All tagged confederate statue

Colleen and the Statue is Volume 5 in my series, Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle. At first I considered making the title, Colleen and the “Confederate” Statue. However, that would have limited what I wanted to ask to the controversy de jour: “Should statues of Confederate generals and personages be removed?” I wanted to address a larger question: “Should the deceased ‘Great Men’ of history who committed obvious atrocities be given one last chance to repent?”

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Colleen and the Statue is Volume 5 in my series, Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle. It’s apropos for the times we’re in. May-June 2020 will be remembered as times of protests, marches, and questioning of the fundamental values of American culture and society—brought on by the senseless murder of yet another black man at the hands of heartless white police officers. Usually, opinions on the matter are divided into two distinct camps: white and black, with each side giving an opposing, contradictory version of what happened and its meaning. But what if there were a third opinion? What if what took place in Baltimore to George Floyd had taken place under a statue of Robert E. Lee, and the statue could talk?

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I have determined that one of my coming novels in the series, Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle, will deal with the issue of whether to remove the Confederate statue from the central park of my fictitious city of Mackenzie, which is modeled after Amarillo. At present, there is an absolutely incredible number of such monuments, which are scattered throughout the former Confederate states. The central theme of my novel will be: Is it right to honor a soldier who served in the wrong army? That is, even if the soldiers of the Confederate States of America were heroes and valiant soldiers, were they mistaken in fighting for what became known as the “Lost Cause”?

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