The SCV's new museum

SCV's official response:

Letter sent to the editor of the Smithsonian Institute's magazine.
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Mr. Caruso,

I am the Executive Director of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I am also a recently retired Marine combat officer. Our esteemed 501c3 non-profit organization was formed in 1896 from the soldiers who fought for the Confederacy and we have a good reputation not only with the federal government, but in our state and local communities. Our members are honorable men who do great deeds in our communities and a great many of our members are veterans of the United States who have served this nation in war.

This past weekend, we broke ground on a new museum dedicated to the Confederate soldier. This is our charge and mission to do so. There is nothing controversial about that. I will point out that even the Smithsonian Institute has multiple museums dedicated to a particular perspective such as the African American History and Culture (quoting “through an African American lens”), the American Indian Museum (again quoting from the Smithsonian website “advancing knowledge and understanding of all tribes”), the Asian Pacific American Center, and numerous affiliated museums of like kind. We see this as positive history designed to look at history from many different angles. History is all inclusive and museums are designed to provide educational venues by which people can come, view items, read facts, and learn. We don’t always have to agree on everything, because history is not about only one perspective. According to the Smithsonian, “The Smithsonian Institution was created by Congress in 1846 as "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge."” Museums are not propaganda institutions. By the way, it was Jefferson Davis who was the impetus for your institution.

Yesterday Danny Lewis wrote an “article” in the Smithsonian Magazine entitled ‘A Controversial Museum Tries to Revive the Myth of the Confederacy’s “Lost Cause”’. How does he know this? Who told him that was what this museum is about? I take great offense to the tone, assumptions, misrepresentations, and the magnitude of inaccuracies in it.

First of all, I have not spoken to Mr. Lewis at all on this museum and neither has my staff. I have no emails or missed calls from him. If he is a professional, isn’t this part of journalism? Not even the name of the museum is correct in his article. The square footage is wrong. The organization’s intent of the museum is wrong. The cost of the museum is wrong. In reality, Mr. Lewis read a local article with hosts of inaccuracies, read a propagandist’s blog, and then went to town trashing our organization without doing any real homework himself. Is this acceptable to the Smithsonian?

I have great respect for the Smithsonian Institute and what it is supposed to represent. I am an institutional man and you probably are as well. The foundations of any institution can only support it for so long based upon how strong its foundations are. I would be ashamed if this kind of propaganda came forth from my organization. If the Smithsonian truly is an educational institution, this “article” is unworthy of the institution it represents. If this is what the Smithsonian is dipping to, then it begins the slow fall of its credibility as an objective institution.

I noted that Mr. Lewis states that he “focuses on stories from a Health/Science bent.” I recommend him keep to this rather than delve into areas he has no understanding and relies on parroting other people’s lopsided sentiments. This “article” is not balanced at all and is unworthy of the Smithsonian.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...evive-myth-confederacys-lost-cause-180960820/

Semper Fidelis!

Michael L. Landree
LtCol, USMC, Ret.
Executive Director
Sons of Confederate Veterans
 
Lt. Col. Landree discredits his own standing when he addresses his letter to the "Smithsonian Institute." The name is Smithsonian Institution. Sloppy, especially in that it is the official response from the SCV.
 
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Very interesting that the Smithsonian would engage in criticizing another organization's museum, however slanted their view might be (and I'm not saying it is), and that the SCV couldn't get the name right in their official response. Why does the Smithsonian feel the need to judge others' museums ? Why not just concentrate on their mission ? Are they now the museum police ? Frankly, it bothers me a bit that they'd let themselves be associated with such commentary (and I'm a member) even if it's correct.

I'd have to actually see the SCV museum before I'd comment on it but I can guess that they might be reacting in part to what happened to the old Museum of the Confederacy. I have seen both of that museum's installations and they now have a noticeable slant toward black civil rights history, especially the one at Tredegar (even my wife commented on that and she's not a Civil War buff at all). So maybe they just want to re-create the old museum and focus on the Confederacy and the views of its advocates. It's their money.
 
Very interesting that the Smithsonian would engage in criticizing another organization's museum, however slanted their view might be (and I'm not saying it is), and that the SCV couldn't get the name right in their official response. Why does the Smithsonian feel the need to judge others' museums ? Why not just concentrate on their mission ? Are they now the museum police ? Frankly, it bothers me a bit that they'd let themselves be associated with such commentary (and I'm a member) even if it's correct.

I'd have to actually see the SCV museum before I'd comment on it but I can guess that they might be reacting in part to what happened to the old Museum of the Confederacy. I have seen both of that museum's installations and they now have a noticeable slant toward black civil rights history, especially the one at Tredegar (even my wife commented on that and she's not a Civil War buff at all). So maybe they just want to re-create the old museum and focus on the Confederacy and the views of its advocates. It's their money.

