill says the rebel flag was uncommon until the 1940s, when overt racists like Strom Thurmond stirred white supremacist feelings. With constant setbacks at the hands of FDR, Truman and Johnson, the confederate flag took on new symbolism and became ubiquitous. But to be honest, it was never really absent. It was baked into state flags, for example. Thurmond’s Dixiecrat rebellion made no bones about white supremacy. For them, desegregation was the crisis. They were there because blacks were there. It was a clue the civil war had not been carried to its full conclusion.
O’Neill is white, and feels guilt and shame. He ends his book at a slave memorial, suitably revolting in his description. But the book left me totally unsatisfied. There are two giant factors obviously missing from it. I find it astonishing he could write this book without them, since he tries to be so thorough and fair in his descriptions and in his questioning of his subjects:
1.Ancient history shows us that the way to assimilate a conquered people is to destroy their statues. With their gods and heroes gone, they must gravitate to accepting the conquerors’ values, heroes and gods. Hundreds, if not thousands of gods have disappeared this way. (HL Mencken once tried to list them all. It was impressive.) By allowing the losing South to build new statues and monuments to their own, and through allowing them to promote the confederate flag, the United States utterly failed to acknowledge the history of the world, and is suffering that failure even today. There is no excuse for permitting white southerners to build legends around failed rebels.
Nowhere else will you see monuments to the losers. Nowhere else do they glorify criminal ideology. The whole idea is to vanquish the failed ideology, not let it fester and thrive again. That’s what the war was about. The USA never bothered to finish the civil war. Just like in Afghanistan and Iraq, it lost interest in finishing the job and reintegrating the country as something cohesive.
2. History also shows that the conquerors won the wars when they seized the flag of the vanquished. They then banned it, never to fly again. In any war, the flag will change when it is reissued. The old flag is a symbol of the defeated regime and has no right to appear ever again. To fly the rebel flag and build memorials to defeated secessionists is what is called treason in the United States, as it is in the rest of the world. Governments cannot and must not tolerate it, if only to keep the country as one. The business of it being history and that all history must be preserved is bogus, a canard for racism. Treason outranks history. Flying the confederate flag should be punishable by long prison terms.
I wanted O’Neill to challenge all the people he met and interviewed with the fact they were committing treason against the USA. Palliatives for whites is a trivial apology and a pathetic answer. Rewriting history to avoid the mention of slavery is intellectually dishonest. But honoring and glorifying a defeated enemy of the state is treason. Their disloyalty to the USA is not merely disgusting; it is a national security threat.
What would they have all said to that?
We’ll never know.
David Wineberg
He picks Nathan Bedford Forrest, a name little known outside the southern United States, as his poster child. There are statues, monuments, halls and schools named after him all over the southern states. This estimable gentleman of the south, worthy of everyone’s respect and idolatry, was a slave auctioneer and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, restoring white supremacy to several southern states after the south lost the civil war. That anyone would want to remove his monuments is something for all good citizens to rise up and fight against.
O’Neill visited Charlottesville for the battle over monuments, where one supporter drove his car though a crowd of protestors, killing a woman. He visited Selma, always the epicenter of controversy, Nashville, Memphis, Montgomery and more. Their links to slavery and the civil war are all noted. He asked people for their thoughts, dug into history and followed the removal of statues, often in the dead of night. It’s all very descriptive, with lots of mood setting and color. And minimal impact.
What he found should come as no surprise. Southerners are apologists for their flawed heroes. They willfully ignore the slave ownership, the beatings , the lynchings and the exhortations to slavery as highly ethical Christian living. Instead, they cite heroics in battle, or success in business – without mentioning the business was slave auctioning or that the battles were actually lost.
For whites, the old south way of life has become The Lost Cause, worthy of pity rather than criticism. O’Neill calls it all magical thinking, which also absolves white supremacists of the nastiness of their lives. They love to cite the heritage they want to honor, without the hate it specifies. Magical thinking honors the fighting but not the reason for the fighting, O’Neill says. White supremacy rests entirely on magical thinking.
Down south, the statues, monuments and flags are a ”palliative” to the white victims of the loss of the civil war. Their civil war statues always face north, i.e. never retreating. Entire universities gather in football stadiums to wave their rebel flags and hoot and holler like the victors they were not. It is (and is meant to be) a very intimidating sight, especially for black students. Weekly, throughout the fall months, every year. Blessed by the administration as good clean fun. Inspiring future generations of white supremacists.
Nathan Forrest was a self-made man. He came from the dirt poor, learned to buy and sell, and found slaves the best commodity to move. His Negro Mart, situated right between his home and the Calvary Church (still standing) on Adams St. in Memphis, saw over a thousand slaves sold every year, providing Forrest with profits of $50,000 (one million in today’s dollars) every year. He stored them there, beat them bloody and sold them off, either in auctions or to passing shoppers. He bought farms and plantations to be worked by the slaves he was unable to sell at his standard 20% markup, so the overall profits remained stellar. He was rich enough to fund his own regiment when the civil war broke out, and led it to several victories, as well as numerous defeats, for all of which he earned great praise – and the rank of lieutenant general in the confederate army. He was famous for slaughtering northern soldiers after the battle was already won, and making the rivers run red with their blood.
