Confederate statue represnts the worst we have done - The Robesonian

Editor’s Note: The following comments were sent to Robeson County commissioners on the subject of the Confederate statue that stands on the steps of the Robeson County Courthouse. The demand to remove the statue most recently was made during a commissioner meeting on Feb. 21.

I served as the Executive Director of the Robeson County Church and Community Center from 1996 – 2001. My wife served with hospice here. Robeson County has been our home for twenty-seven years. My great-times-five grandfather fought with the North Carolina Militia during the Revolutionary War and was wounded near here, on Drowning Creek. We have lived here, worshiped here, served here, and been formed by the goodness of this community.

I write to urge our County Commissioners and the Robeson County Community to remove the confederate statue sitting at the entrance of our county courthouse.

As David Branch noted in his excellent guest editorial, the statue was commemorated in the early 1900s, on May 10, 1907. Governor Robert Broadnax Glenn gave the dedication address. It is consequential that Glenn was invited to speak. Nine years earlier, his speeches urged the actions taken in the Wilmington insurrection where the duly elected and multi-racial government was overthrown by violence. More than sixty black people were killed in the carnage. In 1899, Glenn was elected a state senator and used his skill as an orator to push white supremacy and legislation to disenfranchise black voters. He opposed using taxes paid by white people to educate black children. These were the actions of the man asked to dedicate the statue.

The story of the statue is a story of division. It is a story that centers the racist actions of the past, and by its presence, brings that narrative onto the front porch steps of our county courthouse. Yet our community is one that seeks wholeness and cares about the needs of one another. In this, I am moved to join a narrative of deeper relationships, deeper honesty, and a yearning for beloved community.

But such liberative movement can only be possible with a truthful rendering of what has come before. My great-great-great grandfather, Malcolm Lester was a confederate soldier and died while in service to the confederacy. Malcolm had two brothers, William and James, my great-times-four uncles. Tax records of 1861 show that they collectively enslaved eleven people. Eleven people whose lives were not their own. Eleven people considered property by the state. Eleven people existing at the pleasure of another. Eleven people who were denied human aspirations, were forbidden free movement, were refused basic relationships, and whose dreams died in the horrific realities that consumed their labor and shredded their lives.

Uncle James Lester “purchased” a young woman whose name was Vilet. While enslaved, she wrote a letter that still exists today. She writes to a previous “owner” in search of her daughter who has been sold away from her. I can imagine her suffering, the trauma of having her precious daughter ripped from her. I can hear her anguished pleadings, see her tears, and even now, feel her heart being torn asunder. She desperately desired to search for her daughter, yet in her enslavement, she remained shackled to James Lester and his desires. In the letter she writes, “… he (James Lester) has owned me four years and says that he will keep me til death separates us.” It does not take deep imagination to understand the constancy of sexual assault that he perpetrated upon her. Her reality was a living nightmare at the hands of my great-times-four uncle. Vilet’s story is only one story among a multitude of similar stories.

Many of my white brothers and sisters will point to confederate memorabilia and claim that it celebrates our heritage, the sacredness of family, and honors our ancestors. If this is true, then I want to clearly say, the horrendous, soul-crushing, body-busting, freedom-stealing, family-shredding system of slavery, this too is our heritage. This too is our legacy.

Which brings me back to the confederate statue. I love my family and am proud of the many accomplishments made by my family back to the Revolutionary War and earlier. Yet, I also must be honest and name the ways we have harmed. For we who are white, this statue represents some of the worst that we have done. It represents a system that tore black children from their parents, named black humans as objects, held black people in captivity at risk of violence or death, and created wealth for white families wrested from the blood and muscle and bone and sweat and tears and bodies of enslaved black people. To have a monument that celebrates such reality on the front porch steps of the Robeson County Courthouse does not represent the good people and goodness of Robeson County. It is a blight on our community and does not reflect our current values. We should remove it.

Peace and grace,

Steve Taylor

Home Missioner, United Methodist Church

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https://www.robesonian.com/opinion/177857/confederate-statue-represnts-the-worst-we-have-done

2022-03-11 17:31:00Z
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