Robert E. Lee Boy Scout Council, Richmond, VA, to be Renamed. More PC for the Boy Scouts...

WRVA Radio ^ | 5/13/03 | VMI70

[VMI70]

This past weekend, my son and I went on his troop's annual father-son hike. His troop is one of many in the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA.

On Sunday, during the church service at the end of the hike, it was announced that the Council directors had voted to change its name from The Robert E. Lee Council, which has been in use for many decades, to something else.

This morning, the news broke on the local radio station: WRVA 1140 AM, Richmond's Morning News with Jimmy Barrett.

[HenryLeeII]

there are CSA graves at Mt. Vernon...

First of all, there are no graves at Mount Vernon that I know of. There is a family tomb in which various members of the Washington and Custis families are entombed. If you are referring to Confederate aide-de-camp John Augustine Washington III, the last private owner of the estate, and the one who sold it to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in the 1850s, he is neither buried nor interred there. He was killed in action at Cheat Mountain, [West] Virginia on September 17, 1862, and is buried in Charleston, WV. The obelisk in front of the family tomb bearing his name is simply a monument to him and does not indicate his reposing on the Mount Vernon grounds.

...and one of his wife's kids married Lee.

No, Martha Washington's grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, married Mary Lee Fitzhugh, and of course are the parents of Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the eventual wife of Robert E. Lee.

[Rebelbase]

Very sad.

[Rebelbase]

The horribly racist council patch. Boys who wear this strip grow up to be KKK members and skinhead Nazis.

[VMI70]

Yes it is very sad.

But there is some good news...I got 500 replies! It took almost a year, but I got 500.

Have a good weekend.

[Investment Biker]

Perhaps my memory serves me incorrectly but non the less there is at least a CSA tribute there. Also, you are correct that it was a grandchild not a first generation.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The horribly racist council patch. Boys who wear this strip grow up to be KKK members and skinhead Nazis.

Lee on blacks:

o "My own opinion is that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the vote would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarassments in various ways."

o "I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them [the free blacks]... I think everyone there would be willing to aid it."

o "I have always observed that wherever you find the Negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving."

o "You will never prosper with the blacks, and it is abhorent to a reflecting mind to be supporting and cherishing those who are plotting and working for your injury, and all of whose sympathies and associations are antagonistic to yours."

o As for blacks gaining political equality "the blacks must always here be the weaker; the whites are so much stronger there is no chance for the blacks."

Uh, Lee was a horrible racist.

Walt

[HenryLeeII]

Please allow me to correct two things in my original reply to you: First, Col. John A. Washington III was killed on Sept. 17, 1861, not 1862.

Secondly, there are no maintained or marked graves at Mount Vernon. The Slave Memorial, located next to the Family Tomb, is the site of the orignial slave graveyard that saw burials from the 1760s until presumably the end of slavery at the estate. There are approximately 300 Mount Vernon slaves buried there, but are unfortunately known only to their Maker due to the ravages of time and history.

but none the less there is at least a CSA tribute there

No, its not a memorial to the Confederacy. The obelisk memorializes John A. Washington as an owner of the estate. It is one of a pair of obelisks in front of the Tomb, with the other memorializing Bushrod Washington, the General's nephew and a Supreme Court justice who directly inherited the estate from his illustrious uncle.

At the onset of the Civil War, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association was restoring the house, which was very delapidated, and was concerned about soldiers from either side using it as a camp or taking advantage of its commanding sweep of the Potomac River. So, they approached Lincoln and the governor of Virginia with their concerns and their pledge to remain neutral, which both governments respected and observed throughout the war. Thus, a great bit of trivia is that Mount Vernon was the only neutral territory in the war. Soldiers were allowed to visit in order to pay homage to Washington, and in fact were the first paying visitors (they had to pay 25 cents). However, they were required to leave their weapons at the front gate and also cover their uniform buttons in observance of the estate's neutrality.

Thank you for your time.

[chickens]

As a matter of fact, the Lees of Arlington Hall did teach Arlington's slaves to read and write. Arlington Hall overlooks Washington DC and Maryland. There were no fences around Arlington, and all knew that slavery's days were numbered. But even then, there was no clear path to integration. It was after the First Battle of Manassas that Secretary Miggs, who lost his son in the battle, began burying Union war dead at Arlington, so that Robert E. Lee could never return to living comfortably at Arlington after the war.

