Thread by @neilwillard

Those who believe that removing the Confederate statue in Chatham County, North Carolina, is the same thing as erasing history have forgotten the racist views that surrounded and preceded its dedication. That's what people have tried to erase from our collective memory. (1/12)

I’m a direct descendant of three generations of Chatham County slaveholders — Joseph Hackney, Sr.; Daniel Hackney, Sr.; and Daniel Hackney, Jr. The last one “owned” 14 enslaved Africans, mostly children, according to the 1860 census slave schedules. (2/12) neilwillard.com/2017/10/09/my-…

He also represented Chatham County in the North Carolina General Assembly in the 1840s and 1850s, very clearly and forthrightly defended states’ rights to protect property rights (i.e., slavery), and served as a Confederate officer in the Home Guard for Chatham County. (3/12)

On January 4, 1861, people in Chatham County passed this resolution that Daniel Hackney, Jr., helped to write: “That we are satisfied by the present constitution, so amended as will forever settle the question of slavery in the States . . ." (4/12)

"and the much vexed question of Congressional intervention in the territories, on the subject of slavery, in such a way that slave property shall have the same protection from the general Government as other property . . ." (5/12)

"and that the citizens hereafter shall be unmolested in the enjoyment of said property . . .” Hackney and others then spoke in favor of the Union, “provided that the Federal laws are faithfully executed and our rights of property respected.” (6/12)

So until secession Hackney was an as-it-was-with-slavery-Unionist rather than an as-it-might-be-without-slavery-Unionist. (7/12) neilwillard.com/2017/10/17/my-…

I believe the 14 human beings enslaved by my great-great-great-grandfather and those enslaved by his father and grandfather would protest the presence of a Confederate monument outside the old county courthouse. The formerly enslaved were supposed to find justice there. (8/12)

That Confederate monument was erected the early 20th century only after conservatives had regained control of the North Carolina General Assembly in the election of 1898 and disenfranchised African Americans throughout the Old North State. (9/12) neilwillard.com/2019/02/18/no-…

The Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court was the speaker for its dedication and suggested the possibility that the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution "to secure the rights of the newly emancipated colored people" had not been adopted legally. (10/12) neilwillard.com/2018/03/02/my-…

Surely those African Americans and their descendants would not describe men who took up arms in the rebellion as “Our Confederate Heroes.” And surely even conscripts forced to serve in the Confederate army unwillingly would not want themselves to be described that way. (11/12)

Not glorifying the incomprehensible violence and death that resulted from a desire to keep Africans and their descendants enslaved is part of loving God and loving my neighbor as a follower of Jesus. May God forgive us for our past inhumanity and our present indifference. (12/12)