I didn’t think it was possible, but the state of Arkansas has managed to embarrass its neighbor Mississippi with the dedication of a new statue in the United States Capitol Building. The Arkansas legislature recently voted to replace its two statues in Statuary Hall with one honoring Johnny Cash and the other
What a - ahem - monumental achievement! And it hits me right in the travel agenda, too.
Tomorrow my wife and go to Little Rock to attend another Pilgrimage of Japanese Americans to the Rohwer and Jerome WW2 concentration camps. (This time, we're honoring Rosalie Gould, the former mayor of McGehee who restored the inmate-erected cemetery; she's a crisp and spry 99.)
Last year my cousin and I visited Central HS, Bates' historic home, and other sites on the Civil Rights Trail all the way to the MLK museum. I was already taking my wife to see Central HS; I wonder if anything will be going on in Little Rock while we're convening.
I imagine that if Arkansas's legislature passed a bill to replace the two statues, the governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, either had to sign it or she vetoed it and she was overridden. I prefer to hope against hope that she was a good sport.
I visited the Rohwer site last spring and it absolutely floored me. I had no idea of internment camps in the east. The museum they have there is small but really effective. The cemetery literally in the middle of a huge farm field with the stunning monuments took my breath away. Since then I’ve been trying to learn more about this history. Highly recommend everyone who is anywhere near that part of Arkansas to visit
Thanks, Margaret! I hope you saw the Sulu monument, I actually missed it last time. Pre-StarTrek, he was little George Takei whose family was imprisoned there. I did meet him to autograph the card thanking Rosalie Gould for restoring the cemetery. This entire 2024 Pilgrimage is dedicated to her.I am not going to miss Sulu's stone tomorrow!
I thought of Jimmie Rogers too…and so many blues singers too, but I wasn’t sure (off the top of my head) whether they were born in Mississippi. B.B King comes to mind, too!
Fannie Lou Hamer, Tennessee Williams, Medgar Evers, Unita Blackwell, William Faulkner, Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, Elvis Presley - so many choices better than J. Davis!
"[A]nother wonderful example of how the public face of Civil War memory has evolved over the past few decades."
Forgive me for intruding something that's at best tangential to the present topic, though it does have directly to do with evolving Civil War memory.
We discussed here before the idea of looking to Lost Cause history for insights into constructively opposing what could turn into Trump-crime-cult lost causery (if I may make up the word "causery"). Kevin cautioned against it, arguing--if I'm not butchering his argument--that America's original Lost Cause is so huge and so complicated that the idea of reusing its name, lost cause, wouldn't be wise.
Maybe that's right. He's a historian, and I'm not. Nevertheless, as a retired media columnist who never got over the habit of spending too much time on the news media, I think I see a pernicious new lost cause evolving since the Manhattan verdict appeared: turbo-belligerent diehard insistence that Mr. Trump is brutally victimized, and that this cosmic injustice reveals noble civic saviorism in him.
As anyone can tell, my view is that that's depraved and grotesque--something like standing a Jefferson Davis statue next to a statue of Daisy Bates. Again, I admit that I'm just thinking out loud, and I apologize if it's too off-topic. Thanks.
"I think I see a pernicious new lost cause evolving since the Manhattan verdict appeared: turbo-belligerent diehard insistence that Mr. Trump is brutally victimized, and that this cosmic injustice reveals noble civic saviorism in him."
Is this really new? I don't think we need to evoke the Lost Cause to explain our current political environment. I just don't see the work that such a reference is supposed to do here.
Thanks. As I say, I venture this stuff with some hesitation. Still, the Lost Cause has persisted for well more than a century and a half. I have the habit of following the Wall Street Journal's opinion pages and opinion-page online comments daily. What I see is indeed new: a level of monstrous belligerence I didn't see before. Could there be insights from Lost Cause history useful in dealing with it? Maybe not. But I'm not ready to stop wondering about it.
Agree that Medgar Evers is a wonderful choice. In non-politics area, how about William Faulkner? Mississippi could probably stand to replace both of their statues.
What a - ahem - monumental achievement! And it hits me right in the travel agenda, too.
