“It cannot be accidental that a group rallying to protect a statue that promotes the idea of the “Lost Cause” would stage a rally on a spot based on the myth of the Jeffersonian ideal. The University of Virginia proudly proclaims its link to Jefferson, yet it rarely deals with the complexities of this legacy. This is not only the fact that Jefferson owned slaves, but also that his ideas were often elusive, opaque, and contradictory, leading different schools of thought to use Jefferson to promote all kinds of different arguments, including white supremacy.”
— Ralph Eubanks gets it right. (Though, as he knows, it is not just the South where history goes unreckoned.)
(posted from Facebook)
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