Tuesday night, the Northampton Board of Supervisors, voted to remove the Confederate Statue from the County Green.
The monument has been in place for over 100 years.
Oliver Bennett said he would not compromise on the removal. He stated that the presence of the statue glorified the inhumane treatment of African-Americans.
The most unstable comment of the evening came from Supervisor John Coker, who stated that following the January 6th attack of the Capitol building, the Confederate monument needed to be removed immediately.
For History Notes of Northampton’s role in the Civil War see:
Ten-Minute History of the Civil War on the Shore
Charles Landis: Notes on Shore History…the Civil War
More than Glory: African-American Civil War Soldiers of the ESVA
Paul Plante says
I’m so sick of hearing about the “inhumane treatment of African-Americans” especially from someone like Oliver Bennett who has done quite well for himself here in America, thank you very much!
If Oliver Bennett wants to know about “inhumane treatment of African-Americans,” study African history and you will see it in spades, because it was BLACK FOLKS in Africa who captured and sold other BLACK FOLKS as slaves, because BLACK PEOPLE are the ones who treat each other inhumanely.
BUT FOR BLACK FOLKS in Africa selling BLACK FOLKS as slaves to the Arabs and Portuguese, and good Queen Anne of England, there wouldn’t have been a BLACK slave here in America.
Suck it up, Oliver and quit your whining and blaming all your problems on the white folks – YOU BLACK DUDES BROUGHT IT ON YOURSELVES!
You didn’t treat each other as human being, so you are surprised nobody else did as well?
What a ******* fool you are!
Cheryl says
Amen, well said!!
Rene says
It dies not change the fact that this human. Beings were treated like rats by white Americans that think they are a better race…..imagine f the would have treated the rest of this people like normal white Americans that do not belong here cause they are all rejects from Europe …..Ask the original owners of this lands.they ones you or your ancestor mutilated, rape and abuse their kids and stole their land. And you gave they nerve to say that nonsense….you have a lot of nerves….you are just as immigrant as they Afro Americans and the ones trying to como in…..you racist piece of unwanted human being
Scotiagirl says
Rene, is English your second language? Or is it that you are just a very angry person?
Paul Plante says
Wow, Rene, you sure are on a roll there, dude!
That’s quite a spiel.
Do you have any idea of what any of it means?
MJM says
Whether or not you think folks that write in here are racist or not has nothing to do with whether or not this statue should be removed Rene. What the majority of people in Northampton County think has nothing to do with it either. The supervisors have decided county employees don’t deserve a raise but people like the good Dr. should be listened to and his bad dreams and memories are more important to attend to. So congratulations to the whiners for harming the present and doing absolutely nothing to resolve any issues from the past. Destroying, forgetting, and rewriting history simply gives the world more of an opportunity to repeat it’s mistakes. The good Dr. and his supporters have never learned a darned thing. Harmed by a statue. Really ?
Paul Plante says
Rene, you clearly are a dude with some real serious erudition going for you here, which is becoming more and more uncommon in America as people in the younger generations are made stupid by a supposed “education” system that couldn’t train a dog to come to heel, and by the way, thank your speechwriter because I like that line about Oliver Bennett being treated like a rat; with your talk about the Native Americans mutilating white folks and tomahawking and scalping their children, the ones not made slaves, so you certainly must remember the night of Aug. 4, 1689, and the famous Lachine Massacre when the Iroquois came with the summer storm and plunged the sleeping village of Lachine into a bath of blood.
As that story is told, the night of Aug. 4, 1689, was hot and close.
The good people of Lachine, before retiring for the night, studied the black clouds above them and averred there would he trouble before morning.
Perhaps they shuddered at the same time, for in their minds there was always something analogous between storm signals and the black cloud of fear which hung over all of New France.
The storm broke some hours before dawn.
It swept across Lake St. Louis with claps of thunder to announce its coming and almost in a moment there was a pounding of hail stones on the snug little houses.
Householders roused themselves and stumbled about in the dark to see that everything was closed.
Some of them were up and about, therefore, when there came to their ears a sound foreign to the sharp cracking of the thunder and infinitely more terrible: the high, maniacal screech of the Iroquois battle cry.
