[Dixielandjazz] Civil War & Slavery

[Charlie Hooks]

Northern Listmates: if you haven't read this, read it now.  Rocky Ball says
it steady and says it whole.  I only wish I were as quietly eloquent as he.
--
Charlie



on 10/1/02 8:58 AM, Bigbuttbnd@aol.com at Bigbuttbnd@aol.com wrote:

> Listmates:
> 
> I'm a son of the South, born and raised in Georgia. My father (now deceased)
> took me aside at a very young age and told me what fathers throughout the
> South have told their children since 1864, to be cautious of the history
> taught in the school. Writers of history in our modern age have done their
> work with an agenda in mind, they are not afraid to change the facts to fit
> the fantasy. 
> 
> My father grew up in a small town in central Georgia called Fitzgerald.
> Fitzgrald was formed after the Civil War with the intent of being a town of
> reconcilliation. The town was laid out in streets running north and south and
> east and west. One side of the town featured streets named after Southern
> generals, the other had streets named after Northern generals. Land was
> offered at discount prices for veterans of the Civil War and thousands of
> union vets moved to the heart of Georgia to live there side by side with
> Confederate veterans.
> 
> As a young boy my dad sat on the porches of countless vets and listened to
> war stories, not from a writer of history, but in first person from the men
> who were there. These men fought throughout the campaigns and represented all
> of thes states of the Union at that time. They told their stories and they
> talked about their motivations. His opinions, expressed to me years later,
> were that the issue of slavery was not even an issue for the soldiers who
> fought.
> 
> There is a difference between slavery and racism. Slavery represented an
> economic method for aquiring labor. While it was not cheaper in the short run
> than hiring labor, the long-term represented a potential return on
> investment... the slave could be sold whereas the laborer could not. The
> slave, however, had to be maintained while the laborer could, when business
> was bad, simply be laid off. From the several hundreds of years of slavery in
> the United States an attitude of racism developed. This attitude extended
> beyond the South to every portion of the country and pervaded our collective
> social fabric long beyond the freeing of the slaves. My father often told me
> of black men who left his employ in the early 50's to move North because of
> Jim Crow laws in the South who later moved back and went to work for him.
> When he inquired why he was always told that in the South a black man
> couldn't go to the same restaurant or use the same bathroom as whites but if
> he had a problem he could always get a little help (a little job, a little
> meal, etc.) but in the North, although he had more freedom, he was
> "invisible" to the white population.
> 
> I abhor slavery and racism. I think salvery was the worst thing that happened
> to this country and the repercussions will stay with us for many years to
> come. But I think that much that is taught in school today and much that is
> presented by Ken Burns in "The Civil War" is a fantasy view of the issues.
> Being a Southerner and growing up here I know the pride, spirit, grace, anger
> and stubborness of Southerners. New Yorkers responded to the 9/11 attacks
> with intense pride and braggadaccio while hiding the intense wound and hurt
> they felt. Southerners are just the same.
> 
> To think that poor southern dirt farmers were willing to die by the thousands
> so a few plantation owners could keep their slaves is beyond the realm of
> common sense. They fought and died to say "Get the hell off my land... you
> are not going to order me or mine around!" From a southern perspective that's
> it! That's why the war was fought and fought so hard for 4 years...
> self-government, home rule (the same reason the colonials rose up against
> England in 1776.) I can't tell you why the common men of Massachusetts or
> Vermont or Pennsylvania marched into the South to be killed. I don't know the
> reason but I cannot fathom that it was to free slaves who, when freed before,
> were still treated as outcasts and second class citizens.
> 
> Slavery was a very big issue but not THE issue, certainly not the rallying
> point for fighting men. Like the Vietnam era where Liberals generally were
> against the war and Conservatives were generally supportive of the war... ther
> e were other issues where these two groups also formed an opinion. Those same
> Liberals were perhaps more in favor of expanded civil rights and those same
> Conservatives were perhaps less in favor of expanded civil rights. That
> doesn't mean the Veitnam War was fought over Civil Rights issues. There were
> several major issues and the division was along the same lines for the
> various issues.
> 
> I still think "Loreena" is the best tune of the era!
> 
> Rocky Ball
> Atlanta
> 
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