Monuments of The Confederacy in Today’s Context: Inflammatory or Commemorative?

The issue of the appropriateness of Confederate monuments has become an impassioned talking point for politicians, media pundits, African-Americans, white nationalists, and the general populous alike. Although this debate is not unique to the contemporary age – it has been argued since the conclusion of the Civil War -- it has culminated recently with the unfortunate fatality in Charlottesville. In the era of Reconstruction, both Union and Confederate statues were viewed as appropriate and necessary forms of healing from the consequences of the war. In the South specifically, the Daughters of the Confederacy propagated this campaign. Many of the statues in question were erected years -- some more than 100 years -- after the final shots of the Civil War, the effects of which can be felt today in the very cities at the heart of the societal rift enveloping the nation. A holistic understanding of this topic, within historical and cultural context, may only be attained by examining the full impetuses of the parties involved in its creation