Letter sent to Edward Ayers, head of the American Civil War Museum which includes the Museum of the Confederacy in reply to his letter saying they were going to continue with the plans to lease the Museum of the Confederacy to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Edward
Ayers
Chairman
Board of Directors
American
Civil War Museum
490
Tredegar St.
Richmond,
VA 23219
Dear Dr.
Ayers:
I have
read your letter of June 18, 2015. It certainly demonstrates your skill in
public relations but otherwise it is appalling.
Does it
not occur to you what might happen when the Sons of Confederate Veterans
praises, promotes and sells Sons of Confederate Veteran member Frank Conner’s
book The South Under Siege that says:
Look well at the Northern Jewish
intellectuals/activists, O South, for they – who by rights should have been
your closest friends – are by their own choice your dedicated and deadliest
enemy.
A book
which argues that African Americans are mentally deficient and that the civil
rights movement was a Jewish conspiracy.
What do
you think might possibly happen at a synagogue?
Another
book, a pro-slavery book, Myths of
American Slavery by Sons of Confederate Veteran member Walter D. Kennedy,
who is scheduled to speak at the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ 2015 National
Reunion “Heritage” luncheon in Richmond, Virginia is ferocious in his
denunciations of the Southern Baptist Churches resolution of 1995 on the issue
of slavery. Kennedy writes:
The passing of the so-called
Racial Reconciliation Resolution by the assembled delegates defamed and
otherwise slandered the good name of Southern Baptists of the past 150 years.
The resolution is nothing more than liberal double-speak for an act of cultural
genocide against the South.
This book
is sold and praised by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. What do think might
possibly happen at a Southern Baptist Church by a person who thinks the
Southern Baptist Church is committing “cultural genocide against the South”?
Then
there is the idea broadly held in the neo-Confederate movement that the Civil
War was really a theological or holy war between an orthodox Christian South
and a heretical (liberal) North. There
has already been one shooting at a Unitarian church a denomination which is
singled out in neo-Confederate writing.
From the
book, Antebellum Slavery: An Orthodox Christian View, by Gary Roper, another
book sold by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and praised by the Sons of
Confederate Veterans Chaplain Corps:
In American literature classes,
many 19th century writers who held the “New England School”
convictions are studied. They were mostly anti-Christian Unitarians and Transcendentalists.
… They hated the Christian faith and they hated
the South because of our stand for conventional Christianity. [Bold face in
the original. Pp. 138-139]
What do
you think might happen at a Unitarian church or a church of a liberal denomination
by someone thinks “hated the South” and “hated the Christian faith”?
Then
there is the article in the Southern
Mercury, published by an educational PAC of the Sons of Confederate
Veterans in which congressional representative Keith Ellison and the Islamic
faith are attacked in response to Ellison’s request to take the oath of office
with Thomas Jefferson’s Koran. The article concludes:
Jefferson had been right. The
“medium of war” was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem. Mr.
Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a “visionary” wise enough to read and
learn about the enemy from their own Muslim Holy Book. [Ted Sampley, “What
Thomas Jefferson Learned from the Q’uran,” Southern
Mercury, Vol. 5 No. 2, April 2007, pp. 12-13]
What do
you think might happen at a mosque by someone who thinks Muslims are “the
enemy”?
What I got
in reply from you to my earlier letter of June 12, 2015 is a lot of public
relations and in regards to the specific request that you not host, which from
your letter it turns out you are leasing the MOC to the Sons of Confederate
Veterans this reply.
We believe we should not
discriminate among groups or censor their speech while here even as we do not
“pander” to any of them.
What a
clever response! Somehow enabling the neo-Confederate movement is posed as a
free speech issue. You are a private institution, you have rights too, you don’t
have to lease to them. I doubt you would host or lease the Museum of the
Confederacy the Ku Klux Klan or Stormfront.
This
isn’t just any group, it is the Sons of Confederate Veterans and it isn’t just
some convention center, the location is the Museum of the Confederacy and their
use of this specific location is an act of the American Civil War Museum
enabling a pernicious movement. A
movement which is, as I stated in my earlier letter, entirely pernicious to the
teaching of American Civil War history.
You do
pander to neo-Confederates as I have well documented at Black Commentator in a four-part series. http://www.blackcommentator.com/441/441_museum_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html. You need to stop having the Museum of the
Confederacy be a Museum for the
Confederacy.
It is the
actions of the American Civil War Museum that enables the neo-Confederate
movement.
When the
next shooting occurs some of the blood will be on your hands and the hands of
the American Civil War Museum trustees.
Sincerely
Yours,
Edward
H. Sebesta
|
No.
|
Name
|
Affiliation
|
|
1
|
Mr. Dennis I. Belcher
|
McGuire Woods
|
|
2
|
Mr. George C. Freeman III
|
Universal Corporation
|
|
3
|
Mr. Bruce C. Gottwald Sr.
|
NewMarket Corporation
|
|
4
|
Mr. Bernard Grisby
|
The Pines
|
|
5
|
Dr. Monroe E. Harris Sr.
|
Virginia Oral and Facial Surgery
|
|
6
|
Mr. David C. Johnson Jr
|
Marketfield Asset Management
|
|
7
|
Mr. Donald E. King
|
McGuire Woods
|
|
8
|
Mr. William H. Luke
|
Mead Wesvaco
|
|
9
|
Mr. Robert N. Mayer
|
Rothschild Foundation
|
|
10
|
Dr. Elisabeth S. Muhlenfield
|
Retired
|
|
11
|
Mr. Roswell Page III
|
McGuire Woods
|
|
12
|
Mr. Walter S. Robertson III
|
Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc
|
|
13
|
Mr. O. Randolph Rollins
|
Drive-To-Work
|
|
14
|
Mr. S. Buford Scott
|
Scott & Stringfellow, Inc.
|
|
15
|
Ms. Ruth C. Streeter
|
CBS News "60 Minutes"
|
|
16
|
Mr. Brandt Surgner
|
Altria Group, Inc.
|
|
17
|
Mr. Matthew G. Thompson Jr.
|
CSC Leasing Company
|
|
18
|
Mr. Lacy Ward Jr.
|
International Civil Rights Center and Museum
|
|
19
|
Mr. Mario M. White
|
Virginia State University
|
|
20
|
Mr. Samuel B. Witt III
|
Retired
|
