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What should South Carolina do with its statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman?
by Cliopatria
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It's not just the Confederate flag that attracts notice when national candidates visit South Carolina. It's also the statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman. The statue reminds us that it's not just Russia (which has relegated statues of the communists to a little-visited park in Moscow) or Spain (which recently outlawed statues of Franco) that has to face its past. So does the United States.
A resolution to remove the statue of Ben Tillman from State House grounds is expected to be formally introduced today in the House of Representatives.
“I just don’t think his statue should be on State House grounds,” said Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, noting Tillman for years made speeches about killing African-Americans who sought their rights.
Some lawmakers don’t expect the resolution to pass but prefer adding a plaque that would explain Tillman’s history accurately.
“A plaque would stand a better chance of passage because it simply tells the truth,” said Rep. Joe Neal, D-Richland. “History is what it is, and there’s an argument that you can’t change it (by removing a statue). But what you can do is tell the truth.”
They still honor Benjamin Tillman down here, which is very much like honoring a malignant tumor. A statue of Tillman, who was known as Pitchfork Ben, is on prominent display outside the statehouse.
Tillman served as governor and U.S. senator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A mortal enemy of black people, he bragged that he and his followers had disenfranchised “as many as we could,” and he publicly defended the murder of blacks.
In a speech on the Senate floor, he declared:
“We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.”
A. It looks like it was an expensive and well-done statue.
B. It was erected 22 years after the man died.
C. Tillman was an important and powerful congressman, nationally known.
D. The statue says a good deal about the people who ruled South Carolina in 1940 as well as Tillman, since it was erected 75 years after Appomattox. That is very imortant. It tells an interesting story which should not be censored.
Therefore, it should be left where it is, with a suitable explanation of who Tillman was and how long his memory was respected. We should not erase all traces of persons who were once important because we have lost respect for them today. That's what the Soviets did when they smoked the purged leaders from their May Day photographs. It is Orwellian, stupid, and deprives not just our own generation but also its successors of unique artifacts which ought to be used to educate people. Today Tillman is a throwback to a different time, but a visit to his statue probably exudes a poignancy to your Columbia visit which, once gone, can never be restored. Those who would abuse the truth should not have authority over historical artifacts, and those who believe in truthful history should be urging the elected representatives of South Carolina to preserve their past.
John L. Godwin -
1/25/2008
As the debate over the Tillman monument illustrates, racism and inequality in the treatment of persons of color remains a vital issue in America. People all over the U.S. today need to do more to come to terms with the nation’s history of racial discrimination—and the effort to put race into perspective is crucial to our nation’s future. For South Carolina, a state that once aspired through such figures as Tillman to actually lead the South and the nation in the maintenance of slavery, the secession from the Union, and after the Civil War, in the assertion of white supremacy and segregation—this history is all the more important. We need to acknowledge that this will be accomplished for the most part only by the painstaking study of history itself—not by the mere re-configuring of public square monuments and memorials. If we don’t encourage the study of history, and through history the whole-hearted effort to come to terms with racism and race, then efforts to reconstruct the public square will be no more than superficial and symbolic gestures. We need to recognize in this election year that the effort to remove the Tillman memorial from the State House grounds could have all the negative implications experienced in similar episodes involving the Confederate flag—which became a seemingly endless, drawn-out flap over symbols, a backlash media frenzy whipped into fury, consuming the public discourse on distracting trivialities, giving wild-eyed yahoos the opportunity to fire off old muskets, parading around in worn out military paraphernalia while the real issues were pushed onto the back pages.
To do that now would be a travesty worthy only of a Tillman, a Bilbo, or a Robert Reynolds!
Is global climate change a problem? Should we act to improve the quality of health care or public education? Did somebody we know start up a war and pour billions of dollars and the public’s trust into the maelstrom?
Yes—the Tillman memorial should be removed from the South Carolina State House and put somewhere—somewhere hopefully where it can remain visible, controversial, and an ever-living reminder of why South Carolinians and all Southerners and the rest should do more to study, reflect on, and come to terms with a history that too few will ever fully comprehend.
But let’s save it for 2009, shall we?
Richard Williams -
1/25/2008
I don't necessarily disagree Tim, and Tillman's case is rather extreme, but this becomes subjective in many cases and, again, puts us on a very slippery slope.
Tim Lacy -
1/25/2008
We memorialize folks who views transcend their times, or who represent something, on the whole, to which we should all aspire. When one persons foibles outnumber their strengths, we don't normally memorialize them. - TL
Tim Lacy -
1/25/2008
If Tillman had repudiated his past, we could sacralize him as we do Lincoln. Did Tillman disavow his racism? If so, we could look him as we do Malcolm X. - TL
Tim Lacy -
1/25/2008
Ditto. - TL
Tim Lacy -
1/25/2008
...or get rid of it. There ought to be a museum in the U.S. for all things formerly and wrongly monumentalized but now abandoned due to ethical progress. - TL
Richard Williams -
1/25/2008
Tillman's comments and attitudes are despicable. However, once you start this, you are on the proverbial slippery slope. Are we going to contextualize statues of ALL Americans who held views that would today be considered racist? Washington, Jefferson, et al, Lee, Jackson and, yes, Lincoln.
The place to discuss these issues is the classroom, books, articles, and publications. Americans are intelligent enough to know that most all 18th, 19th, and early 20th century Americans held views that are both offensive and ill-informed.
Evan Bennett -
1/25/2008
But the current people of South Carolina did not erect this statue, and it is current South Carolinians who are debating in the legislature about taking it down. Certainly they have the right to remove things foisted on them by earlier generations.
As for Lincoln, his racism has been dealt with again and again (LaWanda Cox, Barbara Fields, et. al.). He did, however, do that little thing of making emancipation the aim of the war. (He then, of course, had the quasi-blessing of an early death to leave his legacy unsullied by later changes of heart a la Horace Greeley.) To judge Lincoln's comments against Tillman's words or, especially, Lincoln's achievements versus Tillman's, clearly shows we're talking apples and oranges here.
The funny thing is many people in S.C. probably had no idea who Tillman was or what he stood for until this brought it back into the open. And then once someone questioned the wisdom of having an anti-democratic demagogue (do we still use that term for Tillman and his ilk?) on the state's front lawn, the knee-jerk "heritage" reaction flies up at supersonic speed.
HNN -
1/24/2008
[HNN EDITOR: THIS COMMENT WAS SENT TO HNN VIA EMAIL BY Catherine Fleming Bruce. She "has worked in public cultural institutions for the past 20 years. She is currently completing doctoral work at the University of South Carolina, College of Mass Communications And Information Studies. She owns the Visanska-Starks House, which will be featured on an HGTV historical sites program this coming fall."]
Who has proposed that statue be removed?
House Representatives Todd Rutherford and Leon Howard introduced bill H.4496 “directing the office of general services of the State Budget and Control Board to remove from the grounds of the State House in Columbia the statue of Benjamin Ryan Tillman”. The Bill is currently in the House Committee on the Judiciary, now referred to its Constitutional Laws Sub-committee.
Why should statue be removed?
Benjamin “Pitchfork” Tillman has been described as “one of the most racist people commemorated on the American landscape.” His virulence against Blacks is well known and solidly documented in government and historical documents.
What are the alternatives to removal?
Interpretative signage by historians
Historian Marcia G. Synnott supported this alternative in her 2007 case study of the South Carolina State House and Grounds. Her preference, rather than “toppling” statues, is to revise their interpretation. First through official websites, then through plaques or markers placed near the monument that carries a revised interpretation that will place their words or actions into context. Finally, the revision should be included in assigned textbooks in South Carolina history courses. She asserts that it is the task of historians and scholars to provide this context and interpretation.
Problems with this alternative
While this is a worthy suggestion, monuments are placed not only to memorialize the individual, but to underscore values that communities hold in high esteem. No ‘editing’ that could be proposed by a side marker would be sufficient to counterbalance the magnitude of the monument’s enduring presence. In addition, past efforts have shown that the revision alternative provides no escape from controversy….there are many examples of such efforts that have created just as much public outcry from various sides as removal would.
Markers vs. removal also represents opposite outcomes. Re-interpretive commentary near the statue of Saddam Hussein may have conveyed one message, but the toppling of that statue conveyed another….the rejection of an old value system.
Examples of Removal, or “toppling”
Reagan’s words about the Berlin wall
In Ronald Reagan’s famous remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, he spoke of Mr. Gorbachev and ‘new policies of reform and openness’, as signs that the then Soviets were ‘coming to understand the importance of freedom’. Reagan further asked, “Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it?”
He went on, in his famous quote, to call for ‘the one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of peace and freedom’
Reagan called upon Gorbachev, “If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Reagan demanded not to revise, reinterpret, or explain the wall, but to tear it down. He stated that the hour of his demand represented a moment of hope for the embrace of a new set of values.
Confederate flag removal from the state house
Although the Confederate flag on the South Carolina State House grounds is still a contentious issue, its removal from the dome of the State House is a form of toppling. Sufficient public sentiment about its negative meaning, and the circumstances under which it was placed on the State House dome, made it clear that removal, not reinterpretation, was the order and imperative of the day.
Removal of name from Highway
The South Carolina House had to pass a bill to remove the name of former Comptroller and Lieutenant Governor Earle Morris from a highway after he was convicted of securities fraud.
What was the context of monument placement?
The context and intent of a monument’s placement also contributes to the values it represents, and should be figured into decisions for removal. Tillman died in 1918. The statue was erected on the state house grounds in 1940, more than 20 years later, ‘by the Legislature, the Democratic Party, and private citizens of South Carolina.’ What was the impetus to erect this statue on the grounds? What was the social, racial and political climate that led segments of the community to create a public memorial celebrating this particular individual?
At this time, federal actions that threatened southern institutional racism were taking place. The United States Supreme Court decision on Smith v. Allwright invalidated many white primaries, setting the stage for the Black vote. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had also created an Executive Order requiring integration of the Naval Shipyard in Charleston. Burnet R. Maybank, South Carolina’s governor during the placement of the Tillman monument, and a prominent democrat, fiercely opposed opening the polls to blacks, warning that “white southerners will not accept these interferences, and that “we of the South will maintain our political and social institutions as we believe to be in the best interest of our people’. Maybank also opposed the shipyard integration, insisting that “every effort be made to separate the races completely”.
Embracing values of unity
Senator Barack Obama stated in the Reno Gazette Journal that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were political leaders who changed the trajectory of America in a fundamentally different direction, “because the country was ready for it”.
Are the people of South Carolina ready to be “put on a fundamentally different path”, away from past symbols of racism? With this bill, Todd Rutherford and Leon Howard suggest that they are ready. It will be up to the other legislators and citizens of this state to decide that they, too, are ready for change: the revolutionary perspective of choosing unity and repudiating racism. Removal of the Tillman statue is a call for ratifying and embracing the positive values of justice and equality in our state.
Racism’s continuing impact on the South and South Carolina
One scholar’s quote provides a perspective I most agree with: “People struggling to make a new world from the ashes of Confederate defeat needed a better friend than Ben Tillman.“ Similarly, South Carolinians of the twenty-first century, who are struggling to embrace a message of change in an environment of global turmoil and political and economic challenges, need to reject altogether the politics of division and hatred that Pitchfork Tillman represents. His statue and his hatred require elimination and not re-interpretation or explanation.
But removal of the statue itself, a decision that would come as the result of public sentiment, moral courage and legislative action, as great a message of triumph as that would be, would be but a beginning. Just as more solvent countries pledge to help emerging democracies make the transition, our entire community must continue to eliminate all the false narratives that embrace hatred rather than unity.
Clifton Palmer McLendon -
1/24/2008
On the idea of interpreting statues/adding history book narratives to reveal "the ugly facts" of the careers of John C. Calhoun and Ben Tillman:
I wonder if you think that such attention should be given to *any* public figure who expressed his contempt for an ethnic group, or if you have singled out Messrs. Calhoun and Tillman for special treatment.
