Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • C6

C6 Saturday, a ugu 26 2017 Journal Gazet imes-C 1 US a CE EL at ION Transformation of a image Robert E. Lee has been villain, hero, racist icon over time GERALD HERBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS Workers prepare to take down a statue of former Confederate en. obert Lee on May 19 in New Orleans. RUSSELL CONTRERAS Associated Press Confederate Army Gen. Robert E.

Lee was vilified in the North during the Civil War only to be transformed in the decades afterward into a heroic icon of Lost admired by many on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Today, many view him as a symbol of racism and slaveholding history. His transformation at the center of the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia reflects the changing moods in the United States around race, mythology and national reconciliation. Lee monuments and the many schools named for him now face renewed scrutiny in a demographically changing nation. But who was Robert E.

Lee beyond the myth? Why are there memorials in his honor in the first place? The soldier A son of American Revolutionary War hero Henry se Lee, Robert E. Lee graduated second in his class at West Point and distinguished himself in various battles during the U.S.-Mexico War. As tensions heated around southern secession, former mentor, Gen. Winfield Scott, offered him a post to lead the forces against the South. Lee declined, citing his reservations about fighting against his home state of Virginia and resigned from the U.S.

Army. Lee accepted a role commanding the Virginia state forces of the Confederacy and became one of its generals. Lee won battles largely because of incompetent Union Gen. Geor ge McClellan, according to historians. were won through aggressiveness and daring in the face of timid ity rather than by any comprehensive generalship on part, for he was unable to exercise control over his subordinate commanders, and in the individual battles were tactical according to Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Land Warfare: An Illustrated World He won other important battles against other generals, but often was stalled.

He was famously defeated at Gettysburg by Union Maj. Gen. George Meade. massed infantry assault across a wide plain was a gross miscalculation in the era of artillery and rifle fire, Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Land said. A few weeks after becoming the general in chief of the armies of the Conf eder ate states, Lee surrendered to Union Gen.

Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The slave owner A career army officer, Lee have much wealth, but he inherited a few slaves from his mother. Still, Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Vir ginia the Custis family of Arlington and descendants of Martha Washington. When father-in-law died, he took leave from the U.S.

Army to run the estate and met resistance from slaves expecting to be freed. Documents show Lee was cruel to his slaves and encouraged his overseers to severely beat slaves captured after trying to escape. Historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor said in a 2008 American Heritage article that Lee was angry about the demands for freedom and to increasingly harsh measures to maintain breaking up most slave families. One slave at Arlington, Pryor noted, called Lee, worst man I ever Lost icon After the Civil War, Lee resisted efforts to build Confederate monuments in his honor and instead wanted the nation to move on from the Civil War. After his death, Southerners adopted Lost revisionist narrative about the Civil War and placed Lee as its central figure.

The Lost Cause argued the South knew it was fighting a losing war and decided to fight it anyway on principle. It also tried to argue that the war was not about slavery but high constitutional ideals. As The Lost Cause narrative grew in popularity, proponents pushed to memorialize Lee, ignoring his deficiencies as a general and his role as a slave owner, according to Gary Gallagher, a University of Virginia professor specializing in the history of the Civil War. Lee monuments went up in the 1920s just as the Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a resurgence and new Jim Crow segr egation laws were adopted. A new memory A generation after the civil rights movement, black and Latino residents began pressuring elected officials to dismantle Confederate memorials honoring Lee and others in places like New Orleans, Houston and South Carolina.

The removals partly were based on violent acts committed by white supremacists using Confederate imagery and historians questioning the legitimacy of The Lost Cause. Earlier this year, the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove its Lee statue from a city park, sparking a lawsuit from opponents of the move. The debate also drew opposition from white supremacists and neo-Nazis who revered Lee and the Confederacy. The opposition resulted in rallies to defend Lee statues recently that resulted in at least three deaths. MATHEW B.

BRADY AP PHOTO en. obert E. Lee poses on the back por ch of the Lee house in 1865 in ichmond, a. DURHAM, N.C. (AP) A North Carolina public school system has revised its dress code to prohibit the Confederate flag, Ku Klux Klan symbols and swastikas.

Local news outlets report the Durham Public Schools board voted unanimously Thursday to make the change. The Herald-Sun of Durham reports that board members had expressed support for the change during a work session last week. Durham, home to Duke University, is where protesters toppled a Confederate statue in front of the old county courthouse Aug. 14 following a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that erupted into deadly violence. things, historically, were meant for hate, or at some point in history, meant board chairman Mike Lee said.

In addition to the dress code, the board also voted 7-0 to remove the name of Durham industrialist and philanthropist Julian Shakespeare Carr from the middle school building at Durham School of the Arts. The building once housed an all-white high school. At the 1913 dedication of the Confederate memorial at UNC Chapel Hill, Carr, a Confederate Civil War veteran, spoke about the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race and detailed how he beat an African-American woman because she had insulted a white woman. Protesters gathered at the memorial Tuesday to call on officials to take it down. Workers began removing some of the plaques bearing name from the building Friday.

Durham Public Schools Superintendent Bert said the administration will eview the names of all of its schools and school buildings. Carr supported local black leaders and provided financial support to help launch now known as N.C. Central University, a historically black college also located in Durham. for all of his contributions, the values he espoused and the brutal actions he claimed to take in no way reflect the safe and inclusive community that we are building in Durham Public said. are under no requirement to continue to name any of our school buildings after white Public school system bans Confederate flag JACKSONVILLE, Fla.

(AP) A sign in front of a Florida school named after a Confederate general has been vandalized. The Florida Times-Union reports that someone pried most of the metal letters off both sides of the brick sign in front of Robert E. Lee High School late Saturday. Police say they also spra yed the word on it. Principal Scott Schneider wrote in a message to parents that they were working to fix the sign.

The vandalism follows the removal of Confederate statues and monuments around the country. A renewed interest in removing the symbols comes after violent clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one dead and scores injured. In 2014, the school district changed the name of a school named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Letters stolen at Robert E. Lee High School YORK, S.C.

(AP) A lawsuit challenging the decision to remove a Confederate flag from a South Carolina courtroom was thrown out Thursday. Russell Walker of Aberdeen, North Carolina, filed a law suit in June against York County Clerk of Court David Hamilton, asking a judge to force Hamilton to return the flag and pictures of Confederate generals back to the main courtroom. lawsuit said the S.C. Heritage Act allows only the legislature to move Confederate items in public buildings. Judge tosses lawsuit regarding Confederate flag REGISTRATIONDEADLINE: SEPTEMBER13 VIRTUALCAREER EVENT SEPT CENTRALILLINOIS FORMOREINFORMATIONOR TORESERVEYOURBOOTH: CONTACTYOURCENTRALILLINOIS ADVERTISINGMULTIMEDIAREPRESENT A TIVE ORCALL 217-422-5555 Presentedby: JOURNALGAZETTE TIMES-COURIER Withmore thanamillion tobeapartofthisunique careereventthatcanbring Uniqueandaccuratelymeasuredcourse.Awardsgiven Foundationtosupportprogrammingandpreservationat: LincolnLogCabinStateHistoricSite 402SouthLincolnHighwayRoad TheracekicksofftheannualHarvestFrolicweekend, celebrating19th-centuryrurallifewithartisans, "RUNWHERETHELINCOLNSWALKED" 5KRUN AND1MILEWALK.