Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Associated Baptist Press Foundation
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

Tearing down statues doesn’t erase history

OpinionElla Wall Prichard  |  July 2, 2020

Three years ago, I wrestled with the news that my great-grandmother’s statue memorializing “Uncle Jeff” had been removed by the City of New Orleans from the site where it had stood on Canal Street since 1911.

I know it really wasn’t Grandma Lucy’s statue, and Jefferson Davis wasn’t her biological uncle, but that was part of our family story — a story embellished and distorted and romanticized by women like Lucy Roberts as they created and passed on the myth of the “Lost Cause.”

Was history erased when Davis’ statue came down? No, that was done long ago by those genteel ladies of the monument societies and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, as they quite literally rewrote the history of the South — a revisionist history that was taught in Southern schools, our homes and even our churches through much of the 20th century. It so completely permeated Southern culture — all those romantic novels that glorified life on the plantation before the Civil War by authors like Margaret Mitchell, Frances Parkinson Keyes and Harnett Kane; children’s stories like Uncle Remus and Little Black Sambo; music ranging from the songs of Stephen Collins Foster to “Dixie”; minstrel shows and Al Jolson in blackface; the comedy routines of Amos and Andy. Did anyone raise their voice in protest?

A vandalized Jefferson Davis statue in New Orleans before its removal. Photo by Bart Everson. Used by Creative Commons license.

How many people thought twice about separate water fountains and restrooms, Blacks in the back of the buses and streetcars, schools that were separate but in no way equal? Segregation was all we knew.

No wonder then that so many Southerners cling to the myths. When I recently challenged a friend’s position, she exclaimed in some distress, “You are asking me to reject everything my parents taught me, everything I learned in school and at church.”

That moment came early to me. Actually, a series of transformational moments.

In 1957, I was a junior in high school in Texarkana, Ark., when President Eisenhower sent in troops to integrate Little Rock Central High School, 150 miles up the road. White families in Little Rock sent their children to friends and relatives in Texarkana to attend school, while boys who had joined the National Guard were called out of class to join the troops in Little Rock.

The next summer, our school band was named the official Arkansas band to march in the International Lion’s Club parade in Chicago. On the drive up, we stopped in Little Rock to have our picture taken on the Capitol steps. Some of the boys bought Arkansas state flags and attached them to the sides of the buses. When one of the buses broke down outside Chicago, mechanics refused to repair it because of the Arkansas flag. We were viewed as racists, a new experience for all of us, a rude introduction to a different point of view and to the importance of symbols.

That fall my best friend came home from college completely disillusioned. In only a few months of history classes at nearby Ouachita Baptist College — hardly a bastion of liberalism — she had learned that almost everything she had been taught growing up was a lie. The discovery shook her faith. Whom could she believe?

A year later, I attended a Baptist Student Union retreat for Baylor freshmen at an encampment near Waco. The main speakers were two young BSU summer missionaries: Dan Pratt, a Baylor music major, and Bill Lawson, a young Black preacher who would soon become BSU director at Texas Southern University and would go on to be one of the great pastors and civil rights activists in Houston. At age 92 he spoke recently at George Floyd’s funeral.

Lawson’s presence at the retreat — the first time I ever encountered an African American in other than a service position — changed my life. Baylor professors in history, journalism, sociology and philosophy helped me to see the South more realistically. Missionaries to Africa talked about the young men they led to Christ who wanted to study for the ministry. The missionaries had to say: “I’m sorry. You can’t attend my university. It doesn’t accept Black students.” By my sophomore year, I had shed Lost Cause history.

When I was elected editor of The Lariat, the Baylor student newspaper, I was summoned to the office of President Abner McCall. The former dean of the law school explained the First Amendment to me: freedom of the press belonged to the publisher, not to those who worked there; therefore, I was forbidden to run any stories about integration.

It was awfully hard not to write about integration and civil rights in 1962.

In Austin, University of Texas students were participating in sit-ins at movie theaters. Black churches were burning. A Lariat reporter and photographer drove all night to Oxford, Miss., to cover the enrollment of James Meredith at Ole Miss. The Faculty Senate, Student Congress and The Lariat all called for the integration of the university. A year later, the Baylor Board of Trustees voted to admit Black students. Robert Gilbert and Barbara Walker enrolled at Baylor in fall 1964 and three years later became Baylor’s first Black graduates.

We were so naïve and idealistic. We expected an immediate kumbaya moment when all students would embrace one another and students of color would be welcomed to full participation in all the activities and clubs. We have waited far too long.

Now Baylor, through the recent action of the Board of Regents, joins the call for truth, justice and reconciliation. Finally.

The base of the Jefferson Davis statue in New Orleans after the statue was removed. Photo by Bart Everson. Used by Creative Commons license.

After Davis’ statue came down and it was obvious that it was only one of many Confederate monuments to fall, I wished that it had been the carefully planned work of historians, rather than the expedient action of politicians. The stories the statues tell need to be rewritten factually, in context, not erased. Perhaps Baylor, along with other institutions that proactively acknowledge their history, will have the opportunity to rewrite it fully and accurately before someone else rewrites it for them.

