By Derence V. Fivehouse
Editor’s NOTE: The author of this Letter to the Editor, Derence V. Fivehouse, is responding to Steven Rader’s letter (see link below) debunking the Confederate Memorial’s connection to Jim Crow laws as asserted by Town Council candidate Regina Bond.
Snippet from Rader’s letter: 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,” Rader wrote.
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.
To read the full text of Rader’s letter — click this link.
Back to Fivehouse’s letter — There is so much wrong with the Mr. Rader’s letter, it’s hard to know where to begin. In the interest of brevity let’s address the letter’s attempt to tie Regina Bond’s modern political party affiliation to 19th-century racism. The writer points out that the Democratic Party in the 1890s was associated with white supremacy, implying that Bond, as a Democrat today, has no standing to criticize Confederate memorials or racism. This argument is not serious, and here’s why.
First, no one is disputing that Southern Democrats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries championed white supremacy – they absolutely did. In that era (the 1890s through the early 1900s), the Democratic Party in the South was the party of segregation and Jim Crow. As one historical analysis notes, “in the late nineteenth century, Southern Democrats campaigned as the party of white supremacy”[18]. That’s a matter of record. But it’s also utterly irrelevant to Regina Bond or the Democratic Party of today. American political parties have undergone massive realignments over the past 130 years. The Democrats of 1890 are not the Democrats of 2023, just as the Republicans of Abraham Lincoln’s day are not the same as the Republicans of today.
Invoking the misdeeds of 1890s Democrats is a distraction – a classic red herring. Regina Bond and other modern citizens who argue against Confederate statues are talking about what those statues represent now and the history they in fact commemorate. It would be absurd to suggest that Ms. Bond somehow endorses or is tainted by the racism of Grover Cleveland’s Democratic Party (to pick an 1890s example) simply because she’s a Democrat on the voter roll in 2025. By that logic, no one in either party could ever criticize any past injustice, because somewhere in history their party may have been on the wrong side of it. That’s clearly nonsensical.
Let’s be clear: white supremacy is not a “Democratic” problem or a “Republican” problem – it’s an American problem with a long history, and people of various political stripes have been complicit in it at different times. Yes, Southern Democratic politicians were the ones erecting many Confederate monuments and enforcing Jim Crow in 1900. Later on, many of those figures (or their political heirs) actually left the Democratic Party as it began to support civil rights; they became Republicans or Dixiecrats mid-20th century. But all of that is beside the point.
Nobody today is defending the racist actions of the 1890s. Regina Bond is calling out racist symbols in our public spaces right now. Trying to smear her with what some long-dead Democrat did in 1895 is just an attempt to avoid the real conversation. It’s akin to saying a modern German citizen can’t denounce Nazism because their great-grandparents lived under Hitler – it just doesn’t follow.
Today, communities across the South and beyond are re-evaluating Confederate monuments. This isn’t about “erasing history” – history itself is driving the reassessment. The more we know about when and why these statues were put up, the clearer it becomes that they were not value neutral war memorials. They were political monuments erected to enforce a vision of white supremacist society. Acknowledging that truth is an act of honesty, not hypocrisy.
We can honor our war dead without honoring the cause for which they fought, especially when that cause was the perpetuation of slavery and racial subjugation. Removing or re-contextualizing Confederate monuments is, in fact, a way of confronting history – honestly and completely – and choosing not to glorify an unjust past in our present public spaces.
The claim that Confederate memorials had “nothing to do” with Jim Crow or white supremacy is flatly contradicted by historical evidence. These statues were products of the Jim Crow era, erected with the explicit intention of celebrating the Confederate cause and maintaining white supremacy during a period of Black disenfranchisement. And the attempt to derail the conversation by pointing to Regina Bond’s political registration is a bad-faith distraction.
The legacy of white supremacy belongs to no single party; it’s woven through our national story, and it must be confronted on its own terms. Let’s keep the focus where it belongs – on understanding our history, not distorting or deflecting it. Only with that honest understanding can communities decide the proper place (if any) for Confederate monuments today, and ensure that what we publicly honor in the 21st century reflects the values of justice and equality rather than those of segregation and oppression.
Derence V. Fivehouse
Chowan County, NC
One response to “LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The Party History Smear: A Red Herring ”
The REAL “Red herring” here is Mr. Fivehouse’s letter. He has taken a minor (though factual) point of Mr. Rader’s letter and said “Look over here” while ignoring the REAL substance of Mr. Rader’s letter. I HIGHLY recommend the folks at home go back and read Mr. Rader’s well written letter referred to above.
He says “Nobody today is defending the racist actions of the 1890s.” and that is true – what he FAILS to say though is that nobody on the defend the Monument side is doing so either!
He says “We can honor our war dead without honoring the cause for which they fought, especially when that cause was the perpetuation of slavery and racial subjugation.” This, by the way, is EXACTLY what this Monument does. It is Mr. Fivehouse and the protestors that are reading things into the Monument that IT DOES NOT SAY and failing to honor the war dead it very clearly SAYS RIGHT ON IT that it represents.
Has he ever read the writing on the Monument?? NO WHERE – no where on that Monument anywhere is there a suggestion of white supremacy nor racism of any kind – it is completely and 100% written and shown as a MEMORIAL to the those that died fighting for their country.
Mr. Fivehouse all but acknowledges that the white supremacist Democratic party had firm political control over the South during this time period. Ask yourself this Mr. Fivehouse,
“In an era when they had complete political control, why are their no racist (1900 standards mind you, NOT your new 21st interpretation of racist) symbols on it?” Why does it simply refer to war dead?
The Monument is clearly a Memorial to Confederate War Dead – it literally says so! All of this other nonsense is being “Read into” it by people with woke 21st century viewpoints and NOT reading what it literally says. It’s akin to a judge saying “I don’t care what the law says, but I (emphasis on “I”) just think…” We can’t have individuals interpreting things as they see fit and setting policy. What Mr. Fivehouse wants to get out of seeing Monument is up to him, that’s his right, but for 115 years most of us have seen what it ACTUALLY SAYS right on it, and we don’t see a need to go off in some other direction because it’s “21st century” fashionable.