The lane running crookedly between the rows of houses was filled with naked warriors armed to the teeth, their heads close shaved, their faces smeared with ceremonial paint.
Fifteen hundred warriors had taken advantage of the storm to cross Lake St. Louis and had arrived on the heels of the first downpour of hail.
It was said later by some of the survivors that many of the heads of families, knowing that help could not reach them in time, turned their guns first on their wives and children to save them from a much worse fate, and that when the maddened invaders broke into the houses they found that death had been before them in the dark.
Those who died in this way and even the many who were butchered in the first onslaught, were lucky.
After a few minutes of indiscriminate slaughter, during which men and women were cut down by knives and tomahawks and the brains of children were dashed out against doorframes and bedposts, the attacking braves gave thought to a still greater pleasure than this orgy of vengeful killing.
In all the villages of the Finger Lakes the stakes had been raised and the fagots piled.
Prisoners must be provided for the nights of torture which always followed victory.
The people of Lachine, devout, kindly and industrious, must supply this need of victims.
The most terrible of sights is a community after it has been ravaged by fire and sword.
At Lachine the horror had been multiplied.
Unable to wait for a first taste of torture, the Iroquois warriors had set up stakes and with unwonted haste (it was customary to prolong the victim’s end as long as possible) had done to death some of the prisoners.
When the belated rescue party reached the scene, they found the stakes still standing, all of them tenanted by broken bodies which had once been men and women.
None of the most revolting rites had been neglected, even to the slashing from the bodies of strips of flesh to be enjoyed later in cannibalistic rites.
An effort had been made to destroy the houses by fire, and some of them still smoldered.
To enter any of those which were still standing was to suffer a shock never to be forgotten; mothers and their children had been dragged from their pitiably useless hiding places and killed near the hearths, where tidy brooms and clean copper utensils still occupied their usual places.
Some of those people who were cooked and eaten by the Native Americans I believe were my relatives.
Do you think I should be eligible for some kind of reparations?
VA Patriot says
Perhaps a good read for those in Northampton County who can still read and have critical thinking skills would be Sinclair Lewis’ novel “It Can’t Happen Here”. Read it, you might get enlightened about what is really happening in America before its too late.
Paul Plante says
A great reference!
Have it in my library, in fact.
Personally, after the incredible assault on our democracy in this country by the Democrats on and after 6 January 2021 where the Democrats are now trying to deny the inhabitants, American citizens, of some 177 congressional districts representation in the House of Representatives on the specious and fraudulent grounds that those Republicans they are trying to bar from the House of Representatives, which by the way they can do according to their own rules, which are the only rules that apply to them, given their immunity from our laws, were engaged in sedition, insurrection, and a coup, I think we have gone past an inflection point, which is what makes that book so relevant today.
The Satires of Juvenal would do, as well, of course.
Rene says
Leave politics out of the way…..ignorance is everywhere especiallly around all you European decent peolpe
Paul Plante says
How can we possibly leave politics out of the way when we have people like yourself and the Democrats jamming politics down our throats each and every day and at least twice on Sunday?
If you want politics left out, then how come you are bringing politics in?
And ignorance abounds because the education system teaches ignorance …
Ignorant people are a lot easier to exploit and manipulate than are people like myself who can think.
And what was your take on Juvenal?
Do you think he had it right?
Or not?
MJM says
The whiners are winning, and teaching people to whine more. Is it because dramas are popular on t.v. and people have nothing better to do ? I saw in the paper where a suggestion has been made for this statue to be moved to a cemetery, as that would be a more apropriate location. One can only hope that there is a cemetery right across the street from the Drs. office, or perhaps along the roads he travels every day to get there. Placed prominently, and right along the roadside, he could see this granite piece every day, and he can learn another valuable lesson from it every day. Be careful of what you wish for.
Emily Dickenson says
Utterly ridiculous that the board of supervisors believes it has the right to hide history that SOME interpret as ‘offensive’. History is history, and should be remembered. It is sad to see virtue signaling on the part of elected officials. This is nothing more than CENSORSHIP. How disappointing.