I, like so many other Southerners, had to come to grips with my family story before I could accept a new story of the South and of the nation. Grandma Lucy’s mother had been married previously to Jefferson Davis’ brother. Her uncle’s wife was Davis’ sister and Lucy’s godmother. An 1898 newspaper story announced the formation of the Jefferson Davis Monument Society to raise funds to erect the statue and listed Lucy, its president, as a “niece of Jefferson Davis.”

The widow of a Confederate officer and a founding member of the UDC, by all accounts Lucy did not hate Blacks, but she sure hated the Union. Until her death in 1933, a Confederate flag hung in her living room, Davis’ portrait hung over her mantel, she never said “Yankee” without prefacing it with “damn” and she never stood for the Star-Spangled Banner.

The family thought it was funny. It has taken me a lifetime to recognize the damage attitudes like Lucy’s caused. Jefferson Davis wasn’t a hero. West Point graduate, U.S. soldier and Secretary of War, he took an oath: “I, ____________, appointed a _____________ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States.”

Davis wasn’t a hero. He was a traitor.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:racismNew OrleansConfederacymonumentsElla Wall PrichardJefferson Davis
More by
Ella Wall Prichard
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Featured

    • Criticism of Andy Stanley is rooted in father wounds

      Opinion

    • This is why people are leaving the church

      Opinion

    • Ken and Angela Paxton do a little sidestep — while quoting Bible verses

      Opinion

    • Fear of dancing and the courage to be serious

      Opinion


    Curated

    • Riding a wave of converts, one group aims to fuse Orthodoxy with Southern values

      Riding a wave of converts, one group aims to fuse Orthodoxy with Southern values

    • Mormons (And People Of Faith In General) More Likely To Be Fraud Victims

      Mormons (And People Of Faith In General) More Likely To Be Fraud Victims

    • Senator Demands to Know if World Vision Is Funding Terrorism

      Senator Demands to Know if World Vision Is Funding Terrorism

    • Texas teacher reportedly fired after reading from Anne Frank’s diary to students

      Texas teacher reportedly fired after reading from Anne Frank’s diary to students

    Read Next:

    SBC Executive Committee won’t explain McLaurin’s resume lies, and new interim president backs out one day after being announced

    NewsMaina Mwaura and Mark Wingfield

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • SBC expels Oklahoma church over pastor’s racial impersonations

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • The real religious crisis in America

      OpinionMartin Thielen

    • U.S. urged to provide more support for persecuted faith groups in Myanmar

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • North Carolina children’s home trustees release scathing report on longtime president’s misuse of funds

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Fear of dancing and the courage to be serious

      OpinionGreg Jarrell

    • Jen Hatmaker and Tyler Merrit find love and are taking their show on the road next week

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • Ken and Angela Paxton do a little sidestep — while quoting Bible verses

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • This is why people are leaving the church

      OpinionJulia Goldie Day

    • Criticism of Andy Stanley is rooted in father wounds

      OpinionRick Pidcock

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • What do we mean by ‘affirming’?

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • How long before a revolution?

      OpinionJamar A. Boyd II

    • Baylor settles sexual assault lawsuit

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC Executive Committee won’t explain McLaurin’s resume lies, and new interim president backs out one day after being announced

      NewsMaina Mwaura and Mark Wingfield

    • It’s ‘Boycotts R Us’ for American Family Association

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • On death

      OpinionGlen Schmucker

    • Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley: What’s really going on?

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • More religion in public schools raises concerns about religious liberty

      OpinionBryan Kelley

    • Must we change our language to reach climate change deniers?

      AnalysisRick Pidcock

    • A surprising window into Black Jesus

      AnalysisKristen Thomason

    • In biblical truth-telling, we need to mind the gap between clergy and laity

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • Prior explores the origin of evangelicalism’s ‘empire mentality’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • A ‘sad day’ for America?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • In the midst of history-engendered pessimism, don’t forget the hope

      OpinionRuss Dean

    • Sometimes, ‘resignation’ isn’t the reason clergy walk away from their ministry callings

      OpinionMary Kate Deal

    • SBC expels Oklahoma church over pastor’s racial impersonations

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • U.S. urged to provide more support for persecuted faith groups in Myanmar

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • North Carolina children’s home trustees release scathing report on longtime president’s misuse of funds

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Jen Hatmaker and Tyler Merrit find love and are taking their show on the road next week

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Baylor settles sexual assault lawsuit

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC Executive Committee won’t explain McLaurin’s resume lies, and new interim president backs out one day after being announced

      NewsMaina Mwaura and Mark Wingfield

    • It’s ‘Boycotts R Us’ for American Family Association

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Prior explores the origin of evangelicalism’s ‘empire mentality’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Upcoming BNG webinar guests: Matt Cook and Bill Wilson, Emily Smith, Amy Butler