When the war ended, the prospect of racial equality led him to join the emerging KKK, which soon made him its leader. This allowed Forrest to command all kinds of troops again, this time committing all kinds of murder, arson, threats and intimidation in order to prevent blacks from assuming any kind of role in society. Instead, the KKK placed whites back in control like they had always been, infiltrating the police, the courts and civic institutions to ensure enforcement. When he had “redeemed” six states for white supremacy, he finally took his retirement, and catching dysentery, died at the age of 55, a hero for his exemplary life.
O’Neill says the rebel flag was uncommon until the 1940s, when overt racists like Strom Thurmond stirred white supremacist feelings. With constant setbacks at the hands of FDR, Truman and Johnson, the confederate flag took on new symbolism and became ubiquitous. But to be honest, it was never really absent. It was baked into state flags, for example. Thurmond’s Dixiecrat rebellion made no bones about white supremacy. For them, desegregation was the crisis. They were there because blacks were there. It was a clue the civil war had not been carried to its full conclusion.
O’Neill is white, and feels guilt and shame. He ends his book at a slave memorial, suitably revolting in his description. But the book left me totally unsatisfied. There are two giant factors obviously missing from it. I find it astonishing he could write this book without them, since he tries to be so thorough and fair in his descriptions and in his questioning of his subjects:
1.Ancient history shows us that the way to assimilate a conquered people is to destroy their statues. With their gods and heroes gone, they must gravitate to accepting the conquerors’ values, heroes and gods. Hundreds, if not thousands of gods have disappeared this way. (HL Mencken once tried to list them all. It was impressive.) By allowing the losing South to build new statues and monuments to their own, and through allowing them to promote the confederate flag, the United States utterly failed to acknowledge the history of the world, and is suffering that failure even today. There is no excuse for permitting white southerners to build legends around failed rebels.
Nowhere else will you see monuments to the losers. Nowhere else do they glorify criminal ideology. The whole idea is to vanquish the failed ideology, not let it fester and thrive again. That’s what the war was about. The USA never bothered to finish the civil war. Just like in Afghanistan and Iraq, it lost interest in finishing the job and reintegrating the country as something cohesive.
2. History also shows that the conquerors won the wars when they seized the flag of the vanquished. They then banned it, never to fly again. In any war, the flag will change when it is reissued. The old flag is a symbol of the defeated regime and has no right to appear ever again. To fly the rebel flag and build memorials to defeated secessionists is what is called treason in the United States, as it is in the rest of the world. Governments cannot and must not tolerate it, if only to keep the country as one. The business of it being history and that all history must be preserved is bogus, a canard for racism. Treason outranks history. Flying the confederate flag should be punishable by long prison terms.
I wanted O’Neill to challenge all the people he met and interviewed with the fact they were committing treason against the USA. Palliatives for whites is a trivial apology and a pathetic answer. Rewriting history to avoid the mention of slavery is intellectually dishonest. But honoring and glorifying a defeated enemy of the state is treason. Their disloyalty to the USA is not merely disgusting; it is a national security threat.
What would they have all said to that?
We’ll never know.
David Wineberg
November 14, 2020
I annotated and highlighted so many things while reading this. I have so much to say, and no idea how to say it - but that's okay, because O'Neill says it so well.
Okay. Stepping back. Down Along with That Devil's Bones does what it says on the tin: by using monuments of Nathan Bedford Forrest - Confederate war monger, slave trader, and leader of the KKK - and people's relationships to them, the book asks us - specifically, asks white people - to reckon with the fact that that history is our history. O'Neill pulls no punches, not in his writing nor his interviewing, asking his subjects how they can defend the statues of Forrest. I won't be the first to tell you that the absolute leaps in logic there are stupendous. And in fact, that's what the statues themselves are about. He interviews Derek Alderman, the University of Tennessee expert on monuments and memorials, who says that though "...Confederate monuments are ostensibly about remembering the past, '[they] can also be about facilitating forgetting ... the public is encouraged to see the past in one way. So inherently it is being encouraged not to remember another part of the past.'" But while that cogent take definitely has a lot of truth in it, it neglects the "Heritage Not Hate" ignorance - the more willful kind of ignorance - that people like Lee Millar, the spokesman for the Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, profess, the kind that says, when confronted with a quote from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who said explicitly that slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy, would respond, "Yeah, I feel that opinion is wrong[.] He's just one man."
Yeah. Okay.
This book is a direct refutation of that kind of intentional forgetting. Through thorough research and miles on the road, traveling from memorial to memorial, O'Neill unpacks the part of history that begs to be seen - the violence, the racism, the fear - and outlines what we must do not to let that part slip away.
The first thing? Bring the monuments down.
