Free Republic

Austin’s Equity Office has recommended renaming the Texas city because of Stephen F. Austin's alleged views on slavery. But why stop at just renaming Austin when Amerigo Vespucci took and sold slaves. Austin, Texas is named after Stephen F. Austin, but America is named after Amerigo Vespucci. New York City has been on its own anti-history binge, demoting the statue of the ‘Father of Gynecology’ and tearing out plaques memorializing Robert E. Lee attached to a tree that he had once planted, but it’s got bigger problems. The city is named after King James II whose Royal African Company branded...

DALTON – Democrat Stacey Abrams found herself on the campaign trail this week answering for an earlier call to remove the carving of three Confederate leaders from state-owned Stone Mountain near Atlanta. A Dalton woman expressed concern during a town hall Wednesday about Abrams’ apparent focus on blasting off the “beautiful carving” from the face of Stone Mountain. The woman also inquired about Abrams’ views on the Confederate monuments that are a fixture in many downtowns across Georgia, including Dalton. Abrams called for the removal of the carving last fall in a series of tweets shortly after a protestor was...

A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Richmond's famed Monument Avenue has been vandalized. Red paint was splattered on the statue's base. The letters BLM, an apparent reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, was also sprayed on the base. Virginia Capitol Police, which is responsible for policing the monuments, told news outlets the vandalism occurred late Friday or early Saturday between patrols. The vandalism occurs a week ahead of the one-year anniversary of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that was organized in part as a protest to plans to remove a Lee Statue there. ETC...

Now the Anti-History movement of the left has a new target. A target as big as a city. A new report from Austin, Texas’s Equity Office about existing Confederate monuments suggested changing the city's name. The report identified several neighborhoods and 10 streets named in honor of the Confederacy or William Barton, a slave owner dubbed the "Daniel Boone of Texas," that could be changed, The Austin American-Statesman reported Friday. Austin’s namesake, Stephen F. Austin - also referred to as the "father of Texas" - opposed efforts by Mexico to abolish slavery in the Tejas province, saying freed slaves would...

SHREVEPORT -- More than a year after four monuments to the Confederate era were removed from the New Orleans landscape, a federal judge has cleared the way for removal of another Louisiana Confederate memorial. Wednesday's ruling in the northwest Louisiana city of Shreveport says the Caddo Parish Commission has the authority to remove a monument outside the parish courthouse. U.S. District Judge Robert James dismissed a lawsuit by a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) - Residents of a Georgia city are pushing to change the name of a residential street to Barack Obama Boulevard. **SNIP** Rose says the name should be changed because Valdosta city leaders named Forrest Street in April 1883 for Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The number of Tennesseans with Confederate battle flag license plates has reached its highest point in a decade.</p> <p>Data from the Tennessee Department of Revenue shows that 3,273 of the license plates benefiting the Sons of Confederate Veterans were active at the end of the 2018 fiscal year, The Tennessean reported. That number represents a 72 percent increase from the end of the 2015 fiscal year.</p>

Confederate flag coming back to the South Carolina State House on Tuesday COLUMBIA, S.C. - The Confederate flag is coming back to the S.C. State House, at least for one day. On Tuesday, members of the S.C. Secessionist Party will raise the rebel banner on a temporary pole in front of the Gervais Street steps. The 10 a.m. ceremony will mark the three-year anniversary of the flag's permanent removal from the State House grounds. This is the third time the party has raised the flag in front of the State House. Each July 10 since the flag was removed, the...

The first submarine to down an enemy ship was sunk itself after its crew failed to release an emergency weight to help it resurface. Crew aboard the Confederate vessel HL Hunley did not disconnect the 1,000lb keel blocks to help it rapidly resurface, resulting in the sub being trapped underwater and the men dying from lack of oxygen. Scientists who removed the corrosion, silt and shells from the boat found the levers all locked in their regular position, solving a mystery dating back to 1864. The blocks would typically keep the sub upright, but also could be released with three...