      NewsBNG staff

    • Number of countries with blasphemy laws grows by 13%

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • The SBC’s far-far right believes all members of a Cooperation Group should agree with their views

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Judge again rules DACA illegal; humanitarian advocates call for congressional response

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Kansas is latest state to fund anti-abortion groups that encourage women to give birth

      NewsSteve Rabey

    • Growth of Christianity in China may have stalled but no one knows for sure

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Transitions for the week of 9-15-23

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • SBC Executive Committee eliminates 20% of staff due to budget crisis

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • At AWAB lecture, Susan Shaw lays out 10 lies Christians tell about queer people

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Evangelical leaders condemn DeSantis for politicizing state executions

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Fellowship Southwest’s first conference calls for advocacy and action

      NewsJeff Hampton

    • Two other venues also have declined to host Promise Keepers events

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • McRaney to file appeal and keep his case against NAMB alive

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Retired pastor’s book finds Methodist history ‘strangely lukewarm’ on confronting racism

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • What you haven’t been taught about Martin Luther King

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • The real religious crisis in America

      OpinionMartin Thielen

    • Fear of dancing and the courage to be serious

      OpinionGreg Jarrell

    • Ken and Angela Paxton do a little sidestep — while quoting Bible verses

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • This is why people are leaving the church

      OpinionJulia Goldie Day

    • Criticism of Andy Stanley is rooted in father wounds

      OpinionRick Pidcock

    • What do we mean by ‘affirming’?

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • How long before a revolution?

      OpinionJamar A. Boyd II

    • On death

      OpinionGlen Schmucker

    • Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley: What’s really going on?

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • More religion in public schools raises concerns about religious liberty

      OpinionBryan Kelley

    • In biblical truth-telling, we need to mind the gap between clergy and laity

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • A ‘sad day’ for America?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • In the midst of history-engendered pessimism, don’t forget the hope

      OpinionRuss Dean

    • Sometimes, ‘resignation’ isn’t the reason clergy walk away from their ministry callings

      OpinionMary Kate Deal

    • Life lessons learned while pondering ‘that little man!’

      OpinionBob Newell

    • Reflecting upon a new opportunity to minister to senior adults

      OpinionSara Robb-Scott

    • Confronting our violent culture with an engaged spirituality

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • The Jesus Room

      OpinionErich Bridges

    • Post-evangelical snapshots

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • Do complementarian men do better? A response to Nancy Pearcey

      OpinionSheila Wray Gregoire and Joanna Sawatsky

    • An out-of-the-box lesson from Barbie

      OpinionJeremiah Bullock

    • Anthony, Aldean, Dylan and Guthrie

      OpinionRichard Conville

    • Four things the SBC Executive Committee should do right now to address clergy sex abuse

      OpinionChrista Brown

    • Bruce Springsteen is a fraud, and so are we

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • Women crying out in the wilderness in Tennessee

      OpinionJulia Goldie Day

    • Riding a wave of converts, one group aims to fuse Orthodoxy with Southern values

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Mormons (And People Of Faith In General) More Likely To Be Fraud Victims

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Senator Demands to Know if World Vision Is Funding Terrorism

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Texas teacher reportedly fired after reading from Anne Frank’s diary to students

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Trump Says On Rosh Hashanah That ‘Liberal Jews’ Voted To ‘Destroy America’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • African churches urge US Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Lawsuit by Islamic rights group says US terror watchlist woes continue even after names are removed

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Bible debates, ancient and modern: Why did early church choose only four Gospels?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • March for Our Lives, faith leaders call on Florida lawmakers to ‘cease and desist’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Survivors Of The Birmingham Church Bombing Say GOP Culture War Bills Are Trying To Erase Their History

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Let’s Have A Look At Education And Religious Attendance

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Her plans to play the piano and sing with the choir were interrupted by the news that the nearby 16th Street Baptist Church had been bombed.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are times for soul-searching, but not on your own – community has always been at the heart of the Jewish High Holidays

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Wheaton College Releases Report on Its History of Racism

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Catholics in Ukraine struggle as Pope Francis’ approval rating is at an all-time low

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope’s visit to France stirs debate over immigration, secularism

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • As Soccer Moses, Jars of Clay guitarist Stephen Mason finds unexpected joy

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Saudi Reforms Soften Islam’s Role, But Kingdom Takes Hard Line Against Dissent

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Security experts urge Jewish communities to prepare for possible High Holidays bomb threats

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope Francis and Bill Clinton set discussion on climate change at Clinton Global Initiative

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • At Rosh Hashanah reception, Doug Emhoff and Kamala Harris talk about putting antisemitism plan ‘into action’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Christian lawmakers push battle over church and state after Roe

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • California school district must reinstate Christian club, court rules

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • New Yorkers Watch as Their Only Evangelical Colleges Close

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Saints Linebacker Demario Davis Places Spotlight On The Power Of Prayer After Daughter Suffers Seizure

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2023 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS