Start United States USA — Political This Confederate history activist condemns white supremacists but says Trump was right

This Confederate history activist condemns white supremacists but says Trump was right

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A conversation with a Confederate history activist in Virginia about white supremacists, preserving history and what might come amid an uncomfortable debate.
Thirteen years ago, Brag Bowling was worried about green paint balls that had been splattered on a statue of Stonewall Jackson and the words “Death to Nazis” spray-painted on one of Robert E. Lee. Both memorials stand in the middle of roundabouts on Monument Avenue in the Virginia city of Richmond, once the capital of the Confederacy.
In an interview at the time, Bowling, who was the leader of Virginia’s Sons of Confederate Veterans organization, said the vandalism should be classified as a hate crime. “These monuments are the city’s biggest tourist attraction, ” he added.
From time to time Bowling spoke out on issues that concerned him, including a construction project that threatened to uproot the Museum of the Confederacy and efforts by heritage groups like his to preserve a holiday in Lee’s honor.
Bowling, who retired from the organization’s leadership, now describes himself as a concerned citizen of Richmond as leaders there consider whether to remove or modify Confederate monuments along the Richmond thoroughfare.
In a conversation with The Times this week, he said that white supremacists were among the “trash of the world” and that the violence in nearby Charlottesville prompted him to withdraw his request to hold a protest on Monument Avenue to preserve its memorials.
“It’s too dangerous, ” Bowling said. “I don’t want anybody getting hurt.”
Here’s the interview, lightly edited for clarity:
Well, all of them are [important] , but in particular the Robert E. Lee monument on Monument Avenue. I view him as a great man, as maybe the greatest general in American history. I also view him as the person after the war who did the most to bring the country together.
He became the president of Washington and Lee [University] . He preached reconciliation. He taught young Southern men to be good citizens. He was so revered in the South. In fact, even in Appomattox some of the generals said, “Let’s go into the mountains and fight guerrilla-warfare style, ” which would of course have really torn the country apart, and of course he refused to do it. He said, “We fought a good fight and it’s now time to be good citizens.”
It reminds me of what is happening in the Middle East, and I don’t think there is some grand chorus of people demanding the statue to be torn down. I watched [this week] in Durham where the police just stood by and watched them pull down a statue. [The] Lincoln Memorial was vandalized. I’ve seen people call for the tearing down of the Jefferson Memorial.
It bothers me that you’ll see once the Confederate statues are gone, you’ll see the Founding Fathers gone. This is a way of erasing history and taking over, making it like a whole new country. I’m watching these spontaneous demonstrations and I don’t believe it. Somebody is paying for them.
Oh, sure they are. You haven’t been paying attention. It hasn’ t been revved up like the Confederate statues but they are out there.
No.
Not that I know of. The SCV has rules opposing people like that.
Yeah, things like that — you can get kicked out of the SCV.
It is a huge difference. Liberal leaders in places like Charlottesville and Richmond are bringing this subject, monument removal, right to the forefront. They call this healing and talking to each other, but they are not really doing it. Levar Stoney, our mayor, founded a committee which he says is made up of civic leaders and Civil War scholars. His idea is, don’t tear down these monuments, but they need to be reinterpreted — put a little plaque out in front of each one.
I’m a traditionalist that likes Monument Avenue to remain the way it is, the way it has been for 100 years. None of us were even asked to be on the committee. It is a stacked committee. He is going to have them torn down or more likely have signage put out in front of each one. His opinion of what each one of those monuments represents is probably 100 degrees different than the way I would look at it. It would be his opinion that is put on the sign, and I don’t think that’s right either.
It’s best not to kick a beehive. Because that’s what he is doing. There are literally millions of people that don’t want Monument Avenue touched, and he is kicking a beehive because what he has done is very divisive.
Oh yeah, those people are the trash of the world, on all sides.
The counter-protesters and the Klan people and the white supremacists, they are all — I look at them in the same way. These counter-protesters, a lot of them came with baseball bats and the media is trying to make them look like they were just innocent bystanders, and the white racists took them down. Trump said what it was — that none of them are good, and he is right. I agree with him 100%. His base has not been touched by his remarks. It might be strengthened.
The nice people were people like me that were there solely for protesting tearing down the monument — normal citizens. It wasn’t just the racist whites or the racist blacks or the antifa or those guys; there were people also there that were protesting normally the way you’ re supposed to. The other people didn’t come to protest these monuments being torn down. They came to knock heads.
I watch television. It’s been 24-hour-a-day coverage of Charlottesville.
There are literally millions of people that don’t want Monument Avenue touched, and [the mayor] is kicking a beehive because what he has done is very divisive.
— Brag Bowling, Confederate history activist
I had scheduled a rally at the Robert E. Lee monument to protest the tearing down of monuments close to a month ago. I applied for a permit, and last Saturday Charlottesville happened, and I had to withdraw the permit request. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want anybody getting hurt.
Yeah. [On] Monday.
That might be a bigger job than I can accomplish. I wish there was a way people would come together, but I have not seen a division like this — probably not since 1860. There is not much that I can do about that. But I do know what I believe in, and I do not want these monuments to be touched, and I believe they were great people, and I hate this. I saw that on TV in Charlottesville and I was going, “What in the heck is going on? Look at these nuts!”
I blame the mayors of Charlottesville and Richmond and [the state of] Virginia for a lot of this trouble.

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