Headlines
Ole Miss Puts History In Context With Plaque
The University of Mississippi is putting history in context with a plaque to be placed at the foot of the Confederate Monument located on the historic Circle.
According to Ian Banner, University Architect, the plaque will be place on a granite base at the foot of the Confederate Monument at the entrance to The Circle.
Specific language of the plaque was not readily available.
Acting Director of Public Relations, John Scott, said the plaque is part of the 2014 Action Plan.
“They also should initiate an effort to provide contemporary context for some of our existing symbols and names, which are too often viewed as an endorsement of ancient ideas. Any and all symbols and buildings may benefit from this, but some to consider in the early stages include Vardaman Hall, the ballroom in Johnson Commons, and the Confederate Statue. This might be done in a number of ways, including accompanying plaques that provide context and an educational opportunity for students and campus visitors who are interested in our history.”
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Susan Hathaway
March 10, 2016 at 6:49 pm
There is absolutely NO CONTEXT NEEDED other than what was inscribed on the granite by those who erected this memorial. The monument speaks for itself. EVERY SINGLE member of the University Greys gave their lives on the field of honor. SHAME on Ole Miss for trying to pull a fast one and desecrate this memorial. RISE UP Mississippi and stop this madness.
Lani Burnette Rinkel
March 10, 2016 at 6:56 pm
This is COMPLETELY STUPID! Co A 11th MS suffered 100% casualties. 100% CASUALTIES! These BOYS answered the call of their state. THE STATE CALLED THEM INTO SERVICE! There was no graduating class and the school had to shut down because ALL THE STUDENTS went!
SHAME ON YOU SCALAWAGS AND CARPET-BAGGERS!
I am the female descendant of 34 Confederate soldiers and the niece of some 120. I am appalled at the ABJECT IGNORANCE of interloping OUTSIDERS and temporary residents thinking they can control A STATE FUNDED UNIVERSITY as they CONTINUALLY SLAP the residents in the face. As a tax payer in the SOVEREIGN state of Mississippi I am ashamed of the outsiders who have invaded Oxford and the politically correct SISSIES who run that institution.
I assure you, complaining on a forum is not the last you’ll hear of from me.
John Stones
March 10, 2016 at 7:21 pm
The monuments themselves speak to the history of the University. Nothing further needs to be said! You need to let the monuments speak for themselves and for those in whose honour they were placed! You cannot change history no matter how hard you try. It is well past time that the alumni speak out against this attempt at rewriting history by closing their pocketbooks and let the politically correct wither on the vine!
Anonymous
March 10, 2016 at 7:38 pm
If the plaque says anything other than…….Given, the times in which they lived, they fought and died for their university, state, and for what they believed to be right.
Anything else would be pissing on their graves.
The leadership at OM might be wise to study what is happening at the University of Missouri. Because of their failure to stand up to the p c
crowd and radical students and faculty, they have seen enrollment and donations……to the university and athletic department……substantially reduced. This has resulted in wide spread budget cuts, hiring freezes and a reduction in classes offered. Ole Miss people are extremely loyal, but I think you can push them only so far.
Billy Bryant
March 10, 2016 at 7:45 pm
Why do they feel the need to take away from the true history? Ole Miss, you are pathetic and I hate the fact that my hard earned tax dollars go to a pathetic institution that teaches tainted history. MAKES ME WANT TO PUKE! !!!
Stan Rhoda
March 10, 2016 at 7:57 pm
Another slap in the face of our ancestors and especially the University Greys. These men fought and died for a cause that was just and right. What you are trying to do is to wipe us away well guess what we are not backing down and you will be hearing from us soon. Why don’t you just go ahead and change the name of the university while you are at it because you have disgraced a once proud university with all of your political correctness.
Mark Hartshorne
March 10, 2016 at 8:57 pm
This is just plain ignorant and foolish. There is no need whatsoever to do this. Ive seen and photographed the monuments at Gettysburg and Antietam to the 11th Mississippi, and I aim to see the new monument at Shiloh. THESE SCULPTURES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES!!!