Okay. Stepping back. Down Along with That Devil's Bones does what it says on the tin: by using monuments of Nathan Bedford Forrest - Confederate war monger, slave trader, and leader of the KKK - and people's relationships to them, the book asks us - specifically, asks white people - to reckon with the fact that that history is our history. O'Neill pulls no punches, not in his writing nor his interviewing, asking his subjects how they can defend the statues of Forrest. I won't be the first to tell you that the absolute leaps in logic there are stupendous. And in fact, that's what the statues themselves are about. He interviews Derek Alderman, the University of Tennessee expert on monuments and memorials, who says that though "...Confederate monuments are ostensibly about remembering the past, '[they] can also be about facilitating forgetting ... the public is encouraged to see the past in one way. So inherently it is being encouraged not to remember another part of the past.'" But while that cogent take definitely has a lot of truth in it, it neglects the "Heritage Not Hate" ignorance - the more willful kind of ignorance - that people like Lee Millar, the spokesman for the Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, profess, the kind that says, when confronted with a quote from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who said explicitly that slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy, would respond, "Yeah, I feel that opinion is wrong[.] He's just one man."
Yeah. Okay.
This book is a direct refutation of that kind of intentional forgetting. Through thorough research and miles on the road, traveling from memorial to memorial, O'Neill unpacks the part of history that begs to be seen - the violence, the racism, the fear - and outlines what we must do not to let that part slip away.
The first thing? Bring the monuments down.
March 1, 2021
Thank you to @Libro.FM for an ALC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
This is a history of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a grand master of the KKK and a Confederate General. Through this story, O'Neill dives into history as well as more current events: the debate over the removal of Confederate statues and monuments.
While this was quite an interesting facet of US history, I felt weird that a white man was writing/reading this to me. As a history and journalism piece, this was great: very informative and about a topic that needs to be talked about. But considering everything that's come out about centering whiteness, was O'Neill the right person to write this book? I don't know, but my gut is more in the camp of no. There are several times O'Neill adds in personal opinions which was very interesting. I don't know if it added anything to this book, because the extremely racist people who need to hear these musings and awakenings would never read a book like this.
This is a history of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a grand master of the KKK and a Confederate General. Through this story, O'Neill dives into history as well as more current events: the debate over the removal of Confederate statues and monuments.
While this was quite an interesting facet of US history, I felt weird that a white man was writing/reading this to me. As a history and journalism piece, this was great: very informative and about a topic that needs to be talked about. But considering everything that's come out about centering whiteness, was O'Neill the right person to write this book? I don't know, but my gut is more in the camp of no. There are several times O'Neill adds in personal opinions which was very interesting. I don't know if it added anything to this book, because the extremely racist people who need to hear these musings and awakenings would never read a book like this.
November 5, 2020
This was an eye opening read because I had heard of Nathan Bedford Forrest but didn’t know much about him. It was fascinating how the author takes the story of activists trying to get this KKK grand wizard’s monuments down (and his supporters efforts to stop it from happening) across four different places, to give a scathing commentary on how all this discourse is more about people trying to cling onto their racist ideals rather than some perceived Southern heritage. He also gives some backstory about Forrest himself and how this slaveholder came to be such a popular figure in confederate America.
But ultimately it’s not completely a hopeful book despite being written brilliantly. The efforts of all the people trying to bring down these monuments is highly commendable but they do seem to be having many setbacks which is depressing; but more sad is the immense racial divisions and hate that exist, the willful ignorance regards to understanding actual history of the country, and not really having a clear idea how it can be solved. But that’s not the book’s fault and I definitely recommend the audiobook which is very well narrated.
But ultimately it’s not completely a hopeful book despite being written brilliantly. The efforts of all the people trying to bring down these monuments is highly commendable but they do seem to be having many setbacks which is depressing; but more sad is the immense racial divisions and hate that exist, the willful ignorance regards to understanding actual history of the country, and not really having a clear idea how it can be solved. But that’s not the book’s fault and I definitely recommend the audiobook which is very well narrated.
October 21, 2020
disclaimer, i know and like connor, so i am predisposed to like his book
in which an inquisitive reporter takes a long look at confederate memorialization, specifically in the name and shape of nathan bedford forrest. really satisfying combo of lively writing and deep research. RIYL memory palace, tony horwitz, that one level in goldeneye where you are fighting in a park full of broken statues. spoiler: at the end it turns out white people need to do better.
in which an inquisitive reporter takes a long look at confederate memorialization, specifically in the name and shape of nathan bedford forrest. really satisfying combo of lively writing and deep research. RIYL memory palace, tony horwitz, that one level in goldeneye where you are fighting in a park full of broken statues. spoiler: at the end it turns out white people need to do better.
January 19, 2021
I understand, and think there is a place for, the criticism of this book for centering a white man's personal experience as a book about white supremacy - but it's actually one of the things I found most effective. O'Neill begins thinking he's going to write about the reverberations of American history, the past that "some" people haven't moved on from. But as he continues he research, he learns that he, by nature of being a white, is implicated in this story. It's a lesson that many Northern white people refuse to learn, but O'Neill uses this reality to guide his story. He implicates all white readers with the history of white supremacy, refusing to pull any punches.
O'Neill does a deft job threading antebellum and postbellum American history to our contemporary moment. He builds up specific fights for monument removal - while still giving space to activists who think symbols should take a secondary priority in the fight for ending white supremacy. He refuses easy answers and, through the very epilogue, makes it clear that the onus is on us to move our country forward and face our history of white supremacy (and so stomp it out) for good.