What outrages me most about the PC turn the MOC has taken is that the founders would obviously be against it since it violates everything they were trying to achieve.
 
Why does the Smithsonian feel the need to judge others' museums ? Why not just concentrate on their mission ? Are they now the museum police ? Frankly, it bothers me a bit that they'd let themselves be associated with such commentary (and I'm a member) even if it's correct).

John Winn,

If only historical proven fact could be contained in one museum, then I would agree with your point above.

I have no problem with the concerns pointed out in the article over the SCV's idea of a museum. The SCV has a spotty record at best with history.

Unionblue
 
What outrages me most about the PC turn the MOC has taken is that the founders would obviously be against it since it violates everything they were trying to achieve.

We had a lengthy thread about that I think and I do remember reading a lot of commentary by people who were outraged when the name and focus got changed. The SCV was particularly unhappy and that's why I think that may be a big part of why they're opening their own museum. I don't know how the money works but it does seem odd that the MOC could just reinvent itself into something that isn't what the founders wanted. I suppose maybe they just weren't getting the traffic they needed to stay open. It does seem somebody made the conscious choice to alter their message so as to appeal to folks who don't care much about the Confederacy per se.

While I can certainly agree that slavery needs to be included in any history of the Civil War my wife and I both thought the Tredegar museum went over the top on the civil rights focus. It seemed to us that most of that would be more appropriate in a museum on black history but that's just our opinion. And I'll also just add that my parents were very active in the civil rights movement, moved to a different state because of it, and took some serious risks to promote it so please don't jump on me as denigrating the movement's history; I'm not. I just don't think stuff about Martin Luther King really fits in a museum about the Civil War. It seemed like pandering to me and I can see an outfit like the SCV feeling like opening their own museum and pandering in another direction.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see how the SCV museum makes out. It may have considerably lower overhead so might be able to do OK with fewer visitors.
 
John Winn,

If only historical proven fact could be contained in one museum, then I would agree with your point above.

I have no problem with the concerns pointed out in the article over the SCV's idea of a museum. The SCV has a spotty record at best with history.

Unionblue

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean about historical proven fact being contained in one museum but to be clear, I'm not commenting on or defending the views of the SCV. Rather, I'm just saying I don't think the Smithsonian should be in the business of attacking other museums no matter how slanted and inaccurate such might be. It's not in their mission and they should just make sure their museums do as good a job as possible and leave it at that. And I say that as a long-time member of the Smithsonian.

You, of course, are entitled to differ.
 
Very interesting that the Smithsonian would engage in criticizing another organization's museum, however slanted their view might be (and I'm not saying it is), and that the SCV couldn't get the name right in their official response. Why does the Smithsonian feel the need to judge others' museums ? Why not just concentrate on their mission ? Are they now the museum police ? Frankly, it bothers me a bit that they'd let themselves be associated with such commentary (and I'm a member) even if it's correct.

I'd have to actually see the SCV museum before I'd comment on it but I can guess that they might be reacting in part to what happened to the old Museum of the Confederacy. I have seen both of that museum's installations and they now have a noticeable slant toward black civil rights history, especially the one at Tredegar (even my wife commented on that and she's not a Civil War buff at all). So maybe they just want to re-create the old museum and focus on the Confederacy and the views of its advocates. It's their money.

As the premiere museum in the United States they have an obligation to speak out when a national organization purports to have a "museum" that perpetuates historical lies instead of actual history. Museums at that level are professionally run entities, and professions have standards of excellence that should be maintained.
 
As the premiere museum in the United States they have an obligation to speak out when a national organization purports to have a "museum" that perpetuates historical lies instead of actual history. Museums at that level are professionally run entities, and professions have standards of excellence that should be maintained.

I see nothing in their mission statement that says anything about having such an obligation. Here's what they say:
http://www.si.edu/about/mission

If you read my comments I am not supporting the views of the SCV nor am I commenting on the focus of their museum. I'm merely saying I don't think the Smithsonian ought to be doing attack pieces on other museums no matter how incorrect such may be. It's not in the Institution's charter and they should just do the professional job the members pay them to do and leave out the commentary.

If you are a member then you can cancel out my vote by disagreeing with me when you write.
 
I wish they would add these documents to their museum:

"We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection." - South Carolina

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun." - Mississippi

"The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." - Georgia

"Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union... She was received into the confederacy...as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery — the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits — a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

In all the non-slave-holding States… the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party… based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color — a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States

all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…" - Texas
 
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