Tomorrow my wife and go to Little Rock to attend another Pilgrimage of Japanese Americans to the Rohwer and Jerome WW2 concentration camps. (This time, we're honoring Rosalie Gould, the former mayor of McGehee who restored the inmate-erected cemetery; she's a crisp and spry 99.)
Last year my cousin and I visited Central HS, Bates' historic home, and other sites on the Civil Rights Trail all the way to the MLK museum. I was already taking my wife to see Central HS; I wonder if anything will be going on in Little Rock while we're convening.
I imagine that if Arkansas's legislature passed a bill to replace the two statues, the governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, either had to sign it or she vetoed it and she was overridden. I prefer to hope against hope that she was a good sport.
I visited the Rohwer site last spring and it absolutely floored me. I had no idea of internment camps in the east. The museum they have there is small but really effective. The cemetery literally in the middle of a huge farm field with the stunning monuments took my breath away. Since then I’ve been trying to learn more about this history. Highly recommend everyone who is anywhere near that part of Arkansas to visit
Thanks, Margaret! I hope you saw the Sulu monument, I actually missed it last time. Pre-StarTrek, he was little George Takei whose family was imprisoned there. I did meet him to autograph the card thanking Rosalie Gould for restoring the cemetery. This entire 2024 Pilgrimage is dedicated to her.I am not going to miss Sulu's stone tomorrow!
Well, either way, I suspect it was politically driven. Enjoy your trip.
Jimmie Rodgers!
I thought of Jimmie Rogers too…and so many blues singers too, but I wasn’t sure (off the top of my head) whether they were born in Mississippi. B.B King comes to mind, too!
Howlin Wolf, Robert Johnson, Son House… lots of em.
Yes yes, exactly!
Fannie Lou Hamer, Tennessee Williams, Medgar Evers, Unita Blackwell, William Faulkner, Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, Elvis Presley - so many choices better than J. Davis!
Great choices, Debra.
Medgar Evers is an obvious and certainly worthy contender, but I am wondering who else might be considered.
"[A]nother wonderful example of how the public face of Civil War memory has evolved over the past few decades."
Forgive me for intruding something that's at best tangential to the present topic, though it does have directly to do with evolving Civil War memory.
We discussed here before the idea of looking to Lost Cause history for insights into constructively opposing what could turn into Trump-crime-cult lost causery (if I may make up the word "causery"). Kevin cautioned against it, arguing--if I'm not butchering his argument--that America's original Lost Cause is so huge and so complicated that the idea of reusing its name, lost cause, wouldn't be wise.
Maybe that's right. He's a historian, and I'm not. Nevertheless, as a retired media columnist who never got over the habit of spending too much time on the news media, I think I see a pernicious new lost cause evolving since the Manhattan verdict appeared: turbo-belligerent diehard insistence that Mr. Trump is brutally victimized, and that this cosmic injustice reveals noble civic saviorism in him.
As anyone can tell, my view is that that's depraved and grotesque--something like standing a Jefferson Davis statue next to a statue of Daisy Bates. Again, I admit that I'm just thinking out loud, and I apologize if it's too off-topic. Thanks.
"I think I see a pernicious new lost cause evolving since the Manhattan verdict appeared: turbo-belligerent diehard insistence that Mr. Trump is brutally victimized, and that this cosmic injustice reveals noble civic saviorism in him."
Is this really new? I don't think we need to evoke the Lost Cause to explain our current political environment. I just don't see the work that such a reference is supposed to do here.
Thanks. As I say, I venture this stuff with some hesitation. Still, the Lost Cause has persisted for well more than a century and a half. I have the habit of following the Wall Street Journal's opinion pages and opinion-page online comments daily. What I see is indeed new: a level of monstrous belligerence I didn't see before. Could there be insights from Lost Cause history useful in dealing with it? Maybe not. But I'm not ready to stop wondering about it.
Agree that Medgar Evers is a wonderful choice. In non-politics area, how about William Faulkner? Mississippi could probably stand to replace both of their statues.
I would love to see Medgar Evers memorialized there.
Medgar Evers is an obvious replacement for Davis.