Traveling north on Interstate 75 near the Florida-Georgia line, proudly flaps a gigantic Confederate flag to the immediate right. Whether driving passed the flag at 80 mph or seeing it fly during the Ole Miss football games of my youth, the red flag with the starred blue X has always made me uncomfortable.
I have, and may always, associate the Confederate flag with racism. And, when we’ve seen this flag on on past family trips, I’d vocally scorn its predominant display in my current state of residence, saying, “They need to take that flag down. Why anything still exists from the era is beyond me.”
Recently I had the chance to see that same symbol of the Confederacy again – this time, though, as my wife and I talked with our kids about how we’d spend the next few days on a family adventure in and around Atlanta.
In fact, our “what should we do” conversation prevented me from boring my kids with another version of “they should take that flag down” as we zipped passed it on I-75 North.
“How about Stone Mountain?” my wife suggested, her thumb flipping through recent reviews of the attraction’s Christmas decoration, synthetic snow-sledding hill and picturesque vistas from it’s summit.
She continued to read online reviews aloud, including the description of the one of Stone Mountain’s feature attractions – the mountain-side carving of three icons of the Confederacy: Jefferson Davis, Andrew “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee.
“Wait. This place has a Confederate monument?” I interrupted, continuing, “I don’t like that. That means our ticket money is supporting the terrible things the Confederacy stood for.”
Maybe it was my wife’s “not another rant, please” glare or the fact that we’d just paid to enter the park the following day, but I shelved my strong dismissal of Stone Mountain. I resigned myself to the fact that our Saturday would be spent sledding down a hill of fake snow with my kids in the shadows cast by figures of an era that I’d rather not have existed.
The following day I continued to pout, but talked myself into “taking one for the team” and enjoying our time together in spite of the relics I didn’t care to take in.
After our arrival, we jumped right in – taking the first Sky Ride to the top of Stone Mountain that brought us face-to-face with the famous stone carving we’d discussed the day before.
The view of the memorial from our cable car was, well, breathtaking. The craftsmanship of the monument was, regrettably, mythical. Each detail was precisely perfect – from Jackson’s stoic look to the intense expression of the horses each rode.
Trust me, I wanted to mope.
I tried to hate the scene.
I wanted the mountainside depiction of three Confederate warriors to be lost on me. As our cable car reached the summit, though, my hatred was gone – replaced by curiosity.
My oldest son, Yosef, wanted to know more, too, asking, “Dad, who are those guys again?”
I suddenly realized that I didn’t know much about the Confederacy. And, I knew even less about the figures that were portrayed, the subjects of my ridicule.
So, I responded the best I could, “Yosef, those are famous heroes of the Confederacy – the time where the South tried to split from the North. These symbols are often linked to racism.”
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While my tune may have changed, the possible removal of Confederate monuments is a divisive, racial-charged issue. The division of viewpoints widens as we remember scenes from August 2018 when, in Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists marched with torches in protest to the removal of a memorial of Jefferson Davis (oh, by the way, one of the three men etched into the rock I now stood admiring).
Do the images of Charlottesville make me sick? Yes.
Would I rather not talk to my kids about topics as inhumane as slavery, racism and segregation? Of course.
Are my kids, though, better equipped to propagate equality armed with the knowledge that injustice existed (and continues to exist)? Absolutely.
The Confederacy is a part of the history of the United States – a terrible period of oppression that gave rise to legends of liberty like Abe Lincoln. As a piece of our history, then, the Confederate monuments should stand. These memorials should not, though, remain symbols of hatred.
Maybe each should be adorned with a placard that reads something like:
Let the Confederacy and the monuments that depict it be not a symbol of ugly legacy of segregation and oppression, but a center of learning and reflection of a time where struggle made the United States of America truly indivisible.
Despite having felt differently on the way home, I still took note of the giant Confederate flag flying on my left as I re-entered the state of Florida a few days later.
I still didn’t like it.
I still wished it would be replaced by another, more unifying, symbol.
But, my kids should know why I feel that way.
And, if standing in front of Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis prompts their questions, to me, the monuments should stay.
