As far as can be ascertained, my people were Southerners. Farmers, mostly. They've been traced back to Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama. By the end of the Civil War, much of that had been laid to waste. Those whose reproductive equipment hadn't been blown off straggled back home and begat a generation which, when it reached its majority, got the hell out of there. Destination: Texas. Much of their posterity is still here.
I grew up watching "The Gray Ghost" (based on Confederate Major John Singleton Mosby) and Nick Adams' Brando-esque portrayal of Johnny Yuma on "The Rebel." Johnny Cash sang the theme song:
He was panther quick and leather tough,
And he figgered that he'd been pushed enough!
The Rebel! Johnny Yuma!
It became a hit record. Johnny Horton sang "You fought all the way, Johnny Reb." Another country singer was named Stonewall Jackson. I attended Robert E. Lee School. I knew all the words to "Dixie." Confederate flags were everywhere. My brother told me the Civil War was about states' rights, and I believed him.
None of this offended me. Why should it? My humanity was never in question. The war wasn't fought over whether I should be a free man or a piece of farm equipment. People who looked like me didn't have their babies tugged from their arms and sold like livestock. We weren't whipped mercilessly. Jim Crow laws didn't pertain to us. We weren't being dragged out of our shacks to be hanged or burned alive. We didn't have dogs and fire hoses turned on us when we tried to vote.
I used to look at the Confederate flag and see nothing. It might as well have said "Drink Coca-Cola." It's not so benign now. It's being waved by people who want to return to antebellum days and ways. It's being waved in tandem with the Nazi flag. By a segment of our population that wants to suppress another segment. A segment that despises the concept of equality. A segment that ferments hate by the barrel. By a kid who is welcomed to a Bible study by a group of African-American Christians, then shoots them because he is "superior."
If all of us aren't free and equal, none of us are. Whatever the relics of the Confederacy may have symbolized in 1865 -- or 1965 -- they represent something else now. Something harsh and dark and evil and fearful.
Away! Away!
Away he rode!
The Rebel! Johnny Yuma!
Zoomer Roberts
22 August 2017
