Slavery/Confederates and the Culpable North

Pensacola Daughters of the Confederacy

Over the past several days, the conversations in the nation have tunned to long neglected feelings surrounding race in Trumpian America.  I have always felt that race is, and always was, the elephant in the collective American living room; a living room we all kind of sit around in looking at each other muttering to ourselves that there is something there that we just want to disappear.When Americans think about the Civil War and the reasons why it happened, many will tout the idea of "states' rights" or "agrarian economy v manufacturing economy". They are both pieces of the whole, but the overarching reason for the war was the existence of what many reconstructionist historians have called that "peculiar institution", involuntary servitude, in plain English, slavery.

In times past, those of us who were born and raised in the northern and western parts of the country have felt a bit smug and superior that this part of the nation was on the side of the angels and would shake our heads, suck our teeth and wag our collective finger at those Rebel Boys, those agents of Satan, who fought to keep all those people enslaved.

That never was the true picture. The truth is, as the Cubans would say, complecado.

African slaves were introduced to New Amsterdam in 1626 when eleven African slaves were brought into the colony.  In 1655 the first slave auction was held in New Amsterdam. By 1705 over 42% of New York households owned slaves; the second highest percentage of cities in the colonies, second only to Charleston. In 1711 a formal slave market was established at the end of Wall Street on the East River, and it operated until 1762. New York State, due to the work of the New York Manumission Society under the leadership of John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, gradually eliminated slavery, and by 1827, slavery no longer existed in the city or state.

But slavery still was part of the economic underpinning that fueled our city's economy. Brooks Brothers started their now high end clothing empire producing basic clothing for slave merchants. Back in the day, around 1850, 339 of the first 1,000 policies written by New York Life were on the lives of slaves. Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the largest private investment bankers in New York, was founded by William and James Brown who owned slaves, financed the cotton economy, and went on to establish Brown University, one of America's Ivy League schools.  And finally, Domino Sugar, that purveyor of all things sweet, was the Brooklyn company that packaged, promoted and pushed the use of white refined sugar that was picked and processed on the slave dependent-plantations of the South and the Caribbean. There are no heroes here.

Which brings us to the question at hand that we, as a nation, are currently wrestling with, what do we do with those monuments erected to the sacred memory of the fallen leaders of the Confederate States of America. And, since opinions are like noses, and everybody has one (thank you, Joan Filippone for this reference), there are many proposals floating around. So here are mine.

One of the things I do when I travel is have a theme for photos.  In Europe I take photos of World War I monuments.  In the Caribbean, I take photos of flowers and fauna.  In the Southern part of the United States I take pictures of Confederate War Memorials.

There are two distinct types of Civil War Monuments. One set is the formal horse and rider, sword rattling, hat raising leader a la Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson. Theses are the official kind often in places like parks and courthouse plazas. They represent the idea that "the south will rise again", and were often erected during the era of Jim Crow and segregation to recall the past glory days, and enforce the laws that denied folks their civil rights. These need to be moved from places of prominence and into a local history museum or other place set aside for them to quietly reside. Remember, these military leaders were leading a rebellion against the United States of America and were technically traitors. Yes, most of them were not prosecuted as such due to the interjection of former Union officers who had studied with them at West Point, but the fact that they chose to betray their nation still remains true.

Greensborough, Confederate soldiers monument

The other set is a different matter.  These are often small town monuments to local young men who perished in the service of the Confederacy.  Many of these men were buried where they fell, and families had no grave where they could lay flowers and say prayers. The grief of the family was real, as real as the grief of a Northern family who suffered the same loss. These markers served that purpose and should remain, or be placed in local cemeteries.

So, there it is...just my humble opinion. You are also entitled to yours.

Dating in your sixties part 2

Back in the nineteen-sixties, I was in my adolescence attending an all girls' Catholic High School located in Rockaway Beach which is in the borough of Queens in New York City. Every Friday evening a neighborhood Catholic Church would sponsor  a dance for teens who lived in the various adjoining Catholic parishes. Here they could meet other, religiously acceptable, possible life mates under the watchful eye of our beloved Father Keppler, then a young prelate who would remind those who dared to dance too closely to "leave room for the Holy Spirit." In my adolescent  mind the image of the Spirit as dove and embracing teen-aged bodies merely made me laugh, at least to myself. Now every once in a while a Protestant teen would show up, usually a friend of one of the guys who attended the local public high school; itself a kind of scandal....well, attending Sty or Brooklyn Tech was understandable, but Midwood, Tilden or Madison!  Anathema.
                                                                                                            
As my life unfolded, I met and married one of those Protestant boys who attended James Madison High School.  We were together until his unexpected death five years ago. A few months ago, I decided to get back in the game, and try online dating for seniors fifty years and older. It has been an interesting ride.

I have read the profiles of at least a hundred or so men on this site.  Most are pretty straight forward; they are looking for someone to spend time with.  Others are a bit bizarre: no vegetarians, no city dwellers, no country bumpkins, no vegans, no Democrats, no Republicans, only blonds, only red-heads, no grey-haired grannies. Those are the ones that get quickly taken off my list. Others are looking for someone to relocate and take care of them....not gonna happen, buddy.

I have actually met three of these fellows face-to-face. Each one had a very different story.  Each one had his charms and his drawbacks. Family obligations, alimony, child support, retirement, no retirement, income limits, business responsibilities, long distance parenting, these were among the concerns many of these guys have. I realized that I am not likely to quickly  jump into another relationship since most of the men I have talked to are carrying around a lot of baggage I would rather not unpack.

