STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga.–Credit unions are helping to right some wrongs that have been centuries in the making, according to one person.
Noting she was speaking in a year that marks the 50th anniversary of assassination of Martin Luther King, the 155th anniversary of the 14th amendment, and the 160th anniversary of the death of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, Dr. Kimberly Brown-Pellum, a professor of U.S. history, offered her insights to the African-American Credit Union Coalition’s annual meeting on why the Civil War needs to be rethought and on the role credit unions are playing today.
Location, Location, Location
Brown-Pellum was the second speaker within an hour to point out how meaningful it was to the meeting of African-American credit union leaders that the profiles of three Confederate leaders was etched in a mountain within view of the meeting site.
In her comments, Brown-Pellum said she wanted to reflect on two points: how history is being rewritten, and the “glory” to be had in the truth.
Civil War history, Brown-Pellum said, isn’t something most African-Americans have been interested in historically, and her audience laughed when she asked what they knew about the war.
Filling the Vacuum
That vacuum of knowledge, Brown-Pellum told the meeting, is partially because very early on the “veterans and spouses and widows of the confederacy sought to lay claim to the narrative, because ownership of people and their stories is kind of their thing. In their ugly reaction to their loss and this new America in which slavery is abolished they began producing movies, writing books, renaming streets and erecting monuments throughout the North and South that honored what in their minds was a great America.”
It was the United Daughters of the Confederacy, she said, that led the effort that eventually led to the carving of the giant sculpture a century ago. It wouldn’t be completed until 1972.
That kind of racism, Brown-Pellum suggested, isn’t something in the country’s past, saying it continues in efforts today to remove certain books and lessons from libraries and school lesson plans.
‘Morally Tiny’
Today she said, the United Daughters of the Confederacy are working to advance their view of the Civil War as not necessarily about slavery, but instead about “heritage.”
“It may be difficult to swallow, but there is glory in the truth. The truth is Black people won the Civil War,” Brown-Pellum said. “(Black soldiers) demanded to take up arms for the Union cause and once they did that the union’s two-year losing streak was turned around. Thus, Africans in America brought freedom to themselves. The fact is the mountain is big, but the three men on that mountain are morally tiny.”
‘Righting a Historic Wrong’
Vestiges of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period remain, according to Brown-Pellum. She noted that in the wake of the war the U.S. government helped to set up banks for African-Americans and freed slaves, but a lack of support led to failures that took some $3 million in deposits from 60,000 depositors.
The result was a deep erosion of trust in financial institutions, according to Pellum.
“You all are righting a historic wrong,” Brown-Pellum said. “The truth is that mountain is old. Your work is a living memorial to those who have intended and still intend to build a more just and equitable world.”
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