O'Neill does a deft job threading antebellum and postbellum American history to our contemporary moment. He builds up specific fights for monument removal - while still giving space to activists who think symbols should take a secondary priority in the fight for ending white supremacy. He refuses easy answers and, through the very epilogue, makes it clear that the onus is on us to move our country forward and face our history of white supremacy (and so stomp it out) for good.
October 12, 2020
I wish that this book could have been ready for publication just a few months earlier than it was, because it would have gotten more attention then, during what appears to have been 2020’s high peak for the removal of Confederate statues monuments across the American south. That being said, it is still an important work that I hope a lot of people will read — and of course, many of these statues and monuments are still standing. Worse yet, the “thought monument” of post-Civil War white supremacy is still standing.
Connor Towne O’Neill tells the history of these monuments, and grapples with America’s history and present as a white supremacist country. As a white man, originally from Pennsylvania, he is open about his increasing awareness of his own privileged position as he dives deeper into the issues at hand, primary by focusing on many white Southerners’ continued veneration of Nathan Bedford Forrest. More and more, he shows how the arguments for and against taking these monuments down are really not equivalent. Not even close.
One thing that I wish the author had discussed more explicitly is the fact of America’s allowing monuments to Confederate “heroes” to be built in the first place. All throughout history, the winners of wars have destroyed the monuments of the losers. But America not only allowed former Confederates — essentially people who committed treason (in order to maintain slavery, it bears repeating!) — to gain position in US government and thereby enact harmful legislature against Black people and other marginalized groups, we allowed them to build state-sanctioned monuments as what the author would call “palliatives” to the underlying disease of white supremacy. I wish the author had gone further with contextualizing that, as it would have helped bolster the argument that America itself, and not just the old South (or today’s South), is a white supremacist country. Also, by focusing so narrowly on the cult of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the book can give Northern white readers a sort of easy out that they (we!) do not deserve.
** I received a Review Copy of this book via NetGalley **
Connor Towne O’Neill tells the history of these monuments, and grapples with America’s history and present as a white supremacist country. As a white man, originally from Pennsylvania, he is open about his increasing awareness of his own privileged position as he dives deeper into the issues at hand, primary by focusing on many white Southerners’ continued veneration of Nathan Bedford Forrest. More and more, he shows how the arguments for and against taking these monuments down are really not equivalent. Not even close.
One thing that I wish the author had discussed more explicitly is the fact of America’s allowing monuments to Confederate “heroes” to be built in the first place. All throughout history, the winners of wars have destroyed the monuments of the losers. But America not only allowed former Confederates — essentially people who committed treason (in order to maintain slavery, it bears repeating!) — to gain position in US government and thereby enact harmful legislature against Black people and other marginalized groups, we allowed them to build state-sanctioned monuments as what the author would call “palliatives” to the underlying disease of white supremacy. I wish the author had gone further with contextualizing that, as it would have helped bolster the argument that America itself, and not just the old South (or today’s South), is a white supremacist country. Also, by focusing so narrowly on the cult of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the book can give Northern white readers a sort of easy out that they (we!) do not deserve.
** I received a Review Copy of this book via NetGalley **
January 24, 2021
I was very skeptical of this book at first, expecting it to be the opinions of a northerner describing what is wrong with the south. I was pleasantly surprised that that was not the case. I was moved by the author’s statements emphasizing that racism and white supremacy are not just on southerners to end. We are all accountable for what happens in the future with these national issues. I am thankful to have read this and to have gained a better understanding of a region I dearly, dearly love. In the end, I am asking myself these big questions: who have we been, who are we, and who might we yet be?
My notes/questions, mainly taken while reading the last section and reflecting on the book as a whole:
Why do we treat hate as though it is a difference of opinion?
What do we invited ourselves to remember? What memories/history does a space ask you to reflect upon, and what emotion(s) are you requested to engage with?
A favorite couple of quotes too:
“[It was] redolent of dignity and grief and shame and love and horror and confession and good and evil and the devil and God– in other words, it was wholly American.”
“The bargain we play with capitalism.”
My notes/questions, mainly taken while reading the last section and reflecting on the book as a whole:
Why do we treat hate as though it is a difference of opinion?
What do we invited ourselves to remember? What memories/history does a space ask you to reflect upon, and what emotion(s) are you requested to engage with?
A favorite couple of quotes too:
“[It was] redolent of dignity and grief and shame and love and horror and confession and good and evil and the devil and God– in other words, it was wholly American.”
“The bargain we play with capitalism.”
October 24, 2020
A deeply disturbing exploration of the forces for & against Confederate monuments (focusing on those memorializing Nathan Bedford Forrest - a notorious slave trader, Confederate general and first Grand Wizard of the KKK) in Selma, Murfreesboro, Nashville and Memphis. That there are still people would want to honor this horrible person is shock and a disgrace, but this is where we are. This book will make you want to go tear down Confederate statues with your bare hands.
