The Osceola Sentinel
SUNDAY, JULY 5, 1998 -- An Edition of The Orlando Sentinel

Historian: Civil War 
tales are pure bunk 
History doesn't lie. Right? Well, the winners want history to make them look good. Sometimes the losers get their say, too. 
Perspectives can change. Villains can be made to look like heroes. Interpreting the past can lead to lively debates. 
  And because it is history, often the only confirmation comes from what was written down or told orally through generations. 
Even so, care must be taken.
  When talk turns to the Civil War and blacks' role with the Confederacy, there is no room for revisionist theories for Asa R Gordon.
  For instance: 
  • The Confederate states were interested in white supremacy. 
  • The war between North and South was not about states' rights or a War of Southern independence. 
  States' rights and independence are WHATS of the Civil War. The WHY of it was to preserve slavery, Gordon told a small group at St. James AME Zion church in Kissimmee last week. 
  Simply put, there should be no memorials honoring men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. 
 They and others resigned from the Union Army and fought against their country. 
 They were rebels, and they are traitors to the United States. Nations normally don't honor traitors, Gordon, a retired astrophysicist, said to a crowd that included a group from the Osceola Children's Home. 
  People normally don' t build memorials for traitors, racists or those who practice genocide. 
  There are no memorials to the Nazis. 
  In the United States, Confederate memorials dot the countryside. The flag is flown with pride. The Nazi flag - and Nazi leaders - inspire hatred.
  It should he no different for Lee and others who fought for the South. The real heroes, Gordon said, are those Southerners who fought for the North. 
As for those who try to promote the idea that blacks were willing soldiers for the South, Gordon's research disproves it. 
  In a lecture that was close to three hours long, the founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C. -based Douglass Institute of Government left no doubt about the fantasies and historical myths of Afro-Confederates.
"The South won in peace what it lost on the battlefield," Gordon said. 
  The commitment to the neo-Confederate movement is often emotional rather than intellectual, he said.
It cannot stand the scrutiny of scholarship. 
  The belief that blacks willingly served in the Confederate Army is ludicrous and harmful, he said. "A slave didn't have a choice. If his master said he was going, the slave couldn't say no. He was a slave."
  Those who say blacks fought for the South should look at Confederate documents, which ban blacks serving as regular members of the Army. They also need to look at records showing that those who did serve deserted when they got the chance. 
  Propagation of the present-day theories make it hard for people to realize that blacks were unhappy about their condition, Gordon said. 
  "How can you owe a people anything, if in fact they were so satisfied with the state that suppressed them?" he asked. "How can you correct that legacy if you are in denial about the true reasons?" 
  Gordon's visit was sponsored by Ann Tyler and Evan McKissic. McKissic, a retired Osceola teacher, has been critical of the theories of another retired local teacher, Nelson Winbush. 
  Winbush travels the country recounting the stories of his grandfather, who he said willingly and proudly served with Southern forces. 
  "I try to get the truth out. I talked with my grandfather, and I know what he said," Winbush said. 

 
 
 
 
 


 
 


The Osceola Sentinel
SUNDAY, JULY 12, 1998 -- An Edition of The Orlando Sentinel

Folks still fighting over Civil War 'facts'

  As we approach the 21st century, there are still plenty of people intent on fighting a war that ended in the 19th.
  There are monuments and debates about whether we should have them. There are men who travel the country, lecturing on the war, on slavery, on the North and the South. Every facet of the conflict and events surrounding it has been covered. 
  Over and over. 
Tread lightly because everybody' s sure their version of history is the right one. 
  Doubt it? My e-mail been filled to the brim ever since writing about a visiting lecturer who disputes what he calls the myth of blacks serving in the Confederate Army. 
  Even in 1998, that's asking for trouble. 
History shows that slaves went to war with their masters. The trip from fact to folklore to myth progresses from there. Whose story is true depends on which side you want to believe. 
  Asa R. Gordon gave his lecture in Kissimmee more than a week ago. It included: Documents of the Confederacy show that blacks were not allowed into the Southern Army until the final days of the war.
  Accounts of battles tell that blacks pressed into service wanted to escape - and wanted the North to win. Some blacks stuck by their masters. Who knows why? Maybe it was out of loyalty - or out of fear. 
Word of Gordon's talk riled members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans from Pensacola to Fort Lauderdale. And even further. 
  "I wish to protest the use of your newspaper as a format to propagate feelings of hate and racial unrest. I'm a proud member of The Sons of Confederate Veterans, whose goal is to honour our Southern American ancestors and and to use our free freedom of speech to give our point of view on the War Between the States," writes Larry J, Powell, commander of an SCV chapter in Fort Lauderdale. 
  To Powell's, add a sampling of letters from Larry W. Rowell, commander of the Private Louis Napoleon Nelson Brigade, Merritt Island; Martin Barker, Pensacola; Marvin Beck; and author  Richard Rollins of California.
  The counterattack is on - full force.
  "I'm tired of the ignorance of our nation. My ancestor did not fight and die for rich slave owners," Beck writes. 
  It's hard to say why any individual fought But they did and hundreds of thousands died. That' s the tragedy of war. It's harder to get around the stereotypes - of North and South. But hopefully we're stronger and wiser.
Even so, it' s difficult for many people to hear Gordon's words and criticisms. Accounts in Rollins' book, Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies, are disputed by Gordon. And Rollins doesn't think Gordon has his facts straight.
  "The bottom line is that they were human beings not too different from us, and that they made choices based on the conditions of their lives, and those decisions were not always what a person of our time would like them to have made," Rollins said in an e- mail. 
  Glory, glory Hallelujah The truth marches on - in different directions.