Jim Crow and Press Democrat

Last Wednesday the Press Democrat, our county newspaper, printed a comment by its editorial board that defended the naming of two California schools for Gen. Robert E. Lee. They argued that Lee had "opposed the Civil War and rejected slavery but agreed to lead the Confederate army primarily out of devotion to his beloved Virginia." None of that is true, as any current historian would tell you. The Press Democrat, often a kind of middling centrist progressive paper, just repeated the Jim Crow history that was taught in our schools for about 100 years after the South lost the war but won the peace.

To start with, Lee never led the Confederate army. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, a subtle way of opposing the Civil War. Lee supported slavery, which he considered the will of God. He did believe that in the future God might change his mind. Lee was the sort of slave master who had insolent slaves whipped, including at least one black woman. When Lee's overseer refused to whip the woman, Lee sent for a public official who gave her 20 lashes. Lee was a traitor who was glorified by the South as a symbol of Confederate gentility after he'd gotten most of his soldiers killed and then surrendered and went home weeping. Naming public buildings for Lee insults the troops, white and black, who died fighting the last remaining slave nation in Western Civilization. 

What on earth went wrong at the Press Democrat?