Roberts: Ducey condemns white supremacists, just not monuments that glorify their cause

Laurie Roberts: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey says we shouldn't 'hide our history.' So let's look at the history of some of Arizona's Confederate monuments.

Laurie Roberts
The Republic | azcentral.com
Monument to Confederate soldiers at Wesley Bolin Plaza in Phoenix.

Gov. Doug Ducey has “100 percent” condemned the white supremacists marching in the streets of Charlottesville, waving their tiki torches and snapping Nazi salutes.

He’s just not interested in getting rid of any Arizona memorials that glorify their cause.

“It’s important that people know our history,” he told reporters Monday. “I don’t think we should try to hide our history.”

I agree.

What message did that monument send?

That’s why historical markers like the one that marks the Battle of Picacho Pass -- the westernmost battle in the Civil War -- should be left alone. 

But what about the history of the monument to Confederate soldiers – the one that’s visible from Ducey’s office?

The Memorial to Arizona Confederate Troops at Wesley Bolin Plaza was built by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The Daughters were moved to erect the monument in 1961, 100 years after the start of the Civil War.

Yep, right around the time when African Americans were rightfully questioning why, if all men are created equal, they had to fight their way out of the back of the bus.

What statement were the Daughters making, I wonder, by putting up a memorial to honor Confederate soldiers at the height the civil rights movement?

It took, what, 100 years to get around to honoring their forefathers?

Monuments don't terrorize citizens

We are now engaged in a national fistfight, one in which one side rails against glorifying racism and the other rails against the dangers of erasing history..

I don’t believe, as Arizona’s African-American leaders do, that these monuments  are "tools of terror." Nor do I believe that all people who oppose taking them down are racists.

I do, however, believe that the reaction to them – Ducey’s, for instance -- emboldens the sorry scum who see themselves as superior simply because they are white.

We shouldn’t erase our history. We should, however, consider the historical reasons why these monuments exist.

What statement did those who built them intend to make?

And given that statement, why isn't Ducey calling for the Confederate monument outside his office window to be bulldozed?

Ditto with the markers proclaiming “Jefferson Davis Highway.”

DIAZ:Was Ducey too late to denounce white nationalists?

That remote stretch of U.S. 60 southeast of Apache Junction was supposed to be part of a never-completed transcontinental highway. Pushing to name it the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway: the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Leveling the highway markers and renaming it for an Arizona hero wouldn’t hide our history. Arizona didn’t become a state until 57 years after the end of the Civil War.

What's the message now?

Yet Ducey calls it “part of our history.”

“We fought the Civil War and the United States won the Civil War,” he said. “We freed the slaves and we followed up with civil rights after that.”

Yes, and then we erected monuments to the Old South -- the one that fought to keep men, women and children enslaved -- at the height of the civil rights movement.

What was the message, I wonder?

And what is the message of white supremacists rallying to preserve those monuments now?

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