29/06: American Progress
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
History is not always a downhill slide; in the U.S. we have some progress we can take pride in.
A decade ago or so, I agreed to serve as a “room dad” for one of our sons elementary classes. In December we made a field trip to Fort Parker, near Groesbeck, Texas. About the time we finished touring the fort it began to rain. Needing a covered area for lunch, we hopped back aboard our busses and took our sack-lunches a short distance north to the Old Confederate Reunion Grounds near Mexia. For those of you from farther north, for decades after the Civil War Confederate veterans and families would gather for annual celebrations. Eventually many counties in the South built Reunion Grounds that included permanent facilities. The Old Confederate Reunion Grounds near Mexia has a large covered pavilion, perfect for our needs.
We arrived, handed out the lunches, and the kids exploded off the busses, running to the pavilion. White and black and brown, there they were eating together, talking together, running together, under a roof built to shelter partisans of the Lost Cause: descendents of slaves playing with descendents of slave owners and Confederate troops.
Sometimes things do get better. Have a Happy Independence Day.
A decade ago or so, I agreed to serve as a “room dad” for one of our sons elementary classes. In December we made a field trip to Fort Parker, near Groesbeck, Texas. About the time we finished touring the fort it began to rain. Needing a covered area for lunch, we hopped back aboard our busses and took our sack-lunches a short distance north to the Old Confederate Reunion Grounds near Mexia. For those of you from farther north, for decades after the Civil War Confederate veterans and families would gather for annual celebrations. Eventually many counties in the South built Reunion Grounds that included permanent facilities. The Old Confederate Reunion Grounds near Mexia has a large covered pavilion, perfect for our needs.
We arrived, handed out the lunches, and the kids exploded off the busses, running to the pavilion. White and black and brown, there they were eating together, talking together, running together, under a roof built to shelter partisans of the Lost Cause: descendents of slaves playing with descendents of slave owners and Confederate troops.
Sometimes things do get better. Have a Happy Independence Day.
A Waco Farmer wrote:
One observation (and I hope I am not waving my Rebel flag here): I would suggest, based on what I think I know about Mart, Texas, that the descendants of slaves and white confederate war veterans far out-stripped the number of slave-holder descendants on that particular field trip.