I was surprised that Georgia NAACP President Edward DuBose issued a statement saying: “We don’t think the Civil War should be celebrated or commemorated. It should be a time that the nation should repent. We see it as a group of people wanting to preserve slavery.”
I don’t know who “we” is. The statement is a great surprise to the millions of people who over almost 150 years have commemorated the ending of slavery brought about by the Civil War, whose sesquicentennial we “celebrate” this year.
DuBose seemingly addresses only one side of the conflict that was the Civil War. He does not speak to those who wanted to preserve the Union and eliminate slavery. He speaks instead only to those who wanted to divide the country and who feared the end of publicly sanctioned ownership of other human beings. DuBose speaks only to the losing side, who despite having been defeated, have long been engaged in an orgy of celebration. Just last week, the Dodge County Commission decided to fly the Confederate flag year-round.
As the war ended, no one had to tell the enslaved people of the South they shouldn’t celebrate their liberation. When Charleston, S.C., fell to the Union Army, thousands of former slaves, decked out in red, white and blue, displaying the national flag, paraded triumphantly through the city’s streets. At the end of their procession came a hearse with the words “Slavery Is Dead.”
And a prohibition against celebrating the Civil War has to be a surprise to those who annually celebrate Emancipation Day, a tradition going back to 1866 in Washington, D.C., where I live.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Comprehensive Emancipation Act, freeing the District of Columbia’s slaves, nine months before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery in the treasonous Southern states.
Celebration of the liberation of Washington’s slaves began in the district as long ago as 1866. Emancipation Day is now an official public holiday in the national capital — we celebrated it on April 16.
And it has long been celebrated and commemorated across the country — in Atlanta, for instance, the NAACP celebrated Emancipation Day yearly on a January date at the beginning of each year.
In Texas, it is celebrated on June 16, recognizing and commemorating the belated announcement there that slaves had been freed, and it is popularly known as “Juneteenth.”
It is an official holiday — March 22 — in Puerto Rico, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, on July 13. Outside the United States, Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands all celebrate the end of slavery in the British Empire.
The occasions don’t only celebrate slavery’s end — in the United States they celebrate and commemorate the bravery and courage of those soldiers, black and white, whom Lincoln called “the honored dead.”
The Civil War remains a contentious subject in our discourse today, but no one can or should be allowed to ignore it. It demands our attention.
For some, the attention consists of celebrating the treasonous acts of Confederates with secessionist balls and other costumed revelry, praising armed attacks against the United States. Yet this does not mean that the noble purposes of the Civil War should ever be forgotten or unacknowledged.
In a democracy like ours, where tolerance is extended to protect the most ignorant of thoughts, there must be room for upholding and honoring the victors and their victory.
I cannot think of another nation we defeated in war besides the Confederacy whose battle flag is routinely displayed on public buildings and bumper stickers and protected by law. I wonder if Dodge commissioners thought of flying flags of other nations we’ve defeated — such as Germany, Italy or Japan.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here and thus so far so nobly advanced,” Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address.
That is why we must commemorate their efforts today. We need to celebrate and claim their victory.
Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP board of directors for 11 years, is now chairman emeritus.
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