October 17, 2023
Although I can usually count on the history/nonfiction books that I read to be excellent, I seem to have hit a patch where my choices don't quite live up to my expectations. In this case, a native Pennsylvanian gets his MFA at Alabama, then takes a job teaching at Auburn and decides to spend his time researching the differences of opinions that people have regarding the life and legacy of Nathan Bedford Forrest. To some, he was a hero of the confederacy, the Savior of Selma and the defender of a bygone way of life. To others, he was an uneducated hick who made millions buying and selling slaves, a Grand Wizards of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Butcher of Fort Pillow, whose troops slaughtered hundreds of black Union soldiers who were attempting to surrender. Now, 150 years after his death, Americans are still battling to either preserve or remove the countless statues plaques and memorials erected to him or to keep or rename the hundreds of schools, streets, parks and other edifices that bear his name.
If anyone picks picks this book and reads it hoping to find a great revelation that will resolve this conflict, they will be disappointed. The world we live in is not going to join hands and sing Kum ba yah as they gather by the river anytime soon. Everyone has an opinion about this and the author's attempts to present, as fairly as he can, every conflicting point of view, tended to get tedious, especially since almost everyone's arguments were essentially the same. One side believes the other is trying to erase our history while the other side claims that such monuments are a constant reminder of the oppression under which may Americans have always lived.
The part of this book that most impressed me was O'Neill's description of a memorial 'Service of Remembrance and Reconciliation,' held in a Memphis church in whose parking lot Forrest's slave pens once stood. The description of the service, and particularly the reading of the names and ages of seventy-eight known slaves who were held there and the profound impact that it had on the congregation did give me a glimmer of hope that reconciliation may indeed be possible.
If anyone picks picks this book and reads it hoping to find a great revelation that will resolve this conflict, they will be disappointed. The world we live in is not going to join hands and sing Kum ba yah as they gather by the river anytime soon. Everyone has an opinion about this and the author's attempts to present, as fairly as he can, every conflicting point of view, tended to get tedious, especially since almost everyone's arguments were essentially the same. One side believes the other is trying to erase our history while the other side claims that such monuments are a constant reminder of the oppression under which may Americans have always lived.
The part of this book that most impressed me was O'Neill's description of a memorial 'Service of Remembrance and Reconciliation,' held in a Memphis church in whose parking lot Forrest's slave pens once stood. The description of the service, and particularly the reading of the names and ages of seventy-eight known slaves who were held there and the profound impact that it had on the congregation did give me a glimmer of hope that reconciliation may indeed be possible.
Jerry, age thirty-five.Bottom line: While I doubt that this book is going to change anyone's mind, it did give me a glimmer of hope when Memphis County Commissioner Van Turner, reminded us of Dr. King's words spoken on the steps of the Alabama state capitol after marching from Selma to Montgomery.
Charles, age forty-five.
Dick, age fourteen.
Paige, age nine.
Washington, age twenty.
Catherine, age twenty-three.
John Henry, age three.
Mary Ann, age three.
"The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."
July 3, 2023
This book specifically looks into the statues and life of Nathan Forester, a confederate general and grand wizard of the KKK, and why people in Tennessee still revere this guy and the fight to get his monuments taken down. Normally I'm not a fan of black history being told by a white man but this particular version of the story could only be told by a white man.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I had never heard of Forester before this book somehow and he's not exactly the type of historical figure I wanted more information on. It also makes me a little uncomfortable that the author would go to clan meetings for his investigations although he makes it very clear to the reader he doesn't agree with their hate he didn't seem to make it clear to the clan members. I realistically know these horrible people wont change but even a fake show of support gives them validity. All the white supremist in the book sound like the idiots they are.
Recommend this for anyone who wants to know the justifications for white supremacy in modern day or anyone who just wants to be depressed about how unreasonably hateful some people are.
Thanks to Libro.fm for this audio book free of charge through their influencer program. I was not required to leave a review.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I had never heard of Forester before this book somehow and he's not exactly the type of historical figure I wanted more information on. It also makes me a little uncomfortable that the author would go to clan meetings for his investigations although he makes it very clear to the reader he doesn't agree with their hate he didn't seem to make it clear to the clan members. I realistically know these horrible people wont change but even a fake show of support gives them validity. All the white supremist in the book sound like the idiots they are.
Recommend this for anyone who wants to know the justifications for white supremacy in modern day or anyone who just wants to be depressed about how unreasonably hateful some people are.
Thanks to Libro.fm for this audio book free of charge through their influencer program. I was not required to leave a review.
July 19, 2021
2.5 ⭐️ As someone who graduated from MTSU and drives 1-65 regularly, I was especially interested in the Tennessee chapters. However, as soon as he’d bring me into a story, he’d lose me just a quickly. He’d jump from Murfreesboro to NASCAR, and from Nashville to Virginia. It seemed like he was trying to do too much in one book. Random facts, stories and quotes from other books all mashed together into a less than coherent book. I did learn a lot and there were definitely important stories, but the writing style made it hard for me to stay hooked.
December 4, 2020
I rarely give 5 stars to a book but I did this one. It is not a long book but tremendously insightful into the current controversy surrounding the removal of Confederate monuments so ubiquitous in the South (and some elsewhere, as well). It centers on the the experiences surrounding memorials to Nathan Bedford Forrest, a greatly revered Confederate general about whom I knew very little, in four different southern cities. It really forces one to acknowledge how and why African Americans feel the way they do about such monuments and why we who are white and have (however unintentionally) profited from systemic racism in this country should be advocating for their removal or relocation as well. It's an excellent read for our times!
