Historian: Civil War tales are pure bunk

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History doesn't lie. Right? Well, the winners want history to make them look good. Sometimes the losers get their say, too.

Perspectives can change. Villains can be made to look like heroes. Interpreting the past can lead to lively debates. And because it is history, often the only confirmation comes from what was written down or told orally through generations.

When talk turns to the Civil War and blacks' role with the Confederacy, there is no room for revisionist theories for Asa R Gordon.

The war between North and South was not about states' rights or a War of Southern independence. States' rights and independence are WHATS of the Civil War. The WHY of it was to preserve slavery, Gordon told a small group at St. James AME Zion church in Kissimmee last week.

Simply put, there should be no memorials honoring men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They and others resigned from the Union Army and fought against their country.

They were rebels, and they are traitors to the United States. Nations normally don't honor traitors, Gordon, a retired astrophysicist, said to a crowd that included a group from the Osceola Children's Home.

People normally don' t build memorials for traitors, racists or those who practice genocide.

In the United States, Confederate memorials dot the countryside. The flag is flown with pride. The Nazi flag - and Nazi leaders - inspire hatred.

It should he no different for Lee and others who fought for the South. The real heroes, Gordon said, are those Southerners who fought for the North.

As for those who try to promote the idea that blacks were willing soldiers for the South, Gordon's research disproves it.

In a lecture that was close to three hours long, the founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C. -based Douglass Institute of Government left no doubt about the fantasies and historical myths of Afro-Confederates.

The commitment to the neo-Confederate movement is often emotional rather than intellectual, he said. It cannot stand the scrutiny of scholarship. The belief that blacks willingly served in the Confederate Army is ludicrous and harmful, he said.

"A slave didn't have a choice. If his master said he was going, the slave couldn't say no. He was a slave."

Those who say blacks fought for the South should look at Confederate documents, which ban blacks serving as regular members of the Army. They also need to look at records showing that those who did serve deserted when they got the chance.

Propagation of the present-day theories make it hard for people to realize that blacks were unhappy about their condition, Gordon said.

"How can you owe a people anything, if in fact they were so satisfied with the state that suppressed them?" he asked. "How can you correct that legacy if you are in denial about the true reasons?"

Gordon's visit was sponsored by Ann Tyler and Evan McKissic. McKissic, a retired Osceola teacher, has been critical of the theories of another retired local teacher, Nelson Winbush.

Winbush travels the country recounting the stories of his grandfather, who he said willingly and proudly served with Southern forces.

"I try to get the truth out. I talked with my grandfather, and I know what he said," Winbush said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Pino welcomes comments. He can be reached at (407) 931-5935, by e- mail at OSOpino1@aol.com, by fax at (407)931-5959 or by mail at The Osceola Sentinel, 804 W. Emmett St., Kissimmee, 34741.

I guess I'll just have to be content with northern authors like Herman Melville and Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. James Fennemore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Washington Irving, and Henry David Throreau. Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane. Julia Ward Howe, Louisa Mae Alcott, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Sandburg, and Robert Frost. And then there's Horatio Alger, Henry James, L. Frank Baum, Edith Wharton, and Upton Sinclair and don't forget Sinclair Lewis. Jack London and O. Henry. Then there's Eugene O'Neil and Henry Miller and e.e. cummings

With the exceptions of L. Frank Baum, Laura Ingalls, Edith Wharton and Washington Irving, you can have most of the rest. And if Emily Dickinson wasn't the ultimate rebel against Yankee post-puritan culture, I don't know who was. Sorry if you love the canon, but there is too great a strain of solipsism and self-righteousness in most of the rest of that stuff for me. It's the sort of transcendalism that started in New England, leap-frogged the fly-over states, then landed and took root in present-day California. Probably has something to do with a post-puritan "God is inside me" trend to know what's best for everyone else and all that.

Asa is a racist, so what weight does his opion carry?

"A contemporary renaissance man: Scientist, Founder of an African American think tank, a Union leader, Civil rights activist, Historian, and Entrepreneur.

Asa's work as a scientist for NASA appears in international scientific journals. His research has been employed by private industry, domestic and foreign, for tracking satellites in space.

Asa is founder and executive director of the Douglass Institute of Government (D.I.G.). DIG is an "Educational Think Tank" dedicated to research and policy studies to carry out Frederick Douglass council to a young student as to what he could do to serve his people -- "agitate, agitate, agitate."

Asa has lectured on various subjects of African-American history and culture and contemporary issues at: universities, libraries, secondary and primary schools, and correctional institutions. He has given special lectures on Black music at the invitation of the Howard University Jazz Department (Asa's work in science and music is referenced in Ivan Van Sertima's "Blacks in Science Ancient and Modern").

Asa has a distinguished history as lecturer on topics in Black History, including Black Cowboys, the Seminole Indians, Jazz, and motion pictures like Glory and Liberators. His close relationship with the producers/directors of Liberators, a documentary film about Black Tankers of World War II that also portrayed the participation of black GIs in the liberation of Nazi death camps, brought him into a sensitive First Amendment struggle over the right of audiences to view a film documenting the role of African-American soldiers in liberating victims of the Holocaust. After brief exposure on Public Television in New York, the widely praised film was pulled in response to a few vocal objections. Asa began an intensive research project to verify the presence of black military units in the death camps at the time of liberation. His efforts was given international exposure by Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post (May 29, 1994). Documentation of his research at the National Archives has been donated to the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History in Atlanta, Georgia and published in the Atlanta Daily World (Mar.26:30-31, 1995), and his lectures have clarified the issue for a broader public, which nonetheless continues to be denied the right to view the film. On April 11th, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald, Asa was a featured speaker along with Alex Gross, a Jewish survivor of Buchenwald and Dr. Leon Bass one of the death camp's African American Liberators.

