Community Time Debate

               This packet featured three different professionals with three varying opinions on the topic of Confederate memorials. The first professional was J. Pepper Bryars in his article "America, how should we remember this soldier?" defends the position that Confederate soldiers "deserve to be remembered and honored"(Bryars) and that to take down confederate memorials would disgrace their memory. In his argument, Bryars uses a poignant story of a married man and father who lived in Montgomery, named Elijah, and who felt the call to war joining the Confederacy and died and was buried in a mass grave leaving his family unable to completely grieve. Bryar then talks about how these mass graves were found and memorialized and how protesters desecrated these remains by taking down the memorials. The next speaker in the packet is LeeAnna Keith with her article "Put Progressive Civil War Republicans on a pedestal" where she argues just that. Keith proposes that offensive confederate memorials be taken down and replaced with political leaders and activists who sought to end slavery. The next article in the packet is that of David Person entitled "Truth Behind Confederate Symbolism." Person talks about how "It (Confederate memorabilia) honors a hateful ideology."(Person) as the motivation for the Confederate army was the continuation of slavery and the monuments should, therefore, be taken down. My beliefs align closest to Keith's but run parallel to Bryars and Person. I believe that monuments honoring the bravery of soldiers of the Confederacy such as those marking their graves should be left standing as Bryars does. While monuments honoring the political position of the Confederacy should be taken down, as Person and Keith do, and replaced, as Keith suggested, with monuments to people who helped to end slavery.