But my point is that these generals the forts are named for were American citizens before the war, during the war, and after the war. After the war, the symbolic honor given to them does not need to be interpreted as racism or an endorsement of slavery. It can also be understood as a process of reconciliation and a refusal to deny the primordial unity of the country. It was peace-making instead of imposing a public memory of defeat and conquest. A rabbi said that God told Moses’s sister Miriam to stop her rejoicing at the death of the Egyptians whose “horse and chariot He cast into the sea.” The Lord said, “Are not the Egyptians also my creatures?” We can respect the enemy dead and mourn them as brothers, the culture said, instead of vilifying them.
MSGR. RICHARD C. ANTALL