Consider a public figure who made these statements:
"We have also decided that the negro shall not be a citizen within our limits; that he shall not vote, hold office, or exercise any political rights."
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
I wonder if you would want the websites for the man who made those statements revised, and a plaque emphasizing his white supremacist statements and actions placed near memorials to him, and a revised interpretation placed in school history books -- or whether you would prefer to operate by a double standard.
Both of the statements were made by Abraham Lincoln. (More information can be had at www.nps.gov.)
Clifton Palmer McLendon -
1/23/2008
FIRST: The people of South Carolina have the unquestionable right to erect a statue to anybody they choose, and nobody else has any standing to complain.
SECOPND: I wonder why anyone would complain that South Carolina has a statue honoring a man who “never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men” and “never believed him [the negro] to be the equal of the white man” -- when our nation’s capital has a huge monument honoring a man who said, among other things:
we have also decided that the negro shall not be a citizen within our limits; that he shall not vote, hold office, or exercise any political rights
and
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race
That man was Abraham Lincoln. The two quotes above were made in September of 1858. More may be had at www.nps.gov.
Marcia Synnott -
1/23/2008
I do not agree with the "toppling" of all statues to Ben Tillman and John C. Calhoun (See James Loewen's _Lies Across America_). But these statues must now be interpreted to reveal the ugly facts of the men's careers. This can be done by revising the official Tillman and Calhoun websites in South Carolina and by placing a new plaque near each statue that emphasizes their white supremacist statements and actions. School history textbooks should also include the revised interpretations.
Steve Kantrowitz -
1/23/2008
Tillman has long since lost the war to persuade Americans to accept his white supremacist theory of history and politics, but he continues to win the battle of perceptions in the sense that many people continue to see him as the champion of ordinary white men. As I demonstrate in my book, "Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy" (Chapel Hill, 2000), Tillman celebrated the "common white men" in public but privately expressed disdain for most white men. Many white men at the time understood this. Indeed, Tillman's constitutional convention of 1895 -- which effectively disfranchised most black South Carolinian voters -- was opposed by many poor and middling white men precisely because they understood he was willing to sacrifice their suffrage rights in order to curtail the potential power of the state's black majority. Tillman was able to pose as the friend of ordinary white men because he and his allies had, through decades of violence, intimidation, and fraud, made it impossible for more honest champions of ordinary white or black Carolinians to take part in the state's political life.
Thomas R. Cox -
1/23/2008
To focus on Tillman's racism, which was very deep and very real, presents a distorted image of the man. He got his nickname, after all, not from anything to do with race, but because he promised to go off to Washington and stick conservative President Grover Cleveland in his fat old ribs" with a pitchfork. In other words, he was a flamboyant populist champion of the common (white) man who shared the mores of his time and place, but whose demagogic rhetoric should not be taken too literally. Arguably, the most important South Carolinian since John C. Calhoun, we would do a disservice to him and to history if, using current yardsticks, we relegate him to some obscure location off the capital grounds. I despise his views on race and recognize that we are still paying the price for what such views yielded, but I cannot see any virtue in denying our past in the name of current views of political correctness. Leave the statue--perhaps with a reworded plaque--and use it to educate. Let's not pretend there are no warts and cancers in our nation's past.
John Beatty -
1/23/2008
Given the prevailing attitudes towards history in the popular press (also known to this forum "willful ignorance and distortion") why bother to do anything? The media and their supporters (and that's everyone who buys anything from anywhere) spent more time on the death of a twentysomething actor than a titanic economic readjustment just this morning. Spending any energy on some obscure governor from a state usually noted only for secession and political primaries is not worth it.
James W Loewen -
1/23/2008
Pitchfork Ben cannot be left on the state capitol grounds without that placement representing not just remembering, but also honoring him. But he is history, so put him in the museum, along with a full label telling what he did, which regarding social class was not all bad, but regarding race was.
Rod Ellis MacLean -
1/23/2008
Given that this was a rather common simpathy in that place at that time, why was he given a statue in the first place?
