In this the 150th Anniversary year for the end of the Civil War, it seems at times we still are at war. The fight for basic civil rights…. The traitor flag, the racist flag, the heritage flag that is the Stars and Bars…. The regional divisions…. The inability to work together with others for the common good if it means setting aside our personal agendas….
Yet, we have more in common than we sometimes acknowledge. At the start of this Fourth of July, I’m dispensing with the patriotic message and encouraging you to listen to a few songs common during the Civil War period, some of which you’d hear sung or played on both sides of the battle lines.
Happy 4th to you and the boys, Doug!
Hopefully humans will be able to put aside their differences some day, and work for common good. That may not come in our lifetime, but it is something for all generations to continue to strive for.
I am hopeful but not putting money on it…!
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If it’s in your heart then it’s your 4th of July,there is always going to be a great divide because we are all different,people can come together as one but only when it doesn’t matter what you think
Like what Lindsay Graham said about Mr Biden and what kind of man he was in the face of all his sorrow and pain
Now that was an example of differences coming together
Happy 4 th
Sheldon
That was quite revealing, Senator Graham’s remarks about the Vice President. I was impressed with his sincerity and frankness.
Absolutely. The Civil War ( though my Southern friends have a few other names for it) should never have happened. I
It is an example of pushing a problem down the road instead of dealing with it outright. What if the enlightened men who founded this nation had actually freed their slaves and made them equal partners in the new nation instead of the unpaid labor that enriched a few?
So many mistakes!
Anyway, instead of preserving the old hates and ways as heritage, we need to move beyond them, find our new best selves. (No finger pointing allowed because no one is free of sin! Or whatever you want to label it as. Blame, culpability, a part in…)
A good number of Southerners had begun a program of freeing the slaves. They trained them so they would have a way to have a living. Lincoln was not fighting for the freedom of the slaves. Grant, after the war, continued to hold on to his slaves after the War was over, and General Lee had freed his before the War began. Human beings are so complex, but you are one hundred percent right: the black people should have been freed, or better yet never been enslaved. And I am sure that you have read your history and know that many of the slaves from Africa were betrayed by other tribes. That is what I a real mess.
Yes, and the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t do anything toward freeing slaves held in Union states. A lot of the history we get in school about that time is simplified, I suppose, to make things less difficult to explain in a paragraph or two to impressionable young minds.
One of the most chilling books I ever read was called ADVICE AMONG MASTERS, which featured articles taken from agricultural magazines in the first part of the 19th Century.
The book was vile not for terrible things recommended be done to enslaved people but for the banality of the recommendations. Food should be adequate but not fancy. Clothes should be cheap but adequate protection from the elements. Housing should… yeah, etc. And, on days like the 4th of July, celebrations should include patriotic speeches but not emphasize things like “all men are created equal”. Similarly, the slaves needed religious instruction, but emphasis should be on those passages the admonished slaves to mind their masters.
Well…you know that the ones who win the war write the the history books.
It is a travesty that non-white human beings have yet to experience equality.
True, and major state boards of education further dilute history’s lesson by making such large purchases of textbooks that text book publishers sugar coat, say, parts Texas doesn’t care to emphasize or California. Other states using these approved bowdlerized texts perpetuate the misinformation and lies when they supply their children with them.
I learned more history when I discovered historical fiction after I graduated from high school than I did in all of the 13 years before them.
Isn’t that the truth! One should never stop looking for more information of things. Reading is important to becoming and remaining a good citizen, I think.
I want to share some of that “Proud Southern Heritage” that some people claim is represented by the “Stars and Bars” flag.
The following is one article from the Constitution of The Confederate States that we might still be living under if the South had won The Civil War:
“Article IV Section 2(1)
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”
Yes — that is part of that “Proud Southern Heritage” represented by the confederate flag that is such a part of the national discussion right now.
Something to be really proud of isn’t it?
I agree with you. I considered not putting any songs with a Southern connection here, but realized it sugar-coated a savage time to ignore the root cause or its symbols. (I didn’t post “Bonnie Blue Flag”, though the song is lively and appealing, because of the words are offensive. I suppose some of the songs I chose might have that effect in certain circles, though I hoped to avoid tossing grease onto an old fire.)
The bigger the fire the more likely it is to burn the old prejudices and bigotries into an unrecognizable ash heap.
I’m reminded of the coal seam fires in Pennsylvania…~~!