BY STEVEN RADER

Maybe it is too commonplace for politicians to stray from the truth, but Regina Bond’s false presentation of memorials to fallen Confederate soldiers ( featured in the article‘Founding Fathers believed in protest, yes — but in lawful, structured protest’) as “once a symbol to reinforce Jim Crow” is utter nonsense and deserves a correction. It is important to understand how the evils of white supremacy and Jim Crow came about in North Carolina and the South. They were entirely a rank partisan political power play and had nothing to do with Confederate war dead.

Both northern communities and southern communities raised memorials during the same time period to honor their war dead. This is a common practice after major wars. The North got off to a bit of a start on the South because its economy was not as damaged in the war.

White supremacy and then Jim Crow came about as a response by the Democratic Party to a serious political challenge in the 1890s from a coalition of the Republican Party and the new Populist Party. It was always a coldly calculated, evil political power play. The Republican Party of that era was supported by most black voters. The Populist Party had been formed by mostly white small farmers breaking away from the Democratic Party, which they viewed as controlled by special interests.

In the 1890s, the Populist Party and the Republican Party got together in the Fusion coalition across the South. In some states like North Carolina, they took power, electing a Fusion governor and Fusion majority in the legislature. Even in states where they did not attain power, they were a serious threat to Democrat hegemony.

The vicious Democrat fightback was based on a politically motivated campaign of white supremacy. They wanted to reduce the pool of black voters in the Republican Party and to shame Populist voters based on racial allegiance. Unfortunately, it worked. As soon as the Democrats got back in control, they sought to make sure they kept in control by passing a raft of Jim Crow laws. All of this was done for one purpose and one purpose alone, cementing political power in the Democratic Party.

It is ironic that voter records reveal that Ms. Bond is herself registered to vote in the very political party that imposed white supremacy and Jim Crow on North Carolina and the South. Yet she wants to falsely demean Confederate war dead who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Southerners honor our war dead. It was southern ladies who organized the very first Memorial Day, which was celebrated across the South in 1866, a practice copied soon thereafter in the North. In that first Memorial Day in 1866, Southerners were magnanimous in also placing flowers on Union war graves in the South, as well as those of their own soldiers. It is sad that today we have divisive political cliques who want to attack historical memorials to fallen soldiers.

Steven Rader, of Washington, NC, is an attorney who works in Beaufort County.

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