The Night They Tore Old Dixie Down

The Band's iconic song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," released in 1969, features Virgil
Caine, a Confederate soldier who served on the Danville, VA supply train which had, once again, suffered destruction of the tracks at the hands of Union Major General John Stoneham's calvary.

The song, written by Robbie Robertson, talks about the last days of the Civil War (or the War Between the States if you are a southern loyalist) and the suffering of soldier and family. It's not a happy song but it's also not a song that overly romanticizes.

The reasons for and legitimacy of the Southern states' secession from the Union are hotly debated... even 150 years later. Many southerners describe the issues of federal power versus states' rights, economic/ tax fairness issues between the northern states and southern states, and political power/representation inequality as being major causal issues in the mid 1800's. No living southerner I know attempts to defend what is clearly the elephant in the room... slavery. It is disingenuous, however, for southern loyalists to say that slavery and the states' decision making power regarding slavery was not the major issue that overwhelms all the other issues. The fact that slavery had some defenders (or, at a minimum, people who were ambivalent) in the north does not change the most basic point. The southern states wanted to maintain the right to allow slavery and even expand it into the newer western states; the abolitionist sentiment in the north had severely strained the relationship between north and south. While slaveholders represented a very small percentage of the total southern population, the benefit of that economic "system" was not something southern leaders were willing to relinquish.

So, the southern states seceded and the war was on. The country, which was then less than 100 years old, was breaking apart and many felt that this could not be allowed to happen. (I believe that neither the Union nor the Confederacy could have survived long term separated from one another.)

Fast forward.... the South is defeated....soundly. The South is devastated both economically and psychologically... that's what happens when you are on the losing end of a war. But the war ends and the country has to be restored. But, in some ways, due to guilt, shame, inability to accept that the south lost, inability to accept that the north won the right to invoke its will concerning the contested issues, and a host of other reasons, the idea of "the lost cause of the Confederacy" arose which attempted to provide some amount of redemption for those that fought against the Union.

Confederate monuments began to be erected shortly after the war ended, and continued for years afterward. In 1911, the year that marked the 50 year anniversary of the war's outbreak, there were a significant number of monuments put up. These monuments and statues honored soldiers like General Robert E. Lee all the way down to soldiers like Sergeant Berry Benson, whose likeness sits atop the Confederate Monument in Augusta, GA. According to Wikipedia, there are over 1500 various symbols of the confederacy on public spaces across the United States. This includes statues, names on schools, roads, parks, bridges, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public works.

Today there is a renewed effort to rid the country of all things that might even suggest that the Confederate "cause" was honorable in any way. Some want to extinguish all visible symbols of the

Monument of African American Confederate soldiers

Confederacy and any persons who fought for or were sympathetic to that cause. Civil wars are unlike other country-versus-country wars. These wars involve a country tearing itself apart. For a civil war to end, the fighting has to eventually stop, even after soldiers stop shooting at one another....especially after the soldiers stop shooting at one another. If not, healing never occurs. In many ways, the racial strife we still see today is due to that war never truly coming to an end. And that's painfully unfortunate. Sadly, slavery in the South was replaced by segregation. And we had hoped that the evil and attitudes of segregation had been beaten into submission 50 years ago.

I just don't see, though, what tearing down all these monuments accomplishes unless it's seen as a way to exact some new punishment for the past sins of slavery and segregation. But then what? Does it solve a single problem? Some may think that we still need to tear Old Dixie down. While tearing down may not create another war with armed soldier combatants, it does run the risk of causing so much bitterness that we effectively launch a whole new civil war. And no one wins that one. Let's allow those monuments to be reminders that we cannot ever do that to ourselves again.

The Way Things Used To Be

"Why can't things be the way they used to be?" "I wish we could could go back to the good old days." Have you ever heard anyone say this? My guess is you've heard it a lot recently. Maybe you have even said it yourself. Certainly we all can get nostalgic for times in the past when life seemed simpler. In many cases it is a desire to go back to a time when we were younger... maybe when our grandparents or maybe even our parents were still alive. On the other hand, it may be a time when you felt more comfortable, more in control, more in charge of things.

So if you have a yearning to reverse course and go back to the "way things used to be," I'd be curious to know what time in your past you specifically are talking about. What time in American history do you consider to be the "good old days?"

Unless you are over 100 years old, the earliest a very small number of you may look back on fondly would be the 1930's. Not to give a history lesson here but, I believe the 1930's was one of the toughest decades in our history. The Great Depression began at the end of the prior decade so, unless you were unaffected by the stock market crash, bank closures and job losses, you experienced some serious financial hardships, possible homelessness and hunger during those years. The Great Plains states suffered through the Dust Bowl causing many to lose everything and forcing them to uproot their families and head to California seeking opportunity. Unemployment in the US was as high as 50% for African-Americans (who, if they had jobs, were generally paid 30% less than whites) while the rest of America experienced 30% unemployment. Other minorities in America also suffered as many whites felt that any job held by a minority was taking their rightful job away from them. Lynchings of blacks continued into the 1930's. Congress attempted to pass anti-lynching legislation but it was thwarted by Southern legislators.