After the war, Lee became the President of William and Mary College in Virginia. Lee also tended his wife of many years, who suffered from crippling arthritis until her death. The British had instituted slavery in America, and by the time of the Civil War (less than 80 years after the Revolutionary War) there were approximately thirty two million people in America (excluding Native Americans), one million of them slaves.

Some historians say the Civil War wasn't about slavery, but states rights. Unless Washington had fought for Independence, the Civil War might not even have been possible. Either way, the north won by the skin of its collective teeth and, of course, things got better from there. The federal government, at least, got a national cemetery right across the river from the nation's capital. Since then, its been revisionist history all the way. So, let's rename the Robert E. Lee Boy Scout district, the Hillary D. Clinton district -- makes sense, doesn't it?

[chickens]

Correction to above: Not William and Mary College -- but Washington, later to become the College of Washington and Lee.

However, they were required to leave their weapons at the front gate and also cover their buttons in observance of the estate's neutrality.

I knew they had to check their weapons at the gate, but I thought soldiers always had to cover their buttons.

[chickens]

Before the Civil War, there was no United States. In other words, until there was a Confederate States of America, no United States need exist. Before the Civil War, being a union or the United States was a non-issue. The fledgling Union had to decide what it was going to call itself. The name Confederate States of America was already taken. The initials CSA fit neatly on the brass belt buckle. The United States, instead of the Divided States, seemed a better publicity choice. The initials US also fit easily on the brass buckle. The concept of the USA was in the works. The State of New York -- everyone who was anyone in America before 1860, was either from Virginia, or New York -- wanted to keep their autonomy. The New Yorkers rejected the US emblem, and emblazoned the initials SNY or State of New York on their brass. Since the South had a smaller manufacturing base, its soldiers soon discovered that a captured US buckle, turned upside down, worked just as well. It was the Civil War that defined the US, and it is the Culture War, and or multiculturalism that is redefining it today. Simply put, multiculturalism, is the privileging of one race over another. The unabashed goal of multiculturalism: destroy the "white hegemony." History no longer matters, so long as Washington, Lee, and the like are expunged. Diversity, favors the founding fathers even less. Its goal: institutional autonomy, and respect for the homosexual agenda. The name Robert E. Lee may make some people uncomfortable, but obliterating the nation's hard fought history, in the name of diversity and multiculturalism, turns the US upside down again.

[chickens]

To accomplish the agendas of diversity, and multiculturalism, the past must be altered or expunged, e.g., revisionist-history. Frankly, I do not believe one can do better than Robert E. Lee. But that's not the debate. Robert E. Lee survived the Civil War, to become a casualty of the Culture War. It is a particularly cowardly blow, as well, considering that the general is not here to defend himself.

On a lighter note (or not), when it became unpopular to be "white" Bill Clinton simply became "black." According to Clinton, he became our first "black" president. Robert E. Lee, could be our first Chinese Civil War general. A California college student once told me, that General Grant hired Robert E. Lee, to beat the South.
For all anybody knows, Robert E. Lee could just as well have been a Northern general of Oriental descent. How else could Lincoln Mercury have invented the fortune cookie, and received so many valuable insights -- that Ford eventually won the war -- with their sales only being surpassed by GM, and finally Toyota in 2004?

[DakotaDeacon]

Can you tell me your source for that comment? EVERYTHING I have read shows Lee to be a kind, God-fearing, Christian man who DID NOT believe in slavery. Now US Grant, on the other hand, was the one who owned slaves before, during, and AFTER the war of northern aggression. I'm just curious as to where you get your information Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Can you tell me your source for that comment? EVERYTHING I have read shows Lee to be a kind, God-fearing, Christian man who DID NOT believe in slavery.

Lee wrote in a February, 1865 letter that the best relation between white and black was that of master and slave.

Now US Grant, on the other hand, was the one who owned slaves before, during, and AFTER the war of northern aggression.

Grant briefly owned a slave prior to the war. He freed this man.

I'm just curious as to where you get your information Walt

Here and there.

Walt

[DakotaDeacon]

"Here and there" - that explains where you get a lot of your outdated, ignorant, biased information. You really should exert the effort to research some of these things Walt. Who knows - even a mind as welded shut as yours could be opened by it.

[Cucumber]

looks like the hatred towards Robert E. Lee started years ago.