By Richard Pryor III
Executive Staff
In an article for The Wall Street Journal discussing the ramifications of protestors at the University of North Carolina, when they tore down the “Silent Sam” statue of a confederate soldier on campus, writers Cameron McWhirter and Melissa Korn bring the spotlight to Sewanee’s cavalcade of monuments, whether they be statues or building names, dedicated to supporters of the Confederate States of America. Before I get into my argument fully, let me state where I am coming from.
I am a mixed-race, passing white man who is a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee from New Jersey and Ohio. I had family fighting on both sides of the Civil War, but have not had any family living in a former Confederate state for at least the last four generations. My mother is a professor of African-American History. I have been in the South for two years since coming to Sewanee.
With that in mind, let me take the opportunity to inform you of a few things: yes, the Civil War was about slavery. Yes, any time someone says, “Heritage, Not Hate,” in reference to the Confederate flag or a statue, they are continuing to prop up the myth of a nation built on the owning of other people as chattel slaves. Is that “living together in unity” like our University’s motto declares?
Vice-Chancellor McCardell told The Journal that he has to, in the words of the authors, “walk a fine line between acknowledging the school’s history while no longer paying homage to [the Confederacy.]” Dr. McCardell, I agree with you that this fine line is important and that we need to stay on it. Allow me to offer a suggestion, though.
I advocate for taking any sort of recognition of these vile men down from our campus. I do not believe we should forget these men – I support the work of Dr. Woody Register (C’80) and the Sewanee Slavery Project in researching and learning more about these men who shaped our University. That information should be made public in a museum. But we can’t give them honors on campus anymore.
If you want to honor heroes of states rights, how about replacing Leonidas Polk’s spot on the All Saints’ reredos with American Saint Ronnie Reagan, who also “fought for states rights,” and technically is more of a saint than Polk because more people venerate him than the “Fighting Bishop.” Or if you want someone to represent the “Heritage, Not Hate” of the South, how about actual Episcopal Saint Anna Alexander, a Georgia deaconess who founded a church in Pennick and a school attached to it? She’s also won the prestigious Lent Madness championship, so I can bet that more people know of her than Bishop Polk. As Caroline Graham (C’21) noted to The Journal, “we don’t have to keep worshiping” the Confederate history on our campus while remembering it.
Let me give you an example. I, as a History major, have taken courses in and am interested in power and influence in modern South Africa (1850-present). H. F. Verwoerd, one-time Minister of Native Affairs and Prime Minister of South Africa, often referred to as the “Architect of Apartheid” has a similar reputation in his country to that of Adolf Hitler. Many of his policies can be likened to those of the Jim Crow South.
Daniel Gross, writing for Smithsonian.com, informs readers that 50 years after Verwoerd’s assassination, Verwoerd’s supporters are only a “tiny minority” and that they are white nationalists. Does that remind you of anything? The remnants of Verwoerd’s legacy are a museum in a white nationalist city-state in South Africa and a number of named building and facilities that have mostly been changed. We’re behind on the times in America.
The Rev. James K. Polk Van Zandt, a former trustee of the University, informed The Journal that he believed that, “If they [Sewanee] got kids from New Jersey who don’t want to go there [because of the issues with the Confederacy and slavery], let them go somewhere else.” Well Father, this kid from New Jersey wants to attend Sewanee. He wants to attend a University that is rooted in the Anglican way of well-rounded thinking and opportunities for prayer to whatever God one may believe in.
You’re right that I would prefer to not go to an institution that celebrates the Confederacy in 2018. But I believe that Sewanee is the place for me and that we (both Sewanee and the South as a whole) don’t have to idolize the Old South of yore. There are signs of progress, like Robert E. Lee’s name being removed from an Episcopal Church, the Confederate Flag becoming more and more unpopular, and, of course, the tearing down of statues. But we have a ways to go.
In closing, I want to take a note from the Cheeto-in-Chief, who seems to have galvanized the population with short, simple, chantable slogans. Allow me to offer one for our usage as we continue this discussion: TEAR THEM DOWN! TEAR THEM DOWN! TEAR THEM DOWN!
