|
|
Greens Applaud Park Service's Correction of 'Southern Bias' in History Materials. |
|
MEDIA RELEASE Thursday, January 9, 2003 Contacts: GREENS APPLAUD PARK SERVICE'S CORRECTION OF
'SOUTHERN BIAS' IN HISTORY MATERIALS WASHINGTON, D.C. --- In the wake of the controversy over Senator Trent Lott's remarks concerning the segregationist presidential bid of Senator Strom Thurmond and subsequent resignation as Senate Majority Leader, Greens praised the decision by the United States Park Service to update historical information at Civil War battlefields. "The Park Service's correction undoes a century of political correctness in favor of the Confederacy -- and acknowledged the end of the Civil War," said Jake Schneider, Treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. In a recent interview with CNN, Gettysburg Park Superintendent John Latschar said "Our current museum is absolutely abysmal." Motivated by the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Latschar has said he hopes to include more information about the horrors of slavery and remove a decades-old bias in favor of the Confederacy. "This isn't about historical revisionism," said T.E. Smith, a member of the D.C. Statehood Green Party. "It's about telling the truth, and in this case about telling the experiences of the original victims -- the Africans and their ancestors who were enslaved." The previous policy prohibited National Park Service guides from discussing slavery and turned Andersonville, the camp in which 45,000 Union prisoners of war died, into a sanitized monument to all prisoners of war. "We hope that Sen. Lott's resignation represents a turning point in how we view history and in how both major parties respond to statements made in willful ignorance of what slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation did to the United States and especially to African Americans," said Jason Ravin, a member of the Steering Committee of the D.C. Statehood Green Party. "The Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens' Councils, and other Confederate 'Heritage' groups have tried to perpetuate false and destructive ideas of history. It's revealing that white people, especially those in groups like these, have claimed for themselves an exclusive right to define what 'Southern Heritage' means." Greens point out that Attorney General John Ashcroft has expressed views similar to those of Sen. Lott, praising Confederate leaders who fought to maintain slavery in an interview he gave to the Neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan. Ashcroft also violated court orders to end school segregation in Missouri; a court threatened to hold the state in contempt because of his actions. The Pacifica News show Democracy Now! reminded listeners on December 19, 2002 that Ashcroft "distorted the record of a highly qualified African American state Supreme Court Judge and misled his colleagues in the Senate, successfully sabotaging the judge's nomination to a federal district court." Democrats initially challenged Ashcroft, but refused to block his nomination to the Justice Department, which oversees civil rights laws, and several Democrats voted with Republicans to confirm him. Greens also note that Bill Clinton sanctioned his state's Confederate Flag Day while serving as governor of Arkansas. The other two major parties decry racism at the same time they wink at racists," said Ben Manski, a Wisconsin Green and member of the national Steering Committee. "They'll sacrifice blacks in order to secure the white vote. Greens find that unconscionable." The platform of the Green Party of the United States includes support for reparations for slavery and calls for the Confederate flag to be removed from all public buildings. MORE INFORMATION The Green Party of the United States "U.S. fixing 'Southern bias' at
battlefields" Democracy NOW! report and roundtable discussion
comparing Ashcroft and Lott, December 19, 2002 "Greens Rally Behind Vanderbilt University's
Plan to Rename 'Confederate' Dorm" Press release from the Green
Party of the United States, Thursday, October 24, 2002 "Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong" by James Loewen. Touchstone Books, 2000. "Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory" by David W. Blight. Belknap Press, 2001.
|