Stuart Bell says
The average colored person on The Eastern Shore didn’t even know what those statue commemorated until lil oliver brought it up. Let us look at ‘The Color of Crime:
The Color of Crime:
• Black males age 18-35 years of age are only 1.8% of the U.S. population, yet have committed 52% of homicides from 1980-2008. Black males (all ages) are only 6% of the U.S. population, yet commit 46% of all violent crimes, and 50% of the gun homicides. If Blacks were removed from the equation, the U.S. gun homicide rate would be equal to Great Britain’s, who have some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world.
• The Black homicide rate is 17 per 100,000, a rate over 9x that of the White rate, and comparable to some of those most murderous countries in the world. If the homicide rate for the U.S. were the White-only rate, the homicide rate would drop 84%, making the U.S. rate comparable to European countries.
• According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2018 survey of criminal victimization, there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between Blacks and Whites last year, including White-on-Black and Black-on-White attacks. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and Whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent.
• Blacks constitute 13% of the U.S. population, but represent 27% of all criminal activity in the U.S.
• According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting for 2018, of the homicide victims for whom race was known, 53.3% were Black, 43.8% were White and 2.8% were of other races. In cases where the race of the offender was known, 54.9% were Black, 42.4% were White, and 2.7% were of other races.
• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving Blacks and Whites, Blacks commit 85 percent and Whites commit 15 percent. This means that a Black is 27 times more likely to attack a White person than vice versa.
• For each one standard deviation increase in proportion of Black population, firearm homicide rate is increased by 82.8%. Therefore, the U.S. has a Black problem, not a gun or violent crime problem. When Blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-Blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• 40% of gun crime occurs in just three cities: 596 (10%) – St Louis, MO, 53 (11%) – Detroit, MI, and 1,527 (27%) – Chicago, IL.
• Murder is the leading cause of death for Black men, ages 15 to 34. Their murderers are other Black men 93 percent of the time.
• Black males between 16-35 years of age are only 2.0% of the population, yet commit 72% of the street crime in America.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is Black.
• If New York City were all White, the murder rate would drop by 91 percent, the robbery rate by 81 percent, and the shootings rate by 97 percent. In an all-White Chicago, murder would decline 90 percent, rape by 81 percent, and robbery by 90 percent.
• Every year, approximately 6,000 blacks are murdered. This is a number greater than white and Hispanic homicide victims combined, even though blacks are only 12 percent of the national population. Blacks of all ages are killed at six times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. That black death-by-homicide rate is a function of the black crime rate. The national rate of homicides committed by blacks is eight times that of whites and Hispanics combined. Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit homicide at 10 times the rate of white and Hispanic male teens combined.
• Homicide is not the only crime that is vastly racially disproportionate. New York City is representative of other crime spreading across the country. Blacks are 23 percent of New York’s population, but they commit 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime, according to the victims of, and witnesses to, those crimes. Whites are 33 percent of the New York City’s population, but they commit less than 2 percent of all shootings, 4 percent of all robberies, and 5 percent of all violent crime.
• The United States is third in murders throughout the world, but if you omit just five Black cities (Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC, St Louis, and New Orleans) from the equation, then the United States is fourth from the bottom.
• Black serial killers have comprised over half of documented serial killers since the dawn of the 21st century at 56 percent, making up a total of 40 percent in years dating back to 1900. Blacks constituted 44% of the known serial killers during the 1995-2004 period and 38.2% of all multiple murderers (serial, mass, and spree combined) during 1976-1998 period. During the 2000-2010 decade, 62% of serial killers were Black.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/…
https://www.manhattan-insti…
https://archive.org/details…
6ce3a015b806
https://archive.org/details…
2019 Data Shows 51% of Mass Shooters Were Black, Only 29% Were White:
https://summit.news/2019/08…
MJM says
I don’t think any of these stats have much to do with whether or not the statue should be removed. Just saying….
Stuart Bell says
I am quite sure I did not ask. It paints a beautiful picture of just who they are catering to.
Are you the new moderator?
If not, don’t correct me. Understand?