Waymon Covington
March 10, 2016 at 9:01 pm
Is there anything written on the monument that mentions the University Greys? The story I know about the monument is that it was placed on the University grounds by mistake. The ladies who raised the money for a Confederate Monument meant for it to be placed on the town square. When the leader of the ladies found out about where the monument was placed, her husband knew that he had to come up with the money to have another monument made to be placed on the Oxford town square. The couple in that story were John Wesley Thompson Falkner and his wife Salliie Murry Falkner, William Faulkner’s grandparents.
Jim (Herc @ UM)
March 10, 2016 at 9:21 pm
Then there’s that beautiful stained glass window in Ventress Hall (Geology building in my day). There’s a limit. I recall the stars and bars flying over the Confederate grave at Shiloh and that’s a National Park. I don’t hear anyone screaming to remove all the monuments up north dedicated to “The War of the Rebellion.” (note, I’m from New England, now in Savannah)
Waite Ligon
March 10, 2016 at 9:23 pm
Context and an educational opportunity indeed! Shame on everyone from the Chancellor on down at this pathetic attempt to change history. This pitiful behavior must cease now before there is no trace of the proud history of OUR University. Tax payer dollars and donations fund the University. When the donations subside and our legislators and senators hear from enough of us, our voices will be heard. Political correctness and academia nonsense by and large ruins whatever it may be directed at!
William C.McHann
March 10, 2016 at 9:29 pm
The statue stands on it’s own merit.No so called contemporary context is needed.You cannot judge history and the people that made it in a contemporary context.You are entitled to form your own opinion about it but it will only be your opinion.I’m sure it will be some slanted politically correct lie or they would have already announced it.
Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
March 10, 2016 at 10:11 pm
Stupid is as stupid does.
~ Forest Gump
This achieved monumental status with the selection of barry obummer for White House occupier.
The previous commentators have sufficiently spoken on this cultural cleansing.
Anonymous
March 10, 2016 at 11:53 pm
they just don’t want there univ, burned down
Roger Hilliard
March 11, 2016 at 1:00 am
” any people ashamed of their own history will wake up one day to find they have none”. Only the people who know anything about the monument are not ashamed of the monument or any of the history surrounding it. Just infantile parasites from up North who have no business or care for the people who died want to editorialize it. History shows what happens when you don’t stick up for your own symbols and your own history: 1. Marginalization. 2. Dehumanization. 3. Annihilation. People will take liberties with you until you finally put your foot down!
Connie Chastain
March 11, 2016 at 1:41 am
Is this interpretive plaque’s “contemporary context” going to tell the truth or is it going to push a a wrong-headed contemporary agenda? Yes, it’s de rigueur to portray the Confederacy as human history’s most heinous evil, but it just isn’t true, and the reason for pushing this view is both wrong and dangerous. Placing this plaque says a lot about Ole Miss’s lack of regard for the truth. It is a kick in the teeth of Mississippians in general and university alumni in particular.whose beliefs and loyalties the university scorns.
Kathy Saumier
March 11, 2016 at 3:30 am
As a “for example.” When I was in college in the mid ’60’s, a friend and I travelled to Europe one summer with a university group. When we were in Munich, Germany, we had an opportunity to go to the concentration camp at Dachau, just outside of Munich. WWII had been over just barely 20 years and was still pretty fresh in a lot of peoples’ minds. While much of Dachau had been demolished, there still remained enough reminders so that visitors got the gist of what occurred there. That was accompanied by pictures, lots of pictures, grim pictures, pictures of skeletal prisoners, pictures of piles of dead bodies taken from the gas chambers, and on and on. My husband and I went back to Germany in 2014 and revisited Dachau, some 50 years later. Now there is a lovely “Visitor’s Center,” headphone rentals, with the narrated photos focusing mainly on some of the more notorious guards who ran the camp, the process used to select prisoners (mainly round everybody up), documents of some of the prisoners, but little to nothing of the actual horrors of what that concentration camp was really about and what actually happened there. The history of the Dachau concentration camp has been rewritten, as though it hardly ever existed, as though the only major hardship was a bit of overcrowding in the barracks, and, yes, there was that whole gas chamber thing, but we will only give that a sentence or two because that is unpleasant for us to look back on, doesn’t put us in a good light, is offensive to some, and is politically incorrect. Don’t let it happen at Ole Miss. It is a dishonor and a disservice to not only the southern soldiers, but also to every man, woman, and child whose life was lost during that time. You cannot rewrite history. It is what it is. Leave it be. By the way, I am from the North. I am a Yankee.
