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Re: My my......Memphis........
In Response To: Re: My my......Memphis........ ()

'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

A good quote and an appropriate one in this venue. If our forefathers who controlled the present at their time after the Revolution had addressed the issue of slavery perhaps they could have controlled the future. Their reluctance to jeopardize a united country had profound consequences. Today the majority of American high school seniors do not know who Jefferson Davis was in history without using the internet to find the answer. Back in the 1960's our Amercian history stopped at the end of World War II in my particular high school. Perhaps the students today have a lot more history to study within the same hours in a school day. Perhaps the teachers have to leave some areas in history out to make room for the newer history. And with the computers today in schools perhaps other areas of subject matter has to be left out or condensed. However forms of symbolism still appear to be noticed even among young people today. The Confederate Battle Flag symbolizes slavery and hatred to many and to those who have any connections with it. Perhaps we are partly to blame for not speaking louder against the KKK a few decades ago and for allowing them to high-jack the Confederate Battle Flag for their evil political platforms. I don't know of anyone today that can say slavery was right and just but there are probably a handful of those who do. I have run across many people who wear Confederate shirts and caps and not the first one could tell me why there are 13 stars on the Confederate Battle Flag when there were only 11 Confederate States. What happened in Memphis is a sad chapter in my opinion as the majority of Union soldiers did not go to War to stop slavery and the majority of Confederate soldiers did not go to War to defend slavery. Why did huge crowds of blacks attend General Forrest's funeral in Memphis in 1877 if he was such a hated man, it was not to hurl insults. In my opinion the decison made by Memphis was for politcial and symbolic reasoning.

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My my......Memphis........
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