Something else in SC that needs to come down...Ben Tillman statue.

[Triana]

Ben Tillman was a racist, terrorist, and murderer: It's time to take down his statue

. . .

Thirteen years after the end of Reconstruction, the Upstate-led Agrarian Revolt unseated the pro-business Bourbon Democrats, who represented the interest of Charleston's aristocracy, and disenfranchised black voters and established Jim Crow rule. The man who lead the revolt was Ben Tillman.

Modern historians generally regard Tillman as a fire-breathing racist, opportunist, and demagogue who played on the worst of human nature to promote himself to the highest levels of state government. But to Oliphant, Tillman was a hero and a reformer: "Tillman ... was a great man," she wrote. After leading the white populist uprising in South Carolina, Tillman rammed through the constitution of 1895. "It forbade marriage between whites and Negroes and prohibited mixed schools," she reported with satisfaction. Through poll taxes and terror, African Americans were barred from the ballot box, or, as Oliphant euphemistically put it, "Tillman's ideas prevailed, and Negroes were discouraged by various means from voting." She had only one criticism of Tillman: "The great blot on Tillman's career was his treatment of Wade Hampton, the state's great hero."

. . .

After the Hamburg Massacre, Tillman was proclaimed a hero by a good portion of the white population and he began a career as an agrarian reformer and "man of the people" in addition to being a champion of the state's pro-lynching law and voter intimidation.

. . .

As governor, Tillman had the legislature call a convention to draft a new constitution in 1895 for the purpose of disenfranchising the last black voters in the state. Tillman always considered this his greatest achievement.

Tillman went to the U.S. Senate in 1895, where he remained until his death in 1918. He used the Senate floor and the Chatauqua circuit to become the nation's loudest and most famous proponent of white supremacy, or in his own words, "preaching to those people the gospel of white supremacy according to Tillman."

Nearly a century after Tillman's death, we understand that he was no hero. And we are free to discuss his life and his place in South Carolina history in a way that previous generations could not. Today we know him as a murderer and a terrorist, a proud white supremacist who made war on the people of this state. I recently created a website, downwithtillman.com, which, as the name implies, advocates the removal of the Tillman statue from the front of the Statehouse. Those are hallowed grounds. They should be reserved for consecrating the noblest of our citizens, the proudest moments of our history. Clearly Tillman does not measure up.

THE REST:

http://m.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ben-tillman-was-a-racist-terrorist-and-murderer-its-time-to-take-down-his-statue/Content?oid=4857402

[ann---]

1. Seems that

SC just loves paying tribute to racists. How can the blacks survive there
now? I would not want to stay.

[MineralMan]

2. Here's my comment:

[SwankyXomb]

3. +a googolplex!