Pamela Mitcham
March 11, 2016 at 7:27 am
Absolutely disgusting. There is no “context” needed. As already stated by others, the statute stands on its own merit. Stop trying to rewrite history. History cannot and should not be viewed through modern viewpoints. Anyone not smart enough to understand that is ridiculous! Shame on Ole Miss!!!!
Guy
March 11, 2016 at 8:31 am
Just another shameful attempt to make people that cannot be made happy, happy. You should be ashamed!
26 years and continuously learning
March 11, 2016 at 9:23 am
Recently I visited our nations capital. It is full of our nations choices, mistakes, and successes. Our country’s leaders (women and men) whom made a difference honored their ancestors choices ( positive and negative) and continued to lead without being politically correct. They chose what was best for our nation, not themselves. A wise professor at OM once told me, “history always repeats itself… Never the exact same, but always in shades.” Wake-up, everyone! Ignorance is nutrition for the politically correct minded.
mark brown
March 11, 2016 at 1:43 pm
The administrators need to resign in disgrace. Pathetic.
Barry
March 11, 2016 at 2:50 pm
I see the neo-confederate propaganda machine hit social media and instigated ridiculous calls of “changing history” and “political correctness”. It’s also amusing to see the number of these posts and reactions are from out of state (Hi, Connie & Susan) and from people not associated with the university.
Take a deep breath, relax, and carefully read the words to be placed on the Plaque:
“As Confederate veterans were passing from the scene in increasing numbers, memorial associations built monuments in their memory all across the South. This statue was dedicated by citizens of Oxford and Lafayette County in 1906. On the evening of September 30, 1962, the statue was a rallying point where a rebellious mob gathered to prevent the admission of the University’s first African American student. It was also at this statue that a local minister implored the mob to disperse and allow James Meredith to exercise his rights as an American citizen. On the morning after that long night, Meredith was admitted to the University and graduated in August 1963.
This historic structure is a reminder of the University’s past and of its current and ongoing commitment to open its hallowed halls to all who seek truth and knowledge and wisdom.
The placement of this plaque puts the statue into proper context and affirms, as in our UM Creed, our respect for the dignity of each person.”
http://thedmonline.com/text-for-the-contextual-plaque-on-confederate-statue-announced/
It does nothing to discredit the men of the 11th Mississippi. This plaque merely attempts to explain the monument’s connection to the University in clear terms that can be understood by those unfamiliar with the university.
Reb Fan
March 11, 2016 at 5:21 pm
Don’t tell me the administration is not trying to destroy our Confederate history. Confederate Drive has been re-named, they have trashed our State’s flag! It just never stops!!!
Oologah
March 11, 2016 at 6:18 pm
The monument was erected to honor the memory of the Confederate soldiers, not anything else that may have occurred at that site, Barry. Let’s tack on plaques to every other monument that somebody wants to deface with some hair-brained agenda- maybe a plaque on the Lincoln Memorial explaining how he proposed to deport all slaves to Liberia…
Barry
March 12, 2016 at 8:45 am
No one at Ole Miss has “trashed” the state flag. The ASB and faculty senate voted to no longer fly it on campus and the university police lowered it early one morning in a dignified and respectful manner as to avoid creating a spectacle on campus.
Your hyperbole only makes you sound foolish.
Confederate Drive was renamed, but so what! You won’t be able to reach the Confederate Cemetery via that road once the old coliseum is torn down. The only building of note on that road is the chapel, so the new name is logical.
By the way, the cemetery is still there complete with a historical marker just as the monument on the circle is still there. Perhaps you prefer a bulldozer?
Stop whining.
Kristoffer
March 13, 2016 at 5:32 pm
@Oologah He didn’t plan to deport anyone. Lincoln made it clear that colonization had to be voluntary. And I doubt Kathy has ever left the continental USA, or that she isn’t a Southron, or some place with longstanding Southern sympathies, like Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, or Baltimore.