” I loved the emblem of Harriet Tubman with her right hand protectively spread across the chest of a frightened little girl. It speaks volumes to me.”
Tag: slavery
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Letter: Legalized slavery still thrives in prisons
“Working for slave wages leads to black market trading, pervasive in-prison debt, violence and decimated self-worth that often leads to recidivism.”
Letter: Shouldn’t civic center’s name be changed, too?
“Shouldn’t the name of Asheville’s civic center, Harrah’s Cherokee Center – Asheville, be among those that must be changed, since the Cherokees were also slaveowners?”
Letter: Cawthorn’s comments raise troubling questions
“But his visit to Berchtesgaden and his comments there raise troubling questions that he has failed to answer.”
This time it’s different? The Gospel According to Jerry
“I could give you a litany of racial injustice incidents that I’ve personally observed over the years.”
Letter: Confederate monuments, the fake news of the time
“Turns out there was this effort about 30 years after the war … to propagandize to the youth in schools and erect all of these Confederate statues and monuments to sort of rewrite history, painting the South as fallen victims of big government oppression.”
Letter: Repurpose the Vance Monument
“I believe the city and county ought to embrace the obelisk and repurpose it for a monument that stands for freedom and rights for every citizen who breathes the air of this nation.”
Letter: Let’s work through monument issue together
“Perhaps our Confederate monuments need to be replaced with monuments representing the horror and evil of slavery while also honoring the Black families.”
Letter: Confederate monuments remind us of our history
“Their existence represents a teachable moment to future generations of the evil of slavery. However, these statues are not really all about slavery, they are about the history of our nation.”
Asheville Archives: Zebulon Vance argues in favor of slavery, 1860
“Plainly and unequivocally, common sense says keep the slave where he is now — in servitude,” declared Zebulon Vance, in a May 16, 1860 address to the House of Representatives.
Letter: Language shift will change perceptions
“Although it takes conscious effort and practice, these simple changes in our language make big shifts in our community of Asheville, which must also work to reconcile our own legacy of slavery.”
Letter: Change the way we speak about slavery
“We are writing this because we believe that we all should change the way we speak about slavery.”
Letter: Remembering the past more accurately
“Upon reading an article from The New York Times and the 1619 Project, we realized that the use of the words slave, slave owner and plantations are dehumanizing to the descendants of enslaved people and continue the institutional racism that was propagated back then to justify slavery.”
Asheville Archives: Slavery in WNC
The 1860 census records show that Buncombe County had 1,907 slaves and 283 slave owners. Yet even today, some local historians say people are unaware that slavery existed in WNC.
Letter: Lost Cause myths continue to reverberate
“The irony that the supporters of the Lost Cause claim to oppose the rewriting of history is that in many cases, they were the ones who rewrote that history.”
Letter: Civil War historians should face reality
“Now, people like Cox, by her writings and lectures, have incited individuals to do such things as to deface the plaque to Gen. Robert E. Lee at the Vance Monument.”
Asheville Archives: The Lost Cause narrative
From textbooks to newspapers, from monuments to public orations, the Lost Cause narrative sought to present the Confederates’ wartime efforts, not as one of defeat, but heroism in the face of great odds. The campaign also aimed to reimagine slavery as both a benign and beneficial institution.
Letter: Confederate flag project reflects more than bad taste
“I would imagine the North Carolinians who lived with generations of deprivation would have a very different opinion about what that flag represents. All that suffering for an anachronistic economic system that was already unsustainable as the world headed toward the 20th century.”
Letter: Sun, stone and shadow
“If we remove the Vance name and plaque, we will dispose of all positive and negative connotations imposed upon it. We will reduce it to its purest form — an obelisk of stone, sun and shadow. Now the monument is free.”
Letter: Recontextualize the Vance Monument
” I think we should put out a request for proposals from artists and community members, and create a panel of local activists, artists and historians to assess them. Get the new equity manager involved. Something fitting and beautiful will come out of that.”