In Memory of Silent Sam and Civility

In Memory of Silent Sam and Civility

By C.W. Roden ~ The Man Deniers Fear The Most

I remember a time when this country I love as dearly as I love any member of my family, and second only to the love I have for my Lord and Savior, believed in the idea of civility. 

Even though we shared different viewpoints, different backgrounds, different views of American identity; at the very least, despite out differences, we were united enough as a nation to respect that the other person deserved the right to be counted and heard as a fellow American.

I can even remember being a boy in the 1980s and literally seeing Hands Across America, literally people of all backgrounds across this nation joining together to achieve at least the semblance of a united country.

Today, the memory of that degree of unity and civility seems like it happened on another planet, or part of a idealistic dream. I know that as a kid I probably saw things with rose-colored glasses, that we were no more united as a nation then as we are today politically and socially. All the same acts of vandalism, wanton destruction, and the denigration of our fellow Americans memories were not the cultural norm then.

Sometime in the evening hours of Monday, August 20th, a mob of regressives and intolerant anti-Confederate heritage reactionaries at the University of North Carolina campus toppled the famous Confederate statue "Silent Sam" from the base of its monument. 

Silent Sam was built and unveiled on June 2, 1913 in memory of nearly a thousand student volunteers from the historic college who fought in defense of North Carolina and the independence of the Confederate States during the War Between The States (1861-1865). This historic monument depicts a single young soldier, perhaps in his late teens, standing vigil with a rifle in his hand in uniform. 

The destruction of the statue itself is sad, but far from unexpected given the climate of hate and Confederaphobic bigotry that has been created in the wake of the tragic events just over a year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia. Events triggered not by statues or by historical figures as some would wrongly claim -- monuments that have stood in some cases for over a century without creating anger, but by less-than-honorable people who seek to tear this country apart into mobs driven by identity politics and base unchecked emotion, without the benefit of God-given common sense or reason.

The actions of these radicals and regressive haters posing as "anti-racists" is no less hateful than the very people carrying tiki-torches through Charlottesville the year before. Thankfully the only thing knocked over was a statue that can be repaired and not a living person....this time around. 

The destruction of the historic monument is a tragedy for Southern culture, for American identity itself. Even more tragic that it was committed by people who feel that America was never a nation worth honoring. People who believe, or were taught to think, that the heroes of our past do not deserve the respect their elders showed the people who came before them. 

Today we live in a nation where disrespect to the heroes who fought our country's wars, both past and present, is the new normal. It does not matter if those acts include: tearing up statues and grave markers, removing flags, kneeling at football games, censoring the free speech guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, or denying service to people in stores, restaurants, and public places. 

All of the above are not only accepted by people in America today, but such acts are even encouraged by people who feel that those who oppose their dissatisfaction with this country, its history, and its identity as it still exists today do not even deserve to have a voice. 

People who see the denial of the very human dignity of their fellow Americans itself as a virtue.

Tonight I do not weep for Silent Sam, he can be repaired -- and God willing (not to mention the NC Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy) he will be! -- but I do weep for this country that has fallen so far from a generation that once fought fascism, to a nation where some of this generation choose to embrace it in one form or another. 

Pray for this country of ours. God Bless Y'all. 

Born and raised in Caldwell County, John Thomas Jones was a student at the University of North Carolina when he enlisted in the Orange Light Infantry in April 1861. This company became part of the 1st Regiment North Carolina Volunteers a six-month regiment, and fought in the first significant land battle of the war at Big Bethel, Virginia on June 10, 1861. Following the dismissal of the regiment in November 1861, Jones returned home to help raise the "Caldwell Guards" which became Company I, 26th Regiment N. C. Troops. He would rise through the ranks to Captain of the company, and by the time Gettysburg came around he was Major. He in fact commanded the 26th NC during the third days charge. He was promoted to Lt. Col. following Gettysburg and was mortally wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in May of 1864. When told that his wound was mortal he said that "it can't be as I was meant to accomplish more." He was one of the 287 former students of UNC that the memorial was dedicated to in 1913. He was a hero.