A statue honoring “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, one of America’s foremost white supremacists, will stay on the South Carolina State House grounds — at least for now.
The decision was made by Republican state Rep. Greg Delleney, who Thursday morning killed a resolution that would have removed the statue from its prominent spot at the State House front.
“He was a man of his times, honored by the people of his times,” Delleney said after the meeting. “I’m not going to go back and rewrite history.”
But Tillman’s history has already been rewritten by the whites who put up the statue in 1940, said Democratic Rep. Todd Rutherford, the African-American lawmaker who led the push to remove the statue.
The statue’s words avoid mention of what Tillman himself considered his greatest achievements — sanctioning violence against black South Carolinians seeking equal rights and depriving them of the right to vote, Rutherford said.
“The Ben Tillman statue is at best confusing and at worst a lie,” Rutherford said.
I say again: I love the south!
He’s probably lonely without his flag.
HaiRiTUGE, Y’alll!!
When I see shit like this I think, if the South wants to secede, LET IT.
Sigh. Molly Ivins said Texas’ problem (and by extension, the South’s) was that everytime we seem on the verge of convincing everybody else we’re not all a bunch of mouth breathing yahoos, something comes along that makes people wonder. Please don’t paint with too broad a brush, though. There some interesting comments at the bottom of the Houston Chronicle story OW links to.
Hick -
Oddly enough, as of late this has also become America’s problem in terms of the rest of the world.