Argumentative Essay On Confederate Monuments

We shouldn’t glorify those who fought to preserve slavery. For the most part, monuments are erected to glorify people and their achievements. In this case, what exactly are the achievements of these Confederate leaders and generals? The American Confederacy predominantly tried to achieve one thing, the preservation of the institution of slavery. The monuments that glorify people such as Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford also result in glorifying what they stood for. By leaving these monuments up in public places, it’s almost as if we are ignoring those whose families were affected by slavery. When discussing a Confederate statue in North Carolina, Dr. Wesley Fennell, a former president of a North Carolina based chapter of the NAACP says, “When I walk by this statue, it becomes very painful when I think of the suffering that my ancestors went through.” (Confederacy).
The majority of these monuments were put up from 1900-1920 when Jim Crow laws were at their peak, and when the Ku Klux Klan began to reemerge in the south, and one of the main arguments for creating these monuments is to commemorate fallen soldiers (Whose Heritage?). Since most monuments were put up almost four decades after the Civil War, it’s less likely that they were put up to commemorate the soldiers and more likely that they were put up for white southerners to reassert their dominance over