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THE GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release:
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com
GREENS RALLY BEHIND VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY'S PLAN TO RENAME 'CONFEDERATE'
DORM
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Greens at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee were
joined by Green candidates across the U.S. in support of Vanderbilt's
proposal to change the name of Confederate Memorial Hall to Memorial
Hall.
"We wouldn't tolerate a 'Nazi Memorial Hall,' and we shouldn't
tolerate this," said Dr. Jonathan
Farley, Tennessee Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress and Professor
of Mathematics at Vanderbilt. "It's one thing to study history and
preserve historical sites and artifacts. It's another thing entirely to
celebrate what was, for many Americans, a legacy of enslavement and
holocaust."
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), who originally gave
$50,000 for the construction of the dormitory, have plans to sue
Vanderbilt if it goes ahead with the change.
Paul Stempel, president of the Vanderbilt University Campus Greens, is
leading the countercharge. "The Green Party is opposed to the
Confederate Battle Flag flying from public buildings," Stempel
explained. "Even though Vanderbilt is private, the principle
remains the same."
"What's at stake here is how we appreciate America's complex
history," said David Cobb, Green candidate for Attorney General of
Texas. "Memorializing the Confederacy in this way strips away what
the Civil War was fought over, the decades of Jim Crow laws and
lynchings, and the economic hardship and inequality many
African-Americans still endure. It turns history into whitewashed
sentimentality."
"Whether or not the United Daughters of the Confederacy mean to
offend anyone, the name 'Confederate Memorial Hall' is offensive,"
added George Martin, Convener of the party's national Black Caucus and
co-spokesperson of Wisconsin Green Party. "It's offensive to black
people, and it's offensive to all Americans with any sense of
sensitivity and racial harmony."
Stempel, who is white and grew up in Lakewood, Colorado, intends to work
with the Vanderbilt Black Student Alliance to show the administration
their support for the decision. Plans include a letter-writing campaign
to local newspapers as well as investigating where the UDC got its money
from.
"If the United Daughters of the Confederacy got their money from
slavery, then they have no right to spend it as they wish," says
the junior, who is majoring in math and political science.
Facing the UDC's thousands of dollars for lawyers, Stempel says,
"We've got something better -- the knowledge that we're right. We
prevailed against the Confederacy once; we can do it again."
MORE INFORMATION
The Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
National office: 1314 18th Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202-319-7191,
866-41GREEN
Vanderbilt Black Student Alliance http://www.vanderbilt.edu/BSA/bsawebsite.htm
Index of Green Party candidates in 2002 http://www.gp.org/patience.html
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