That the place where the first shots in anger were fired in 1861 to start the American Civil War is the place where true healing is now taking place.
Beginning with the Black Community’s unreservedly forgiving the 21 year old racist who shot 9 of their own while praying in Church this past week.
And now leading to the White Community voluntarily coming forward to denounce symbols of that War which to the Blacks represent their slavery and which to Whites they hold dear.
As an aside, the man who could have played a useful role in this – their President - once again proved himself to be most unhelpful by declaring that America’s DNA is rife with racism.
As he enters is last full year in power – his irrelevance stands in tact.
I am a Civil War buff and believe that Slavery was not the real cause of that War. War, as I have said, is about Power and the Civil War was caused by a power imbalance between the rich industrial north and the poorer agricultural south.
As the population growth favoured the North, the South attempted to establish their own country and in the War to follow – the lion’s share of 660,000 killed were sons of the south.
To this date, Southerners look back on their loss in the Spring of 1865 as an end of their way of life – far more genteel and closer to the earth than their northern neighbours.
Slavery though was most certainly at issue in that lost way of life.
And yet, here in 2015, in recognition that the Blacks’ distain for the Southern Civil War Symbols far exceeds their own nostalgia for those same symbols Whites are now prepared to put those symbols to rest for the sake of their Black Brothers and Sisters.
We are witness to two miracles.
Amen to that.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