July 24, 2021
A Review of the Audiobook
Published in 2020 by Workman Publishing.
Read by Geoffrey Cantor.
Duration: 7 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.
Connor Towne O'Neill was attending the 50th anniversary recognition of the Selma to Montgomery March when he discovered something unexpected. The Selma to Montgomery march ended when Alabama State Troopers joined local deputies at the Edmund Pettus bridge and beat them until they retreated. The bridge is named for a Confederate General and a Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK.
O'Neill was looking for a place to park and drove into a graveyard. In the graveyard, he discovered a group prepping a part of the graveyard for the re-installation of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest (the original had been stolen) in the graveyard. It was on a piece of property owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the middle of the graveyard.
O'Neill sensed that this was the more powerful story, no matter how dramatic that moment on the bridge had been 50 years earlier. He decided to investigate the power that the memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest has over so many Confederate apologists.
He begins with an interesting mini-biography of Forrest. He began with almost nothing and made himself quite wealthy trading slaves, including slaves straight from Africa (Constiutionally prohibited since 1808). At the beginning of the war, he joined as a private and is the only person on either side to go from private to general. He outfitted a squad of cavalry and became on of the most daring and active Confederate generals of the war. He led from the front and the omnipresent threat of his sudden appearance was a constant source of worry in the Western Theater of the Civil War.
After the war, Forrest was approached to lead a group designed to resist the new rights granted to the ex-slaves with a wave of terrorism - the Ku Klux Klan (also known as America's first terrorist organization). He formally led the group for a while and then may have become a leader in the background after it was formally disbanded (maybe he was still their leader, maybe he wasn't. Maybe they disbanded, maybe they didn't - it is surprisingly unclear).
O'Neill's search for the story of the hold that Forrest has on so many takes him from Selma to Memphis to Nashville to Montgomery and sees how people use Forrest as a symbol to oppose racial integration.
For me, the most interesting section was...
Read more at:
https://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2021...
Published in 2020 by Workman Publishing.
Read by Geoffrey Cantor.
Duration: 7 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.
Connor Towne O'Neill was attending the 50th anniversary recognition of the Selma to Montgomery March when he discovered something unexpected. The Selma to Montgomery march ended when Alabama State Troopers joined local deputies at the Edmund Pettus bridge and beat them until they retreated. The bridge is named for a Confederate General and a Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK.
O'Neill was looking for a place to park and drove into a graveyard. In the graveyard, he discovered a group prepping a part of the graveyard for the re-installation of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest (the original had been stolen) in the graveyard. It was on a piece of property owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the middle of the graveyard.
O'Neill sensed that this was the more powerful story, no matter how dramatic that moment on the bridge had been 50 years earlier. He decided to investigate the power that the memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest has over so many Confederate apologists.
He begins with an interesting mini-biography of Forrest. He began with almost nothing and made himself quite wealthy trading slaves, including slaves straight from Africa (Constiutionally prohibited since 1808). At the beginning of the war, he joined as a private and is the only person on either side to go from private to general. He outfitted a squad of cavalry and became on of the most daring and active Confederate generals of the war. He led from the front and the omnipresent threat of his sudden appearance was a constant source of worry in the Western Theater of the Civil War.
After the war, Forrest was approached to lead a group designed to resist the new rights granted to the ex-slaves with a wave of terrorism - the Ku Klux Klan (also known as America's first terrorist organization). He formally led the group for a while and then may have become a leader in the background after it was formally disbanded (maybe he was still their leader, maybe he wasn't. Maybe they disbanded, maybe they didn't - it is surprisingly unclear).
O'Neill's search for the story of the hold that Forrest has on so many takes him from Selma to Memphis to Nashville to Montgomery and sees how people use Forrest as a symbol to oppose racial integration.
For me, the most interesting section was...
Read more at:
https://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2021...
January 17, 2021
This book was fine. I had some trouble empathizing with the author's sentiment that his positionality above the Mason-Dixon line somehow precluded him from racism. Black scholars have been discussing Northern economic complicity and de facto segregation for a very long time and black folks outside of academia have been recording incidents of police violence all over the United States since the 1990's. Bearing that in mind, I sort of wondered why O'Neill needed to launch an entire investigation to sort out the privileges that BIPOC have been talking about for over a hundred years.
Having said this, I do think O'Neill's whiteness grants him access to a lot of spaces and conversations that aren't safe for most people of color. Near the end of the book, he directly challenges a white supremacist's support of NB Forrest and it's a very powerful moment in the text. If O'Neill has shown us anything, it's that white supremacists devalue black experience, so perhaps it's productive for racial uplift to have allies, like the author, who push back against that devaluation.
Having said this, I do think O'Neill's whiteness grants him access to a lot of spaces and conversations that aren't safe for most people of color. Near the end of the book, he directly challenges a white supremacist's support of NB Forrest and it's a very powerful moment in the text. If O'Neill has shown us anything, it's that white supremacists devalue black experience, so perhaps it's productive for racial uplift to have allies, like the author, who push back against that devaluation.