It has been entertaining, I admit, a diversion from daily obligations and work.  I am not sure at this point if I will renew my membership once it expires in a few months, but I will check the site for some daily entertainment. My friend Dave, himself widowed, but now married to his high school sweetheart, recently told me "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince." Well, I am not a fan of amphibians, I just may sit out this dance.

Youthful Conversions

This summer I spent some time in Europe following in the steps of two well known figures of European Christianity: Martin Luther and Jeanne d'Arc. These two may seem like polar opposites to many. He was a serious scholar, monk, priest, husband, father and student of theology.  She was a child of the rural countryside whose spirituality was based on heavenly visions that urged her on to do God's work in her beloved France. But they both underwent religious conversions in their youth that had a profound effect on their lives and those of millions of other Christians.


Joan/Jeanne was born in the very little town of Domremy-la-Pucelle in Lorraine probably on January 6,1412.  It was said that she was born on the feast of the Epiphany. Her parents were farmers, and her home is preserved next to the small church in the village in which Joan/Jeanne was baptized. Her times were those of turmoil. France and England were embroiled in the Hundred Years' War, and the land of her birth was being fought over by both forces.

At the age of thirteen Jeanne/Joan began to hear her "voices".  She identified them as St. Michael the Archangel, St. Margaret and St. Catherine of Alexandria whose statues were in the local church. These voices told Jeanne/Joan that she was to lead the French army against the English and make sure the prince, Charles of Valois, was crowned king.  When Joan was sixteen, her father had arranged for her to marry, but she had other ideas.  She had taken a vow of chastity, and somehow managed to get an audience with the prince and convinced him to let her lead his army as a divinely inspired act.  No one knows what she said to him, but he gave her command of the troops.  She led them to a great victory in Orleans. Unfortunately for her, she was later captured by

Jeanne D'Arc Domremey

the English; tried for heresy condemned to death.  It did not help that Jeanne/Joan opted to wear men's clothing while leading the troops and when speaking to the powerful...kind of like the "power suit" of the day. She paid dearly for that.

At the tender age of nineteen she was burned at the stake as a witch.  Her ashes were scattered in the Seine River in Rouen, the cathedral town of her trial. Joan was not canonized until 1920, but the people of France think of her as their special patron, protector and patriotic symbol.  You can find statues of her all over France.  From Paris to Orleans her triumphant figure sits tall astride a muscular steed gracing  many public squares;  in cathedrals and churches there are statues, murals and stain glass windows dedicated to her memory. She is the Maid of Orleans, the soul of France; I was told by one of our guides, himself an immigrant to France now married to a Frenchwoman and running a small tourist business that "If there was no Jeanne D'Arc, there would be no France, and if there was no France, there would be no democracy. And where would the world be without democracy?"  A bit over the top, and I am sure he has not read Thomas Paine or even de Tocqueville, but I got the drift.

Young Martin

Martin Luther had a more conventional childhood.  He was born November 10, 1483, some seventy years after Jeanne/Joan into a middle class family.  He was a brilliant student and went off to University in Erfurt at the age of nineteen in 1501; he earned a Master's degree in 1505 at the ripe old age of twenty-three. Martin was a very serious student, and he often complained about the beer drinking and skirt-chasing ways of his fellow undergrads. I think we might even consider him a bit of a serious party pooper and stickler. But he was brilliant and his father urged him to continue his studies to become a lawyer.  Unfortunately for Papa Luther, it was not to be.


Martin has his conversion experience during a severe thunderstorm in which he was nearly struck by lightening.  If he survived, he swore to St. Anne, he would become a monk.  And he kept true to his word. He entered the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt continued his studies. His propensity for frequent daily confession drove his superiors to distraction, yet he was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1507.  By 1512 he had earned two additional bachelor degrees and his doctorate in theology. He went on to teach in the university at Wittenburg, the town in which his Ninety-five Theses was written, displayed, and where he eventually lived out his life with the woman he called his "Kate", his wife, the former nun and beer maker, Katarina Von Bora with whom he had six children.  She definitely was the leaven in his life; balancing all things domestic and economic and basically keeping him on an even keel.

And despite time spent in exile, writs of excommunication, papal trials, writings on indulgences, translations of scripture, and Peasant Revolts, he dies at home at a considerable old age for his time, sixty-two. Luther laid the foundation for the Protestant Reformation and its profession of redemption "by faith alone". There is also unfortunately, the fact that in his later years, Luther's wrote scathingly of the Jews of Europe whom he thought would flock to convert once they read his translations of scripture into the German vernacular; they did not.

Looking back on my journey, which might have seemed disjointed to some, I realized that many of us can look back and rationalize the experience of these two Christian figures.  One tour guide suggested that Martin's entry into the monastery had more to do with the fact that his father wanted him to marry a newly widowed wealthy older women from their hometown. A psychiatrist I met on the plane suggested that Jeanne/Joan was bi-polar and suffered from delusions. Methinks these are modern practitioners  using modern diagnostics on folks long gone.  For the people of France, Jeanne/Joan is the personification of their nation, more than any Bourbon king, Napoleon or elected president. And for millions of Christians, Luther was the reformer who stood up and spoke truth to power. Others may disagree, but his theological work is still studied today.

Another thought on these two: We should not dismiss the fervor of youth who are willing to stand up for what they believe. So many of us have lost that spark  Looking at the lives of Jeanne/Joan and Martin should be a reminder to us all that it is often the young who have the clearer vision and the gift of leadership.