Reply to Edward Ayers, head of the American Civil War Museum in reply to his letter that they are going through with their plans to lease the Museum of the Confederacy to the Sons of Confederate Veterans

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 19^th 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