Asa ( a veteran student civil rights activist of Hampton Institute of the 60's) provided assistance and gave counsel on the first amendment rights to the Hampton University Student Government Association (SGA) which organized a protest and voiced objections to the selection of President Bush as their commencement speaker in May 1991. On this occasion Asa and SGA president Mark E. James founded the first chapter of the Student Civil Rights ACTion Coalition. SCRAC's goal is to galvanize students into an activist movement to defend against the erosion of civil rights, and safeguard the legacy of the African-American civil rights struggle.

As a Union leader he served two terms as President of the Goddard Engineers Scientists and Technicians Association (GESTA) Local-29 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers AFL-CIO representing the Scientists, Engineers and Technicians at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Among his many actions on behalf of the First Amendment, Asa initiated a challenge (Gordon v. NASA, 1986) to NASA's policy of charging "search fees" for information requests under the Privacy Act. Such fees, Asa argued "imposed a chilling effect" on those seeking government information . As a result of Gordon's action, NASA subsequently dropped such fees.

Asa's successful court challenge to the law preventing federal employees from receiving compensation for any speech, avocational or otherwise, was a dramatic victory for the First Amendment. That victory was decided in the Supreme Court in 1995.

Asa also serves as President of the Asa Software Association (ASA) which markets the MenuPlus software he has copyrighted for use on IBM PC's or compatibles. "

"If the South had won their independence, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson would be even bigger heroes."

I think the fact that Lee and Jackson are still honored today in the North as well as the South speaks to how noble these men really were. If they had fought for white supremacy, these men would have been about as revered as Hitler and Himmler.

When it comes to the ~~Civil War~~ War for Southern Independence, much of that history has indeed been rewritten by the victors. However, it is comforting to see that though the South has been vilified over the past 140 years, the character and reputation of men like Lee and Jackson have been able to stand the test of time.

It is also interesting to see the comparison being made here between the CSA and Nazi Germany. To me, that simply means the Northern revisionists are running out of ammunition. They can't make their case logically or constitutionally so they have to resort to demonization. (Frankly, I can't believe WhiskeyPapa posted this article. I find it difficult to believe that even he subscribes to this point of view!)

Perhaps someone should introduce Asa Gordon (and WhiskeyPapa) to Maj. Willie Levi Casey Jr. of the U.S. Army.

we could go on like this for days and days.

Okay, let's:

No Little Walter Jacobs, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Blind Willie McTell, Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, Ida Cox, Texas Alexander, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, Lonnie Johnson, Furry Lewis, Son Thomas, Barbecue Bob, Louisiana Red, Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Willie Johnson, Jimmy Reed, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Skip James, Sunnyland Slim, Memphis Slim, Peg-Leg Sam, Kokomo Arnold, Big Joe Williams, Otis Spann, Leroy Carr, Scrapper Blackwell, Bo Carter, Casey Bill Weldon, Big Mama Thornton, Peetie Wheatstraw, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Johnny Shines, Robert Nighthawk, Sippie Wallace, Champion Jack Dupree, Victoria Spivey, Sticks McGhee, Sleepy John Estes, Freddie King, Roosevelt Sykes, Guitar Slim, Slim Harpo, Z.Z. Hill, Big Walter Horton, J.B. Hutto, J.D. Short, Elizabeth Cotten, Ivory Joe Hunter, J.B. Lenoir, Lightnin' Slim, Magic Sam Maghett, Eddie Boyd, Ishman Bracey, Junior Parker, Lucille Bogan, Professor Longhair, Joe Willie Wilkins, Houston Stackhouse, Frank Stokes, Joe Callicott, Tampa Red, Sam Chatmon, Mance Lipscomb, Hound Dog Taylor, Albert Collins, Washboard Sam, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes, Jack Owens, Frank Frost, Buddy Guy, Yank Rachell, and Estelle "Mama" and Jimmy "Papa" Yancey, Howlin' Wolf, Leadbelly, Elmore James or Robert Lockwood Jr.

Yep. Modern music would be kinda' like a Yanni b-side, minus the "soul."

Um, looks like most of his resume is, ah, "self-generated". The only qualification that is confirmed by an outside authority is his work for NASA . . . and I notice that he says his research has been "employed," not published. He ought to be publishing extensively in his own field, and should have at least one article published in a recognized and juried historical journal (I'm NOT a professional historian, don't even play one on TV, but I have one. It's not that hard to get published.) Instead, he's "speaking" to unidentified groups and "donating" his "documentation" to libraries. Not very convincing, overall.

The classic example of scientists putting their foot in it when they get outside their area of expertise is the scientists who were fooled into thinking an illusionist was a psychic (he was quickly unmasked by another illusionist.) Looks like this fellow is just another in a long line of folks who think that because they think they know what they're doing in their own field that they're automatically qualified to pontificate on everything that comes in their sights. Doctors flying V-Tail Bonanzas come to mind, too.

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