Spoiler Alert: The Union Won

From Dorothy Dawe:

It’s funny how Trump, the GOP, and Civil War re-enactors always bark, “The Left is trying to re-write history” when Confederate monuments topple. Re-write history? Seems to me we’re trying to correct history.

Spoiler alert: The war is over. The union won.

Yes, the war is over, the Southern War to Preserve and Prolong Slavery, and it’s time for the monuments of the traitors who fought against the United States to come down. THE UNION WON for God's sake! Why are we glorifying these traitors? Oh, I know why – Southern Pride, am I right? Those southern Proud Boys who like to march through towns in bed sheets and hooded masks with rebel and Nazi flags.

I was in Richmond yesterday to witness and cheer on Virginia's 5,000 Man March, and I listened to various speakers at the Robert E. Lee monument in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the push to remove the racist statues all around the city.  Lots of pictures are below.

In honor of BLM and the drive to remove confederate monuments, I have posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's "They put the awful Gen'ral up" (below on the left).  Dickinson's poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "She laid her docile Crescent down" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:
 
They put the awful Gen’ral up
In this confounding Stone
Still states the Dates they’ve not forgot
The News is that WE won –

So constant is this racist bust,
The Shaft our daily view –
It shames the Constancy that’s held
To mark their emblem flew –

By Emily Dickinson:
 
She laid her docile Crescent down
And this confiding Stone
Still states to Dates that have forgot
The News that she is gone –

So constant to its stolid trust,
The Shaft that never knew –
It shames the Constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew –

The rally at the monument for Robert E. Lee:

Miscellaneous signs around town:

The building below is the headquarters for the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).  Ironically, almost every officer guarding the building was African-American:

"Rumors of War" by Kehinde Wiley. outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  The photo of the protester from @RVAMag on Instagram was taken by @michael_simon.

Miscellaneous shots of Confederate monuments around town: 

Where Jefferson Davis once stood -- and where he toppled: