What should we do, learn from our past or secret it away?

The debate and controversy surrounding monuments to the past — like what is going here and elsewhere in the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia violence — justifies keeping those monuments around. Each generation should contemplate, even peacefully argue about what they represent. For the point of having the memorial is to pique the curiosity of the onlooker, make him/her think about previous eras, how the old times have shaped the present and what it all may look like on down the road. Macon’s own reminders of slavery, the Civil War and the “Jim Crow” era could generate healthy introspection and debate. And an improvement in race relations. Reminders of our past should not be destroyed nor secreted away.

As a kid growing up in Macon in the ‘50s my pals and I frequently walked around gazing at the statues and memorials which grace our streets. Even the dates on buildings were thought provoking. My friends were all born hereabouts and they loved to give me their “take” on the Confederacy, states’ rights and what they called the War Between the States. That was because I was actually born in the land of Lincoln, and was therefore considered a Yankee. When we went to the neighborhood vacant lot, chose sides and re-fought what I called the Civil War, I always wore the blue cap. We argued, a lot. But I eventually came to respect that which they revered — it became my heritage too.

Those old stones truly do grace our community. No matter how painful the history associated with them, they add depth and teach lessons. They whisper “Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.” That subtle message can, and should be heard by all ears. Therefore those monuments must remain in the public realm, somewhere accessible to all, and to posterity. We need to listen to and contemplate their messages.

I don’t need to get drunk nor drop acid to hear the “voices” from those things which remind. When I once spent the night in Rome’s Coliseum I heard the debauchery, the tearful supplications, the roar of the crowd … and of the lions. Encamped outside of Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair” bunker in northeast Poland I heard him give the order, the engines start, the confident hurrahs …. and the dire accusations which followed. Alone among the stones of Treblinka, I listened to a million sorrowful prayers … and as many gunshots. From my sleeping bag on a porch at Appomattox I listened as Grant and Lee discussed peace terms and the future of the newly emancipated.

Macon has numerous reminders of past injustices inflicted on African Americans. The statue of “Johnny Reb” in the Cotton Avenue/Second Street intersection and the monument to the women of the Confederate States of America are the most prominent, but there are plenty of others which can be seen, and heard, when walking the older parts of town — small shotgun houses which housed domestic servant-slaves, antebellum homes built with slave labor. And our memorials of the post-slavery era also harken back.

Engraved in the stone lintel above a side entrance to the Terminal Station one sees “Colored Waiting Room” – certainly a reminder of the post-Reconstruction “Jim Crow” era during which nominally free blacks were relegated to second-class status, socially and economically. And across First Street from Rosa Parks Square, itself a reminder of the era of segregation, one can contemplate one of Macon’s more impressive structures, the Macon Volunteer Armory building, built and maintained by ex-Confederate soldiers after the Union Army departed Macon.

Perhaps those old Confederates thought an armory necessary for that future time when the South would rise again. Terra cotta reliefs of Gen. Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson adorn the armory’s entrance. Maybe those images were intended to inspire another generation to avenge the “Lost Cause.”

I guess my point is that everything has a historical context. It is impossible to eliminate the painful and just preserve the acceptable and the pleasant. Trying to do that, to secrete away the unpleasant reminders, distorts history’s message. And so we may be doomed to repeat mistakes.

Many ex-Confederate soldiers have been laid to rest in Rose Hill Cemetery. A Confederate flag waves above their headstones. That very visible and scenic area is certainly a reminder of deep social problems which have not been laid to rest. It would also be a good re-location spot, and within the public realm, for those memorials to “Johnny Reb” and the Women of the Confederacy. But Rose Hill is not big enough to house all of this community’s painful memories.

On the rear porch of the Tubman Museum there is a stone which originally dedicated Baconsfield Park to “White women and children.” That inanimate object has a lot to say about Macon’s social history and the evolution of American constitutional law. But behind the Tubman it is almost out of the public’s view. Out of sight, out of mind?

George Orwell’s “1984” had a message pertinent to our debate about memorials; our reminders of the past. In the world Orwell prophesized, all documents evidencing a past at variance with the present were cast into “the memory hole” and burned. And not just documents were destroyed – what we would consider fundamental freedoms went down the tube, too. All the result of trying to manipulate history. So, let’s debate, not obliterate.

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 4:51 PM with the headline "What should we do, learn from our past or secret it away?."