SCV Video – The Truth of Slavery

3 Responses to SCV Video – The Truth of Slavery

1. Claire says:

   October 22, 2010 at 4:34 pm

   This ought to irritate a few northerners, as well as liberals. Will it be branded as “revisionist” and incorrect, do you think? Although, from what I can gather based on the programming of The History Channel, those who would be appalled by these commercials wouldn’t be tuning in to this particular station anyway.

   Once again, bravo to the gentlemen who made this happen. And thank you, Mr. McGehee, for your wonderful website.
2. Stephen Clay McGehee says:

   October 22, 2010 at 11:35 pm

   Thank you, ma’am – both for the kind words and for commenting.

   I am quite certain that it will be tarred and feathered as “neo confederate revisionism”. That’s OK. We have come to expect that and learned to deal with it. There are vast numbers of people who have already made up their minds, and anything that differs from their preconceived ideas is automatically dismissed. This video is – as the Confederate Colonel project is – aimed at those who are willing to listen. Some will, some won’t, so what.

   One thing that, I think, hurts any factual discussion of the issue of slavery is that virtually everyone who defends The South says something like, “none of my ancestors owned slaves, and they certainly didn’t fight for someone else who owned them.” To listen to these well-meaning folks, you’d think that no one owned slaves. I’m here to say that my ancestors DID own slaves.

   How do I know?

   I have seen their graves in our family cemetery near the top of McGehee Mountain in Clay County, Alabama. Those graves are right beside my ancestors (including William Pelham and Sarah McGehee, whose photo is shown in the sidebar). Those graves are inside the fenced-in cemetery where family is buried – not outside where discarded property would be disposed of.

   I have a photo showing the son of one of the family slaves working in my grandfather’s saw mill many years after the war. He is not some unknown laborer; he has a name. He is identified in the photo as Dave Wilson – Uncle Henry’s Boy. Would he still be working for a family who had mistreated him and his parents? Would he still be working for a family who had split up his family for financial gain? To listen to the Yankee version of history, that would have been his experience, yet the evidence shows otherwise.

   I have started on a post about my family’s history regarding slaves, but I haven’t stumbled across the photos I took of the graves, and I wanted to include that in the post.
3. VA says:

   October 28, 2010 at 2:35 am

   Mr. McGehee – the videos are very good.

   You said above:

   ”One thing that, I think, hurts any factual discussion of the issue of slavery is that virtually everyone who defends The South says something like, “none of my ancestors owned slaves, and they certainly didn’t fight for someone else who owned them.” To listen to these well-meaning folks, you’d think that no one owned slaves. I’m here to say that my ancestors DID own slaves.”

   That is so true. I have read or heard those lines so often. In a way it is an attempt to deflect the blame to other people and to claim innocence, but of course to our foes, whether or not our ancestors owned slaves (and mine did also) we are all adjudged guilty by association. Besides, many people do not know for a fact that none of their ancestors owned slaves.

   I have read some information about my ancestors in the Slave Narratives, and those narratives don’t show many of our forefathers as evil men. They weren’t necessarily seen that way by their slaves.

   By the way, thank you for visiting my blog and leaving comments. Your comments got delayed by being caught in my filter for some reason.

Comments are closed.