“…the Anglican way of well-rounded thinking and opportunities for prayer to whatever God one may believe in.” Richard, the Grand Canyonesque divide between your vision of The University of the South and mine is beyond your twisted perspective on our Southern heritage, and goes to the very essence of the uniqueness of Sewanee: look at the Sewanee King Jesus Window for a quick primer https://bit.ly/2QE54tA .
The very heartbeat of Sewanee is in sync with the heartbeat of Jesus Christ, the One True God. Apart from Him you, me and all things Sewanee can accomplish nothing. Do you agree or disagree?
Ecce quam bonum is based on a family relationship with one Father God. The only way to be in relationship with Him is through Jesus His Son. The true familial bond of brotherhood/sisterhood is not bestowed by the University, acquired by signing the Honor Code in All Saints as an entering freshman, or even by graduating. This comes from saying “yes” to Jesus and being in intimate relationship with Him.
The true “Sewanee Spirit” experienced by those fortunate souls that enter The Domain for a day, a season, or 4 years or more is God’s Holy Spirit. While I was heavily influenced by His Spirit as a student, it wasn’t until returning during a summer break as a Law I several years later during a quiet time at Morgan’s Steep that I had my epiphany. That experience, coupled with full access to the Fulford Hall library collection, provided my clarity as to the University of the South’s raison d’etre.
Richard and your clan, if this is new information, take the time to perform your own due diligence before you continue your quest to mimic Sherman’s March to the Sea on The Mountain in middle Tennessee.
Yet another Yankee who didn’t know enough about history to stay up North who has come South to “fix” us. I am a native Californian who discovered my Revolutionary and Confederate genealogy 15 years ago. I was fortunate; I was never enough of a hypocrite to think the South had a corner on racism or any of the other ills that it gets blamed for, even though EVERY state in this Union was settled or founded by slaveowners or people (often Yankees) who either passed Jim Crow-type laws, banned certain people from settling the state, or virtually enslaved indigenous peoples with or without legal sanction. Here’s a newsflash: slavery has existed for millenia, still exists (particularly in Africa and Muslim-dominant countries) either under that name or under others, i.e., sex trafficking. All this seems to me of far more import than any system of slavery or government which ended 150 or so years ago. Nevertheless, it’s the Confederacy that rates your attention – oh yes, and negating all the history from Palm Sunday1865 to this where people did not care as much about tearing down Confederate monuments as much as they did building people up in honor of the struggles of their ancestors of whatever skin color(s). Frankly, I think you need counseling rather than an advanced degree – but I would suggest some studies of how Marxists have intentionally attacked America by agitating race issues. Because for all the stated concerns about the supposed treason of Confederates, it’s suspect to me when people today act like the KGB during Soviet days.
Dude, who actually worships any of the confederates here? Sure, there are some people attending the University who might sport a battle flag, but I would be hard pressed to find any who actually ‘worship’ the confederates who founded our school.
In addition, I would be even more interested to hear how the erasure of our slave-built history wouldn’t be the same as eliminating details of the Trail of Tears in many modern textbooks, in your words.
Finally, the University is a living museum. We can see the echoes of our deeply convoluted past all around us. Rebel’s Rest, Fulford Hall, General Kirby’s face, and yes, even our Bishop’s Common, commemorating Bishop Juhan, who at one point held the university together during the first extension of applications to black students during a deeply segregated time (he had to ensure that many of the scholarships would remain white only).
I would admonish you to reconsider the implications of removing the men who enslaved others and then built something outstanding, because you risk erasing the victims who they used to build it. And, you walk and exist in a country that was built by them. There’s a phrase I like to use for this, by the way, and you may just find it useful.
“It’s hard to know where you’re going, if you have no idea where you’ve come from.”
Just because you want to be at Sewanee doesn’t automatically mean you’re the right kind of person for Sewanee, especially if, upon arriving, you decide that Sewanee must be made over into something other than what it has generally been since its founding, based on what YOU want it to be instead, and based on your less-than-fully-informed opinion of the men who founded the place in another time, within a different civilization and social culture.
What shallow, narrow-minded stupidity it is to tear down something of great goodness in the lives of thousands, with its beginnings in a very different and distant past that offends you because you somehow came up with the fanciful idea that doing so will change the present one whit.
