Alabama church removes pew honoring Confederate president
An Alabama church has removed a pew honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis, saying the memorial had no place at a time when rebel symbols have been adopted by white supremacists. The pastor of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Robert C. Wisnewski Jr., posted a message on the church website last week saying the wooden pew was dedicated more than 90 years ago at a service featuring a pro-lynching segregationist. After learning of the pew’s history at a recent planning retreat, church leaders discussed it and then voted to remove the pew from the sanctuary and place it in the church archive, he wrote. “Confederate monuments and symbols have increasingly been used by groups that promote white supremacy and are now, to many people of all races, seen to represent insensitivity, hatred, and even evil,” Wisnewski wrote. “The mission of our parish is diametrically opposed to what these symbols have come to mean.” The mostly white church is in Montgomery, where Davis lived briefly before the Confederacy moved its national capital to Richmond, Virginia, in 1861. Church lore maintained that a pew marked with a bronze plaque honoring Davis dated to the start of the Civil War, the pastor wrote. The pew actually wasn’t installed until decades after the war, when whites were trying to maintain control in the South, Wisnewski wrote. Tennessee writer John Trotwood Moore, who supported segregation and opposed an anti-lynching law, spoke at the dedication service in 1925. “Davis was a political figure, not a church figure, nor even a member of the parish. Acting to remove the pew and plaque is the correction of a political act,” the pastor’s message said. A St. John’s Episcopal online history says the congregation dates to the 1830s. Southern churches that supported secession by the slave-holding states met at the congregation’s former building in 1861, and the current church was built after the war ended. A star marks the spot on the steps of Alabama’s Capitol were Davis took the oath as Confederate president. Across the street from the Capitol stands the “First White House of the Confederacy,” where Davis lived for about three months in Montgomery. Republished with permission from the Associated Press
Starbucks chairman questions country’s ‘moral fiber’
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz says the events surrounding a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend have put the “moral fiber” of the country in question. Schultz said at an employee forum in Seattle on Tuesday that he has “profound concern about the lack of character, morality, humanity,” displayed at the rally, according to a recap of the meeting posted on Starbucks’ website. “The moral fiber, the values, and what we as a country have stood for is literally hanging in the abyss,” Schultz told employees. “We are at a critical juncture in American history. That is not an exaggeration. We are at and facing a crucible in which our daily life is being challenged and being questioned about what is right and what is wrong.” A throng of hundreds, mostly white men and many carrying guns, converged on the college town Saturday yelling anti-Semitic and racist slurs and carrying Confederate flags and neo-Nazi and KKK signs. A street fight broke out between them and counter-protesters, and a woman was killed and others injured when a man drove a car into people marching against the rally. After the violence, President Donald Trump was blasted for putting the blame on both sides and saying both sides included “very fine people.” Schultz was not a member of either of Trump’s two panels of business leaders that dissolved Wednesday after several CEOs stepped down in protest of Trump’s comments. And he told his employees Tuesday he’d let the actions and words of the president speak for themselves. “What we witnessed this past weekend … is against every sense of what is right,” he said. “My fear is not only that this behavior is being given permission and license, but its conduct is being normalized to the point where people are no longer hiding their face.” Telling employees he was speaking to them “as an American, as a Jew, as a parent, as a grandparent,” Schultz said it’s hard to remain optimistic about the country’s future “in the midst of such a storm,” but he still is. Starbucks and Schultz have been outspoken on social issues. Republish with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump defends Confederate statues, berates his critics
With prominent Republicans openly questioning his competence and moral leadership, President Donald Trump burrowed deeper into the racially charged debate over Confederate memorials and lashed out at members of his own party in the latest controversy to engulf his presidency. Out of sight but still online, Trump tweeted his defense of monuments to Confederate icons – bemoaning rising efforts to remove them as an attack on America’s “history and culture.” And he berated his critics who, with increasingly sharper language, have denounced his initially slow and then ultimately combative comments on the racial violence at a white supremacist rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump was much quicker Thursday to condemn violence in Barcelona, where more than a dozen people were killed when a van veered onto a sidewalk and sped down a busy pedestrian zone in what authorities called a terror attack. He then added to his expression of support by reviving a debunked legend about a U.S. general subduing Muslim rebels a century ago in the Philippines by shooting them with bullets dipped in pig blood. “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” Trump tweeted. Trump’s unpredictable, defiant and, critics claim, racially provocative behavior has clearly begun to wear on his Republican allies – and also has upset the mother of Heather Heyer, the young woman killed in the Charlottesville violence. Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday that she initially missed the first few calls to her from the White House. But she said “now I will not” talk to the president after a news conference in which Trump equated violence by white supremacists at the rally with violence by those protesting the rally. Heyer was killed when a driver rammed a car into a crowd of demonstrators protesting the white nationalists. Trump found no comfort in his own party, either. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, whom Trump had considered for a Cabinet post, declared Thursday that “the president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to” in dealing with crises. And Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska tweeted, “Anything less than complete & unambiguous condemnation of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK by the @POTUS is unacceptable. Period.” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Trump’s “moral authority is compromised.” Trump, who is known to try to change the focus of news coverage with an attention-grabbing declaration, sought to shift Thursday from the white supremacists to the future of statues. “You can’t change history, but you can learn from it,” he tweeted. “Robert E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish. … “Also the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!” “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” he tweeted. Trump met separately Thursday at his golf club in nearby Bedminster with the administrator of the Small Business Administration and Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Trump also prepared for an unusual meeting Friday at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland with his national security team to discuss strategy for South Asia, including India, Pakistan and the way forward in Afghanistan. Vice President Mike Pence cut short a long-planned Latin America tour to attend. Before the trip to Camp David, Trump tweeted Friday morning that “Radical Islamic Terrorism must be stopped by whatever means necessary!” In a separate tweet, he added that the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement are “on alert & closely watching for any sign of trouble.” Though out of public view for two consecutive days, Trump sought to make his voice heard on Twitter as he found himself increasingly under siege and alone while fanning the controversy over race and politics toward a full-fledged national conflagration. He dissolved two business councils Wednesday after the CEO members began quitting, damaging his central campaign promise to be a business-savvy chief executive in the Oval Office. And the White House said Thursday that it was abandoning plans to form an infrastructure advisory council. Two major charities, the Cleveland Clinic and the American Cancer Society, announced they are canceling fundraisers scheduled for Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, amid the continuing backlash over Trump’s remarks. And the CEO of 21st Century Fox, James Murdoch, has denounced racism and terrorists while expressing concern over Trump’s statements. Murdoch writes that the event in Charlottesville and Trump’s response is a concern for all people. “I can’t believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists.” Murdoch is the son of the company’s co-executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a Trump confidant. Meanwhile, rumblings of discontent from Trump’s staff grew so loud that the White House was forced to release a statement saying that Trump’s chief economic adviser wasn’t quitting. And the president remained on the receiving end of bipartisan criticism for his handling of the aftermath of the Charlottesville clashes. On Thursday, he hit back hard – against Republicans. He accused “publicity-seeking” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina of falsely stating Trump’s position on the demonstrators. He called Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake “toxic” and praised Flake’s potential primary election opponent. Graham said Wednesday that Trump “took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency” between the marching white supremacists and the people who had been demonstrating against them. Flake has been increasingly critical of Trump in recent weeks. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
