Good, but not perfect

Having recently read a biography of President Ulysses S. Grant, who for a short time protected Black citizens from the terrorism that canceled their civil rights after the Civil War, I am freshly disgusted that so many deny that slavery and racism helped shape our country. It was a founding principle in Virginia, where our country was born.

The Klan and other militias were as bad as ISIS in oppressing Blacks after the war. Grant sent troops to defend Blacks, but his political supporters soon lost the will to do so. They decided outlawing slavery was enough and that Southerners should be allowed to “manage their Negroes” rather than playing whack-a-mole with the Klan.

Maybe, after the war’s carnage, Northerners simply tired of the drumbeat of reports about the torture and murder of hundreds of Blacks and their white defenders and thousands more terrorized. The focus shifted to war on Native Americans.

My parents were kind, loving, don’t-rock-the-boat racists in a racist town and state. I grew up amid righteous indignation over Sherman’s destructive march through Georgia; Reconstruction; reformers called carpetbaggers and scalawags; Blacks exercising political power; and outside agitators and communists defending Blacks’ rights. That racist propaganda remains ingrained. Our students should hear the convincing historical evidence that the post-war reforms were necessary and beneficial, to the extent they were allowed.

The 1619 Project documents election of the first general assembly in the Virginia Colony to introduce “just Laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people.” That same year a shipload of enslaved Africans was sold in Virginia. It was no big deal then. Too many Americans still consider it no big deal. It is a big deal.

My parents were good people. Not perfect. America’s a good country. Not perfect.

HOWELL MEDDERS Fayetteville