The Story the Body Tells

If you’re at all confused about where you should stand regarding Confederate monuments, read Caroline Randall Williams’ “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument.” It’s a searing, blistering indictment of America’s penchant for myth-making. She writes:

“You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesn’t understand. You cannot say it wasn’t my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I’ve got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.”

Read it here.

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