Of course, you may mean the 1940's as the times in which you'd like to return. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and World War II began, throwing the world into war in the 1940's. The Japanese surprise attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Within 3 days the US entered the war, declaring war on Japan as well as Germany and Italy. 110,000 Japanese, most of whom were loyal Americans (75,000 were US citizens,) were rounded up and placed in detention camps because of their Japanese ancestry. Over 400,000 Americans were killed during the war. Many more times than that were wounded. Race riots in Detroit and Harlem in 1943 caused 40 deaths and 700 injuries. Racial segregation continued to exist in the 1940's. In 1945, California passed legislation "prohibiting marriage between whites and 'Negroes, mulattos, Mongolians, and Malays.'" Equal treatment for women in the workplace was not practiced nor required in the 1940's. Good times.

You probably mean the 1950's. World War II was over for nearly 5 years but the Cold War was already in full swing. Six months into the 1950's, North Korea crossed the 38th parallel invading South Korea thus beginning the Korean War. Nearly 40,000 Americans died and over 100,000 were wounded in the three years before the cease fire was finally agreed upon. The US began its presence in Vietnam by providing training to the South Vietnamese. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Southern states continue their fight to keep schools segregated. In 1957, Arkansas National Guard troops are ordered by the governor to Little Rock to prevent nine black students from attending Central High, an all-white school. In December 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat (in the "colored" section) to a white man on a Montgomery, AL bus after the whites-only section had filled up. Her act of defiance and the later bus boycott gives traction to the modern civil rights movement. Many look fondly on the 1950's as the US economy rebounded from the war years. Unfortunately, minorities who fought bravely during WWII and Korea were still treated as second class citizens at home. Might have been the good old days for you... not so much for them.

So maybe you are talking about the 1960's? John F. Kennedy, the space race (eventually landing a man on the moon in 1969,) and the explosion of pop music of many persuasions, television, and cool cars were notables of the 1960's. Civil rights legislation passed through Congress banning discrimination in jobs, voting and accommodation. President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to include outlawing the requirement of potential voters to pass a literacy test. Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black Supreme Court justice in 1967. But the 1960's also produces the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba and the resulting Cuban Missile crisis, where the US and Russia were on the brink of nuclear war. US involvement in Vietnam escalates to the point of over 300,000 US troops involved. Over 50,000 would die before the war ends. Assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and presidential hopeful Senator Robert F. Kennedy all occur in the 1960's. Racial tensions remained very high with race riots occurring all over the country. The notion of racial equality continued to be vigorously challenged throughout portions of the United States. So much occurred during the 1960's that itemization of the events seems almost impossible. To say the 1960's were turbulent would be a gross understatement. Were these the the good old days you speak of?

The 70's saw the end of the Vietnam war and the shunning of many of its veterans. Spit upon and called baby killers, these soldiers never experienced the affection from their country afforded to their WWII and Korean war predecessors. The 70's were when we learned of the Watergate scandal eventually leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon as well as the conviction of many of his top aides including the former Attorney General John Mitchell. In a very controversial move, Nixon was pardoned by President Gerald Ford who had assumed the presidency upon Nixon's resignation. Four students, protesting the Vietnam war at Kent State University, were shot and killed by National Guard troops. The Supreme Court ruled in Roe vs. Wade that a state cannot prevent a woman from having an abortion performed during the first six months of pregnancy. The 1970's sees the Middle East oil embargo causing significant gas shortages and further tensions in that region. Sixty-three American embassy workers are taken hostage by Iran. Popularity of disco music and bell bottoms become widespread in the 1970's...enough said about that. In a hugely surprising election, former Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter is elected president in 1976. The economy falls into recession and mortgage interest rates begin a rise that peaks in the early 1980's. Do you want to return to the 1970's?

Rather than continuing this decade by decade itemization, let me ask a question. If you are white and are yearning for things to be "like they used to be," what do you mean? Because I don't hear black people talking about the "good old days." As Americans, shouldn't the good old days be good old days for all of us? If you are white and believe that this country primarily belongs to you, I vigorously reject your thinking and attitude. This is supposed to be a country of us. Stop trying to defend things in our past that are indefensible. Stop trying to find moral equivalences in every situation. Stop using the word "them" with disgust in your voice. Stop relying on politicians to solve what is wrong in our country. Examine your own heart. Be honest. Whites comprise an overwhelming majority in this country. If you are white and have lived in the US your whole life, you have no idea what it is like to live as a minority. You may want to believe that the inequality that minorities experience is entirely of their own making but then I would say you are delusional. If you think that legislation can eliminate this reality you are wrong. No law can make a person respect and perceive another as an equal. But that's what our American covenant with one another says we are to do. The good old days are a work in progress. They are not in the past.