September 11, 2024
A challenging and thought-provoking book. I quote this final passage:
“Knowledge alone cannot make the nation more just or equitable, nor does it create or change policy. Knowledge alone cannot undo what’s been done in white America’s name. What a clear-eyed sense of American history can do, however, is show us how to look forward and backward at the same time, to see how the past marks the present like the waterline left after a flood. If we hear, in the sally port’s clang, the echoes of President’s Island; feel, in the pull of the voting booth’s curtain, the brush of the calico mask; see, in the diverging lines of American wealth, the logbooks of the Adams Street Negro Mart; then, even at this eleventh hour, we might remember the country more fully, and in so doing, join in the work of reconstructing it.”
“Knowledge alone cannot make the nation more just or equitable, nor does it create or change policy. Knowledge alone cannot undo what’s been done in white America’s name. What a clear-eyed sense of American history can do, however, is show us how to look forward and backward at the same time, to see how the past marks the present like the waterline left after a flood. If we hear, in the sally port’s clang, the echoes of President’s Island; feel, in the pull of the voting booth’s curtain, the brush of the calico mask; see, in the diverging lines of American wealth, the logbooks of the Adams Street Negro Mart; then, even at this eleventh hour, we might remember the country more fully, and in so doing, join in the work of reconstructing it.”
November 12, 2020
I was expecting this book to be more of a history of white supremacist groups and there was a little bit of that, but it was also an overview of the Black Lives Matter movement, especially on college campuses. Since I work on a college campus, I’m pretty attune to these issues already, so not a whole lot of new information. This would be an excellent book for a high school history class in 20 years from now.
December 26, 2020
Knowing a bit about the history of confederate monuments (specifically when they were erected), I find the current debate about them infuriating. Reading this book only increased my fury. Why do we still have to debate this? It's just so gross. Focusing on the history and legacy of Nathan Bedford Forrest was an interesting choice and really helped O'Neill explore the issue in depth.
January 20, 2021
Thank you to Libro FM for this free ALC in exchange for an honest review. Down Along with That Devil's Bones was a timely read as I tried to grapple with the awful events at the nation's capitol on January 6, 2021. The author's investigation and deep dive into white supremacy and the history behind monuments and stories in the south was fascinating. It helped me understand some of the fears and beliefs of the insurrectionists. The audio was fairly good, but nothing spectacular.
November 23, 2020
Thoughtful and timely. A great starting point and yet a strong reflection.
February 21, 2021
Using the life and legacy of Nathan Bedford Forrest as a backdrop, the author examines recent civil rights history.
May 14, 2021
Surprising hit with the book group. Not as dense as I feared, and a really interesting entry point to all of the things going on in the US today.
November 28, 2020
This book is from the perspective of a curious person investigating the renewed conversation surrounding confederate monuments. The author interviews people who believe these statues are heritage and people involved in Black Lives Matter chapters trying to take down monuments. Through all of these present-day interactions, O'Neill discusses Nathan Bedford Forrest and his legacy. The narration in the audiobook was kind of dry. We're following multiple groups in multiple states (it's a travelog in part) so sometimes it was hard to follow and some chapters looked into more interesting stories than others. My favorite parts were the chapters about MTSU and the last chapter about EJI.
June 8, 2021
Lately, I’ve been diving into the topic of Confederate memory and thought this book would be a good addition to the other books I’ve read. I expected it to be like Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz. Quickly, it became obvious that this book would have none of the quirky nor any of the mildly offensive characters one can dismiss as merely eccentric. In the third chapter Conner Towne O’Neill describes a voice mail message for a Nathan Bedford Forrest defender as saying they can’t come to the phone because “the genocide against Southern culture is still ongoing and they’re out there fighting.” The author also talks about a Forrest backer who is quoted in the Times-Picayune as saying “Someone needs to say a good word for slavery.” It seems that of all the people in the “Heritage not Hate” “movement”, the people who fight for the memory of Confederate cavalryman, self-made local boy (who happened to make himself by way of selling human beings—but not to bad people, mind you—and was integral in the early days of the Ku Klux Klan), Nathan Bedford Forrest seem to be the most extreme. This is born out here.
And were that the primary focus, this book would be both engaging and relevant as a tool to combat what usually drives these discussions from Forrest supporters...what I like to call History as Propaganda. This is when people teach history in a way so as to illicit a specific emotion. The Forrest folks see history as a way to instill pride. The best way to combat that is a fuller picture. Unfortunately, in many cases where the author inserts himself, he is also dealing in History as Propaganda, only his aim is to make people feel ashamed for what people did 150 years ago “in their name”.
I was willing to over look minor historical inaccuracies (Lee surrendered in the parlor of a private home in Appomattox, not a judge’s chamber) and geographical errors, (approaching Fort Pillow, you turn back west, not east, toward the Mississippi River). But it is clear that he didn’t do any research about the origins of the Constitution’s 3/5 Clause, and it feels like it was because he had a story to tell and he chose not to let facts get in the way The Northern states didn’t want to count slaves in the population for purposes of assigning Representatives because to do so would have been to abdicate more power to the southern slavocracy...heck, the Southerners, far from equating this discussion to the value of a human would have been happy to count slaves as two people, to inflate their population for the purposes of appropriating Representatives and enhance their power. The compromise of 3/5ths was not that Southern slave owners or even Northern abolitionists thought a slaves was only 60% of a person.
