What’s in a Name? For White America, Everything.
Today, all over America, Confederate monuments are being defaced, torn down, or removed to a “safer place.” The President is defending the monuments and some (mostly White people) are asking where does it stop? They want to know when will we be able to say that we removed all that needs to be removed? They also say street protests and actions against police brutality and Confederate monuments became too violent.
These questions and claims reveal the deep nature of White America’s problem. When we allow White people to make decisions about racial justice in America, they always find plenty of reasons to do nothing or just complain about what protesters are saying or doing.
The people of White Settlement, Texas found that out in 2005 when their new Mayor asked them to consider changing the city’s name. He thought the name might offend some people and might be costing the townspeople business. 85% of people in White Settlement at the time were White. 90% of the people voted to keep the name.
In February 2019, I urged the people of my community to change the name of their school district. This small, Northern California district, was created during the Civil War and named Dixie in support of the South. A local movement to change the school district’s name began in the 1990s.
During the most recent debate over the name, activist were able to provide overwhelming evidence connecting the word “Dixie” inextricably with Confederate history. Their argument was so great that eventually the district board agreed that it could not be disconnected, or seen in some “modern light,” making it shine without its horrifying history.
We learned, for example, that many Southern Democrats left the Democratic party during the 1948 Presidential election. These Southern politicians formed a group they named “Dixiecrats.” The Dixiecrats platform was segregationist and opposed to the ending of Jim Crow laws in America. The new party nominated a young Strom Thurmond for President (who won 39 electoral votes). Thurmond is best known for giving the longest filibuster speech in US Senate history in order to defeat the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
We also learned that political activist and organizations are now finding and geocaching locations around the country with Confederate monuments or buildings and organizations with Confederate names or flags waving. The intention of these groups is to locate these places so individuals and groups can find them and “modernize” the location to better reflect their beliefs about American history and modern American culture. Since George Floyd’s murder this effort has gone into high gear.
In my February 6, 2019 Marin Independent Journal editorial I wrote:
“The overwhelming white majority of our community does not have the right to say what the meaning and impact of this word “Dixie” is to people of color. We cannot tell them it doesn’t hurt. It does, and we all need to understand why — and do something about it.”
Today I would add that we also cannot tell them where it has to end. We all need to participate in negotiated settlements on a case by case basis with local, state, and national governments and with the specific intent of healing wounds, not preserving a false American history.
However, if I were having an academic conversation of this question of how far should we go with Confederate monuments in America, my answer would focus on the current debate over Stone Mountain Georgia. In 2017, the Stone Mountain Monument became more prominent after events in Charlottesville, VA.
When I first went to Stone Mountain in 1999 and took this family portrait, I had very little knowledge of the history, and no real understanding of the enormity of the place in America’s racial story. I could not have predicted that today people would be talking about the social, economic, and emotional impact of Confederate monuments all over America.
It took me a very long time to get there, but I think I get it now.
As a teacher of American history I always want my students to see what the government did (or is doing now) on behalf of the people. We often do this by looking at the texts they create for speeches, bills, treaties and other public statements. In teaching about Confederate Monuments and Stone Mountain, I want students to know what the government has said about the questions regarding the purpose and status of the monument(s).
In the case of Stone Mountain, I would highlight the 2019 report on public symbols of the Confederacy, by the Southern Poverty Law Center which notes that:
“Georgia lawmakers protected all Confederate memorials, including the giant Stone Mountain carving, in 2001 as part of a compromise to remove an image of the Confederate flag from the state flag.”
Today I can easily see this 2001 “agreement” to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Georgia state flag as really a modern day “Black Code.” This particular code was created specifically to protect the largest public statement of honor for leaders of the effort to maintain slavery in America’s Civil War.
I also ask my students to corroborate their information. In this case I might actually provide them with additional comments by experts involved in this week’s decision to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Mississippi state flag.
In this story I would highlight two people’s comments. One by local shop owner Bob Castello who is quoted saying: “This could go on and on, there’s just no limit to where they could go with it.” Castello’s shop the, Dixie General Store, sells Confederate memorabilia and, he adds, “Business is very good right now.”
I would also have them read Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves comments when he signed the bill to change the flag: “The argument over the 1894 flag” said Reeves, “has become as divisive as the flag itself and it’s time to end it,”
The divisions in our communities, states, and our nation do not come from the people who want to remove statues or change names. The names and monuments cause the division and it is White people who fight and argue so strongly to keep them and expand these divisions between us. I believe history will characterize any work to maintain monuments or delay, block, and resist these changes, as racist.
As a citizen and member of my local community I am still wondering why we continue to miss opportunities to create teachable moments about the history of American white supremacy. How can we continue to allow racial hatred to show itself in plain sight every day? How can we continue to explain things away when something like the murder of George Floyd occurs?
Change is difficult to make and is often very incremental when it does happen. One way to see how and why this happens is to look back here in Marin where, as of this past school year, we have a new school district name but we still have the Old Dixie Schoolhouse.
It’s located right there in front of the Miller Creek Middle School.
Local political activists made the decision to fight only to change the district’s name and did not ask to change the name of the old schoolhouse which is on the National Registry of Historic Places. Perhaps they thought it would be too difficult to change the name and wanted to focus on getting the district name changed. Or, perhaps they thought it would be just too much for the White residents of the community and could risk the whole movement.
That decision matters much less now and I predict some will begin to explore the idea of changing the old schoolhouse name. More importantly, I believe it’s time for the schoolhouse to stand as a monument reflecting the entire history of our community and America, and not just White, European history.
Local officials and community members should be proud of the fact that, after the school district officials changed their name, the Little League baseball and soccer leagues both changed their names with little fanfare.
But White America should also be prepared for the call to change the name of the Old Dixie Schoolhouse. If that’s what Black America wants.