God bless you man. When the New Confederate Memorial comes down, and it will, I will make sure your prophetic words are remembered.
White Fragility.
Richard, you belong at Sewanee and your voice belongs in the conversation. Thank you for enriching this community by your presence!
Richard,
Keep speaking up and speaking out!! You and your voice are extremely important and valuable.
Sewanee is on the cusp of acknowledging her full past which sprang from a rigid and dehumaninzing caste order both here and abroad.
It is up to VC McCardell to lead The University forward, away from a defensive past, and encompass The Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconcilliation into the teaching of Sewanee’s second founding.
On behalf of many, thank you, Richard, for your courage.
“…the teaching of Sewanee’s second founding.” Please elaborate.
…meaning how Sewanee’s history is being interpreted and taught through the written and spoken word. Currently, there seems to be an emphasis on forgiveness; that we are all sinners and should forgive those ( the founding bishops) their slave owning past, that these were good people and were products of their time and culture. But where is the acknowledgement that enslaving others is wrong and that Sewanee’s founders were only interested in a university of white men? How do we we reconcile this without facing the deeper truths of the social beliefs Sewanee was founded in?
Make that…”upon which Sewanee was founded (or refounded).“ Can’t leave it ending on a preposition, woops!
Except for a few years living abroad, I have lived in the South for 40+ years. Now, before I ramble on about how I have witnessed many good folks relocate to the South for whatever reason, marvel at our culture, the way we talk, our pace of life, our scenic beauty, our rich food, music, and so forth, and then start suggesting how we need to change things…yes, before I do that, let me make something clear: I cannot think of anything more disgusting than the enslavement of fellow people. There is no argument that it is a heartbreaking and disgusting scar in our nation’s history.
So, the University is now trying to distance itself from her legacy? It is an admirable marketing scheme to suggest that we can simply tear down some monuments and move the founding date from 1858 to 1868 and somehow erase this blight on history. You tear down this monument that celebrates some general in some war from 150 years ago – and that makes you feel better? Makes you feel like you have wronged a right from decades ago? No sane person would try to justify slavery now – this is the benefit of viewing history safely from our present-day lens. There are a lot of examples of normal life behavior from 150 years ago that we would find abhorrent today.
My suggestion for you, Richard, is that the next time you are tearing down one of the University’s historical monuments, in the name of righteousness, and move the founding date to 1868 – which I still believe is some kind of PR stunt – at least consider the university’s history in context and in whole and whether this relatively small gesture actually does anything to mend the divide we see today. I would suggest it is merely poppycock, rubbish, “hog wash” as we say down here. The fact is, it was almost another 100 years before the University allowed a black man to graduate. 100 years! Of course, it was a couple of more years before women graduated – so I guess we have to take progress where we can.
In summary, let’s review our abbreviated milestones:
1858 – University was founded (Actually 1857, but the Great Seal of the UoS has 1858)
1868 – 2nd founding
1970 – First black student graduates
1972 – First women graduate
2018 – Confederate monuments torn down – “All is good!”
So, do you feel better now?? Have you made the world a better place?
What a thoughtless and inconsistent reply. You could make the same argument for a person that walks into a museum and burns a Nazi uniform. Is reading about a Nazi in a book bad too? Perhaps the pages of a book with a Nazi symbol should be burned? The statues are there to learn from. You can learn a lot about a time period and the thought processes going on during that era by being around an object. Burning it does not improve life for anybody. Inanimate objects are not threats to your freedom, even though you’re already a slave to a thought. Bad progress in truth. In image you are totally justified and right. Everyone is!
The pathology behind tearing down a statue is simple. It gets attention, it hurts others and it makes the person doing it look very cool and progressive to their friends. It’s not about getting rid of racism as much as making an image of being anti racist But, it’s all about the image, not actually furthering any connection between people. The people who do it are easy to manipulate. People like John Oliver and Stephen Colbert do not tell the truth in their hearts as well. But, their whole world is seen with a fake picture of New York City behind them. Shows how much we care about truth. These monuments are beautiful creations.They were difficult to make. They are easy to tear down.