Joy Reed made An Interesting Comment Yesterday...

[WiffenPoof]

On "Meet The Press" she stated that the statues which are the focus of the protesting were not erected just after the Civil War. It would have been completely inappropriate and considered a traitorist act. They were erected during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to send a message to African Americans. It was clearly meant to intimidate a segment of our population. I thought that this was an excellent point.

-P

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Not entirely true - many of them were erected around the turn of the 20th Century

by organizations like the Daughters of the Confederacy, during the heyday of the KKK. A few are disturbingly recent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

[Wounded Bear]

2. She's partly right...

many of them were erected in the early 1900's, when there was a resurgent KKK movement, perhaps inflamed they the early film Birth of a Nation, which rather gratuitously glorified the Civil War from a Southern Perspective.

KKK, of course, dates from the 1860's growing right out of the War itself and propagated among mostly Confederate veterans. Mostly, it was relegated to the rural south in its early days.

[obamanut2012]

8. The "modern KKK" was fueled by the Leo Frank case

[WiffenPoof]

3. Well, Let's Just Say....

...that at least some were erected to intimidate African Americans.

-P

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. They probably were, to some extent; but an awful lot of that

was also going on in the earlier 20th Century. They were lynching people then.

[SweetieD]

9. They all were. Its just that some were erected in 20s to intimidate and some in the 1960s.

Same goal.

[MsJaneFuzzyWuzzy]

4. An interesting interview about the context in Virginia.

https://thebaffler.com/interviews-for-resistance/white-supremacy-charlottesville

About the statue, it notes:

The Stonewall Jackson statue, located in Justice Park (formerly Jackson Park), was funded by Paul Goodloe McIntire and unveiled to the City of Charlottesville in 1921, during a Confederate reunion. The Robert E. Lee Statue, located in Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park) was presented to the city in 1924 during a two-day gathering of the Sons of the Confederacy, during which the city also saw considerable KKK agitation.

Earlier than suggested, but the origins are certainly interesting.

[WiffenPoof]

5. Thank You....NT

I feel like an idiot now...lol

[Wounded Bear]

10. Don't...We all love Joy around here...

but she's human. Her mistakes are not intentional, and hardly indicative of anything.

She's still great, and I'll bet that she'll put out a short apology for getting the date right. She was definitely right that those statues were not from Reconstruction, but were definitely erected as white supremacist icons.

[lostnfound]

11. A relevant topic and worth discussing. 35 erected in North Carolina alone since 2000...

http://heavy.com/news/2017/08/robert-e-lee-charlottesville-statue-unite-the-right-white-nationalists/

[obamanut2012]

7. She was incorrect