It is this agenda that disappointed me. It may be my fault for hoping that this book would let the “unreconstructed” speak for themselves and trusting most readers to roll their eyes or even (as I did) gasp at some of their words. Instead, the author wants to make sure we’re getting it they way he wants us to get it.
And were that the primary focus, this book would be both engaging and relevant as a tool to combat what usually drives these discussions from Forrest supporters...what I like to call History as Propaganda. This is when people teach history in a way so as to illicit a specific emotion. The Forrest folks see history as a way to instill pride. The best way to combat that is a fuller picture. Unfortunately, in many cases where the author inserts himself, he is also dealing in History as Propaganda, only his aim is to make people feel ashamed for what people did 150 years ago “in their name”.
I was willing to over look minor historical inaccuracies (Lee surrendered in the parlor of a private home in Appomattox, not a judge’s chamber) and geographical errors, (approaching Fort Pillow, you turn back west, not east, toward the Mississippi River). But it is clear that he didn’t do any research about the origins of the Constitution’s 3/5 Clause, and it feels like it was because he had a story to tell and he chose not to let facts get in the way The Northern states didn’t want to count slaves in the population for purposes of assigning Representatives because to do so would have been to abdicate more power to the southern slavocracy...heck, the Southerners, far from equating this discussion to the value of a human would have been happy to count slaves as two people, to inflate their population for the purposes of appropriating Representatives and enhance their power. The compromise of 3/5ths was not that Southern slave owners or even Northern abolitionists thought a slaves was only 60% of a person.
It is this agenda that disappointed me. It may be my fault for hoping that this book would let the “unreconstructed” speak for themselves and trusting most readers to roll their eyes or even (as I did) gasp at some of their words. Instead, the author wants to make sure we’re getting it they way he wants us to get it.
July 6, 2020
Mr O'Neill destroys the myth that a lot of Southnerians whole close to their heart and always their first statement about the Civil War. So, "Yes Virginia and the rest of the Southern states", the Civil War was about Slavery. No matter how you want to look at and claim your family never owned slaves that makes no difference if you are still holding tight to the idea that Blacks are inferior to whites, you are still fighting the war for slavery.
Having grown up in the south, Florida, and having family that has lived in Florida or Georgia since the early 1800's I have seen first hand how we celebrate that fact that we feel superior to non-white races. As I was growing up I saw White and Colored bathrooms, fountains and special seating at restaurants. I didn't put it together in my young head that we were placing people of color lower than whites. No matter that a lot of whites were of lower standards and IQ. This was the 50's.
And the way we show this feeling is by putting up monuments to our heroes who fought to hold our place in society. And that seems to be a reason that we are seeing so much unrest right now. Whites feel a threat that they may be losing their seat at the head of the table. And they need to look deeply at themselves and their long held beliefs, which can be painful, this trend will continue.
Mr O'Neill writes about the great General Nathan Bedford Forrest. His likeness is everywhere you turn in the South and some, small minded white supremacist, will kill to keep his monuments in place.
Mr O'Neill lays bear how people of all colors are fighting for their place in the White America and White America is fighting to keep them down so they feel superior. And that will never work in a free democracy. If we are holding anyone down based on the color of their skin and not recognizing
them as human beings we are still holding tight to the thought that Slavery was okay. Not matter how many monuments we pull down, and we should, until we take a closer look at the core of this problem and work to correct it we will stay a country based on Slavery.
I'm trying my hardest not to makes this political but until we have leaders that recognize the core of this issue and stop some leaders to using hate as a way to lead this country this war will continue.
Thank you Mr O'Neill for proving this book. And to Goodreads for making this book available.
Having grown up in the south, Florida, and having family that has lived in Florida or Georgia since the early 1800's I have seen first hand how we celebrate that fact that we feel superior to non-white races. As I was growing up I saw White and Colored bathrooms, fountains and special seating at restaurants. I didn't put it together in my young head that we were placing people of color lower than whites. No matter that a lot of whites were of lower standards and IQ. This was the 50's.
And the way we show this feeling is by putting up monuments to our heroes who fought to hold our place in society. And that seems to be a reason that we are seeing so much unrest right now. Whites feel a threat that they may be losing their seat at the head of the table. And they need to look deeply at themselves and their long held beliefs, which can be painful, this trend will continue.
Mr O'Neill writes about the great General Nathan Bedford Forrest. His likeness is everywhere you turn in the South and some, small minded white supremacist, will kill to keep his monuments in place.
Mr O'Neill lays bear how people of all colors are fighting for their place in the White America and White America is fighting to keep them down so they feel superior. And that will never work in a free democracy. If we are holding anyone down based on the color of their skin and not recognizing
them as human beings we are still holding tight to the thought that Slavery was okay. Not matter how many monuments we pull down, and we should, until we take a closer look at the core of this problem and work to correct it we will stay a country based on Slavery.
I'm trying my hardest not to makes this political but until we have leaders that recognize the core of this issue and stop some leaders to using hate as a way to lead this country this war will continue.
Thank you Mr O'Neill for proving this book. And to Goodreads for making this book available.
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