Confederate General Jubal Early, leading about 10,000 men of the Second Corp, Army of Northern Virginia attacks Fort Stevens in Washington DC. The Union forces around in and around the fort are about equal to Early's force. As the attack develops, additional reinforcements from two Union Corps arrive on scene and stall Early's assault. The next day,skirmishing continues, but Early has decided any further attacks will only result in high casualties with little chance of success. He begins withdrawing his forces back into Virginia.

Following the social unrest over Confederate flags, statues and symbols in 2015, a lot of southerners and their supporters around the country were rather unhappy with the results. (Regular readers already know you can count me among their ranks.) One of the most high-profile battles in that struggle took place at the capitol in South Carolina. There, the Confederate Battle Flag was finally lowered for the last time on July 10th of that year. Now, three years later, the flag is flying again… at least for a few hours. Some sons (and daughters) of the South are raising a temporary...

The removal of offensive monuments took a unique turn in Seattle. Mayor Ed Murray asked a cemetery to remove a Confederate monument erected in 1926 but also requested the removal of a large statue of Vladimir Lenin. From the Seattle Times: The monument, erected in 1926 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Lenin statue are both on private property. Still, Murray said, he believes they should be removed. “Not only do these kinds of symbols represent historic injustices, their existence causes pain among those who themselves or whose family members have been impacted by these atrocities,” Murray...

Just weeks before last year's "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced a new commission to recommend "how to best tell the real story" of the Confederate-era and other statues on Monument Avenue, a tree-lined street known as one of the city's tourist destinations. Then the white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, some 70 miles away. They rallied around a statue of Robert E. Lee that had been slated for removal during an August weekend that turned violent. The next week, Stoney added to the Richmond group's charge: The commission would examine the possible removal or...

Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite is a concert that was headlined by Elvis Presley, and was broadcast live via satellite on January 14, 1973. The concert took place at the Honolulu International Center (HIC) in Honolulu (now known as the Neal S. Blaisdell Center) and aired in over 40 countries across Asia and Europe (who received the telecast the next day, also in primetime). Despite the satellite innovation, NBC did not broadcast an edited version of the concert in the United States until April 4, 1973 because the concert took place the same day as Super Bowl VII. The decision...

Union and Confederate soldiers return to Gettysburg on 50th anniversary of Civil War battle that began 155 years ago tomorrow:    

Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart said that he doesn’t believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, arguing that it was mostly about states’ rights. In a Monday interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Stewart, who recently won the GOP nomination in the Virginia Senate race, said that not all parts of Virginia’s history are “pretty.” But he said he doesn’t associate slavery with the war. “I don’t at all. If you look at the history, that’s not what it meant at all, and I don’t believe that the Civil War was ultimately fought over the issue of...

That was according to my 8th grade history teacher-retired military. The only one who came close was MacArthur. That brings up the politics of the left. If it is true that Lee was a great General isn't it at least worth acknowledging? This tearing down of statues should stop. Educated persons should acknowledge the truth. It's the left that's the intelligent ones as they would have us believe. I see no conservatives standing up for this truth. The Senate GOP candidate in Virginia should start an 'intellectual' conversation on Lee and let the left react. Don't wait for a baiting...

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the Richmond School Board voted 6-1 Monday to rename J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School to Barack Obama Elementary School.

A Richmond, Virginia, elementary school will switch its name from that of a Confederate general to that of the nation's first black President. On Monday, the Richmond school board voted to rename J.E.B. Stuart Elementary as Barack Obama Elementary School. Members of the school's community submitted ideas for a new name and students at the Richmond school, which is 95% African-American, voted among seven choices. The top three finalists were: Barack Obama, Northside and Wishtree. Last year, a school board in Mississippi dropped the name Jefferson Davis, for the president of the Confederacy, in favor of naming an elementary school...

Following General Grant's instructions, General George Meade orders three Corps of his Army of the Potomac to attack the lines of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia near a crossroads named Cold Harbor. The attack is a failure, about 7000 Union soldiers are killed, wounded or captured within a short time. For the three days of combat around Cold Harbor, the Army of the Potomac has lost between 13 - 14 thousand men as casualties. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia has lost between 4500-5000 men.