War Memorial Separates Dead by Race, Divides Southern City
In a small South Carolina city, a war memorial honoring fallen World War I and II soldiers divides them into two categories: "white" and "colored."
Welborn Adams, Greenwood's white Democratic-leaning mayor, believes the bronze plaques are relics of the South's scarred racial past and should be changed in the spirit of equality, replaced like the "colored" water fountains or back entrances to the movie theater that blacks were once forced to use.
Yet the mayor's attempt to put up new plaques was blocked by a state law that brought the Confederate flag down from the Statehouse dome in 2000. The law forbids altering historical monuments without approval from legislators.
Historians, black and white, have reservations about replacing the plaques, saying they should serve as a reminder of the once-segregated U.S. military.
"Segregation was the accepted social order of that time," said Eric Williams, who spent 32 years as a historian with the U.S. Park Service. "If we alter the monument, we alter its historical integrity."
The memorial is owned by the American Legion post in Greenwood and is on city property. On two of its sides, it lists soldiers who died in World War I and World War II from Greenwood County. A third side lists Korean and Vietnam War dead from the county without any racial distinction, because the U.S. military was integrated by that time.
About a year ago, American Legion post members asked the mayor if he thought he could raise $15,000 privately to change the monument. Forty-three donors, almost all white, came through with the money. Adams wrote a $1,000 check himself.
But there was opposition, in part because of a quote from the mayor. "I think if history offends people it needs to be rewritten if possible," Adams told a newspaper.
He later said he meant that while history doesn't change, the way a community presents itself does.
Days before the ceremony, opponents threatened to try to have Adams arrested if he went forward with the new plaque.
"I wonder if some of the opposition is racism hiding behind history," said Adams, who was elected mayor in 2008 in this city of 23,000, where about 45 percent of the population is black.
The Confederate flag law says no historical monument, erected by the state or by a local government, may be relocated, removed, disturbed, or altered without a two-thirds vote from state lawmakers.
The law aimed to appease people who worried 15 years ago that Confederate memorials and street and park names in honor of generals would be torn down in wake of the flag being removed from the Statehouse dome and being put in front of the South Carolina Capitol alongside a Confederate soldier monument.
A bill has been filed to change the Greenwood memorial but some legislators who helped craft the Confederate flag law are leery.
Williams, the former Park Service historian who is white, has been one of the most vocal critics. He wants to see a small display nearby saying the military was segregated back then and that's why the names are listed the way they are.
Activist Joseph McGill, who spends the night in old slave cabins to get attention to preserve them, agrees. He says talk about switching plaques reminds him of schools that don't want students reading "Huckleberry Finn" because racially offensive language from the 1800s is in the book.
"That could just spread the perception that segregation did not exist or wasn't that bad," McGill said.
Chad Williams of Brandeis University in Boston has extensively studied black soldiers in World War I. He said he understands the desire to correct a historical injustice, but says another sign explaining why the soldiers were separated by race is much more powerful and historically accurate.
"I think it is important to acknowledge the specific context in how African-American soldiers had to serve in the military," Williams said.
Source: Associated Press
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