I am tempted to stop watching the nightly network news because so much of it makes me really upset. This country has never been more divided than it is right now. Everyone I know is angry and upset about what we see every time we turn on the news or get on social media.
I understand why there are riots going on. George Floyd was treated brutally by the police. Nobody can really argue that there aren't racists among the police officers -- although I firmly believe that the vast majority of police officers are NOT racist and should be honored for what they do. I can even understand why the protests are happening. If they bring about real change, awesome. I am not seeing that right now, though. Rioting and vandalism solve nothing, heal nothing. On the other side, I am seeing a lot of angry folks, horrified by the destruction and afraid to express their feelings for fear of being called racists.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world because he looked to the example of Mahatma Gandhi in India and went about protesting peacefully, to bring about real change. When Dr. King was assassinated his work went on. Peaceful protestors inspire change. Violent rioters inspire fear and disgust.
Do the vandals and rioters in the streets really understand why Dr. King was so successful? Obviously not.
I'm particularly disturbed by the fact that so much vandalism of statuary proves that the vandals have no idea about their history. A Revolutionary War statue was vandalized in North Carolina [LINK]. Many other monuments, including one honoring three black men who were wrongly lynched, prove the vandals are simply being destructive and they have no real concern for the truth [LINK].
The defacement that makes me the most sad happened in Boston a couple of weeks ago. Robert Gould Shaw was a Union officer who led the Union army's first all-black regiment, and the Shaw Memorial honors him and the 270 black soldiers he led. This article, Rioters deface monument honoring all black regiment of Union Civil War soldiers, talks about this desecration. I remember watching the 1989 movie Glory and being fascinated and saddened by it because it depicts what those ex-slaves went through to become soldiers, the racism they suffered at the hands of the Union army, and the terrible risks they took. Had they been captured they likely would have been re-enslaved.
"I run off and left all my kinfolk in bondage. We want them to know, heavenly father, that we died for freedom!" [Morgan Freeman's character in Glory]
This scene [link] is one of the many powerful scenes in Glory. Movie like Glory are so important, because studying history should not be dry and cold and boring. It should be thrilling. Movies are important teaching tools. I was happy when my son told me his middle school Social Studies teacher showed them the entire movie.
I didn't know until I started doing research for this blog that the man who wrote Glory was inspired to write it after he saw the monument pictured at left.
"Kevin Jarre's inspiration for writing the film came from viewing the monument to Colonel Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in Boston Common.[3] The 54th was the first formal unit of the Union Army to be made up entirely of African-American enlisted men; all of the officers were white men. His screenplay was based on two books, Lincoln Kirstein's Lay This Laurel (1973) and Peter Burchard's One Gallant Rush (1965), and the personal letters of Robert Gould Shaw.[4][5]" -- Wikipedia
My research turned up more fascinating information about this monument, from this article: 16 Statues and Memorial Were Damaged During Sunday's Protests, Including One Dedicated to African American Soldiers.
"When it came time to memorialize Shaw, his family wanted him to be shown not alone, but with his men, Vizza said. The renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens won the commission to create a large-scale bronze relief. With the help of African American models, Vizza explained how he executed a work that showed the Black soldiers as human beings, not caricatures. Saint-Gaudens worked for 14 years to finish the piece before it debuted in 1897."
“This monument is considered one of the nation's greatest pieces of public art and the greatest piece to come out of the Civil War,” said Liz Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden, “It was, amazingly enough, dedicated 123 years ago on May 31st – the day it was defaced.”
I want to end this blog with a powerful quote from Dr. King:
“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, 'brethren!' Be careful, teachers!”
—“The Purpose of Education” from Morehouse College student newspaper, The Maroon Tiger, 1947
