https://www.yahoo.com/news/ken...ville-041358653.html

Kentucky town welcomes Confederate memorial moved from Louisville

By Bryan Woolston


BRANDENBURG, Kentucky (Reuters) - A small Kentucky town gave a formal welcome on Monday to a monument to the Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War, rededicating the controversial structure after the University of Louisville removed it as an unwelcome symbol of slavery.

About 400 people, some dressed in grey replica uniforms and many holding small Confederate battle flags, gathered for the Memorial Day ceremony on a bluff above the Ohio River in Brandenburg, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Louisville.

The town embraced the tower at a time when Confederate symbols are being removed across the South as reminders of a legacy of slavery and the racism that underpinned it.

“The way I look at it, it’s part of our history," Brandenburg Mayor Ronnie Joyner said at the dedication, which included the firing of a Civil War-era cannon. "We need to preserve our history."

Brandenburg says the riverfront park where it holds a biennial Civil War reenactment was an appropriate setting for what some see as a respectful homage to Kentucky's fallen.

The monument's new home is near the spot where a Confederate general in 1863 launched a raid on neighboring Indiana, and Brandenburg hopes the addition will bring more tourists to the town.

"The Civil War is not a popular part of people’s past, but you can’t wipe it out," said Charles Harper of Louisville, who came to the dedication dressed in Confederate uniform. "Just because you wiped out a reference to the Civil War doesn’t mean you’ve wiped out slavery, doesn’t mean you wipe out racism."

The 70-foot-tall concrete plinth features an oversized statue of a rebel soldier at its crown, representing one of thousands of Kentuckians who fought with breakaway Southern states in the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history.

Monday's ceremony, watched by a crowd that was almost exclusively white, marked the end to a year-long saga that began in April 2016 when the University of Louisville announced it would dismantle the monument, erected in 1895.

Students and faculty had long criticized the memorial as a tacit tribute to Confederate cause during the 1861-65 conflict, fought primarily over the issue of slavery.

Last May, a state judge ruled against some Louisville residents and descendants of Confederate soldiers who sued to keep the monument from being moved.

Kentucky was neutral during the Civil War and never joined the Confederacy. But slavery was legal in the commonwealth and many Kentuckians sympathized with the rebel cause and fought on its side.

The drive to remove Confederate statues in the South and elsewhere accelerated after the 2015 murder of nine African-Americans by an avowed white supremacist at an historic South Carolina church. The murders stirred national soul-searching about racism and its symbols.

Soon after the killings, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol.

Last week New Orleans dismantled the last of four Confederate statues that stood in the city for decades. The mayor of Baltimore said on Monday that her city was considering following the lead of New Orleans by removing its monuments.



(Additional reporting and writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Andrew Hay)

It's a sad state of affairs to even think about rewriting history. The so called studants mentioned seem to aspire to some fixed up nation that just appeared one morning when they awoke. The country didnt just happen so there's been some bumps along the way. The politicians should be run out of town for doing this. Hang your head Louisville, in shame.

Today's students can't forget History--they've never been taught it! If something happened 30 years ago they've not heard about it. It is pitiful and criminal just how uneducated our current youth are about our History and the workings of our government (or, at least, how it's supposed to work).

flashguy

At the time the monument was originally constructed in 1895, the City owned the property, and the University of Louisville was three blocks away from it. Over time, the University acquired more and more nearby property which eventually surrounded the location.

The monument was constructed on land that also turned into a traffic island in the 1920s, with the ensuring wrecks into it. A safety hazard it was, as the City traffic department wouldn't install deflecting barriers.

Up until the late 1980s, there wasn't really a controversy, except for an occasional handful of protestors at the UofL, and "Letters to the Editor" in the Communist Urinal (Courier-Journal) newspaper. Once UofL recently started to show up in the news media in an unfavorable light (athletic and University admin scandals), the manufactured outrage was started up by the "usual suspects". And the ever accommodating pandering dumbass Democrat "Mayor 'Big Cheese' McBikeLane" (Greg Fischer) did his best to help stir the pot too.

And there you have it, today the statue has been relocated to Brandenburg, KY (40 miles SW of Louisville), the jump-off point from which Confederate General John Hunt Morgan launched his Great Raid of 1863 into Indiana and Ohio.

Don't believe what's been reported in the progressive media. Everything involving the monument was designed to deflect from the current crime problems in Metro Louisville which has been continuously ruled by Democrats since 1968.

BTW, I am a life-long resident of Louisville, so what I've stated has my own slant on things.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...nument_in_Louisville

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
At the time the monument was originally constructed in 1895, the City owned the property, and the University of Louisville was three blocks away from it. Over time, the University acquired more and more nearby property which eventually surrounded the location.

The monument was constructed on land that also turned into a traffic island in the 1920s, with the ensuring wrecks into it. A safety hazard it was, as the City traffic department wouldn't install deflecting barriers.

Up until the late 1980s, there wasn't really a controversy, except for an occasional handful of protestors at the UofL, and "Letters to the Editor" in the Communist Urinal (Courier-Journal) newspaper. Once UofL recently started to show up in the news media in an unfavorable light (athletic and University admin scandals), the manufactured outrage was started up by the "usual suspects". And the ever accommodating pandering dumbass Democrat "Mayor 'Big Cheese' McBikeLane" (Greg Fischer) did his best to help stir the pot too.

And there you have it, today the statue has been relocated to Brandenburg, KY (40 miles SW of Louisville), the jump-off point from which Confederate General John Hunt Morgan launched his Great Raid of 1863 into Indiana and Ohio.

Don't believe what's been reported in the progressive media. Everything involving the monument was designed to deflect from the current crime problems in Metro Louisville which has been continuously ruled by Democrats since 1968.

BTW, I am a life-long resident of Louisville, so what I've stated has my own slant on things.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...nument_in_Louisville

I lived there until 9+ years ago and you are 100%, no mistake, right on the money.

The city of Louisville is crumbling, the city streets are like driving in Mogadishu or Beirut, falling apart and mayor Mcbikelane keeps turning what's left of city streets into bike lanes, that no one uses and the few bike riders, ride in the traffic lanes.

Crime keep going up, and the mayor, just ties the hands of the police by pandering more to the people that cause the chaos.

ARman

Finally, Sanity in the South!!

Hooray for you!!!

RMD