MJM says
I didn’t correct you Stuart. This is an opinion forum. I voiced my opinion and pointed out that I believe that the stats you quoted have nothing to do with whether or not the statue should be removed. Am I the new moderator ? I didn’t know there was an old moderator. I’m not trying to be a moderator. I now believe we have another case of someone failing to look in the mirror before they call someone a name. YOU are attempting to moderate my additions to this thread. YOU are the one attempting to be a moderator and are telling me what to, or not to do. To me, this is quite the laughable situation, or it would be if I actually listened to your instructions to me. Do you understand THAT ? Gheeeezus…..Are you trying to cancel me ? Are you buddies with Jay C. Ford ?
Stuart Bell says
Funk You!
Sambo Brown says
White Privilege???
Of course no such thing as white privilege. The phrase was invented to explain away black failures in this ‘white man’s’ system. Their failure was predictable well before forced integration was created in 1964.
I am just so tired of all the hate and destruction then blaming it all on white people and calling it white privilege. Housing projects were built for both black and white by white people but if you have ever seen one after being occupied only one race destroys it. Go to any large city and tell me who lives in the area of burned out garbage ridden destroyed neighborhoods. I have black friends that are happy to work and own a home just like white people but then there are the ones that have been groomed by the democrats to destroy and act oppressed. The killing of George Floyd was wrong but because of one guys actions all white people should pay? I look at the sports figures that have million dollar contracts and ask “where is the oppression?” I look at music with multi-millionaires that are black and ask “where is the oppression?” Seems to me the black people have the same ability as any white person to succeed if they choose but many would rather play the victim and place blame on us white people that pay for their destruction. Why do black celebrities always side with the people that claim to be oppressed instead of telling them they have the same opportunities? Racism will never change because some people will always claim to be victims instead of helping themselves because it’s easier.
Stuart Bell says
To the entire Black race living in America, we, the Adamic, pink complexioned race (better known to you as the White race) that came to these shores from Europe, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland, apologize for freeing you from slavery by fighting a horrible war among ourselves that cost the lives of almost one
million of our own race. We apologize for continuing to fight among ourselves over that very issue, even though you’ve never told us you appreciate our freeing you.
We apologize for splitting to pieces our entire race the world over to take sides with you to help you survive and become a freer race. We apologize for forcing the rest of the world to outlaw the slavery which your ancestors had practiced for thousands of years, even though many nations on your home continent still practice it today.
We apologize for thinking we could civilize you when you have proven that it is indeed an impossible feat, a feat beyond anything we could have ever imagined. We apologize for introducing Christianity to you and dragging you away from the Voodoo you
previously followed, although you have managed to sneak that religion back into cultic Christianity and our people have accepted it, which is witnessed by their animalistic whooping and hollering and stomping and screaming instead of respectfully worshiping our God as they ought to.
We apologize for teaching you to add and subtract (what little you can), thereby enabling you to run a household and pay your bills (what few you will) and count your children other than on your fingers and sometimes toes when you have so many you run out of fingers.
We apologize for providing you with medical care instead of leaving you under the witch doctors you used before we arrived, as a result of which you have been able to survive all sorts of diseases to multiply in massive numbers beyond what you could have without these aides.
We apologize for building schools for you which we have had to repair over and over after you vandalized them beyond use. We apologize for inventing computers and the Internet, neither of which you use very much, but when you do use them it’s mostly to bash our race.
We apologize for building factories and businesses that employ you, if you so desire to work. We apologize for creating millions of bureaucratic jobs within our government system simply to give you employment, instead of leaving you to find work on your own.
We apologize for promoting and buying your music, although you refuse to buy ours.
We apologize for talking and acting as you do, although you refuse to talk and act as we do.
We apologize for placing you in our movies and TV shows and
elevating you to a fictional, heroic level that you have never reached in real life. We apologize for creating this false image of yourselves in your minds, for we realize after 400 years of trying to help you that you cannot solve problems and provide leadership and create original thoughts; and the image we’ve placed in your minds causes you to live in a delusional world.
For that we truly apologize.
Paul Plante says
There should be a bronze statue of Oliver Bennett riding a massive destrier named appropriately “RACE CARD” shown rearing with front hooves pawing the air put up there on that pedestal once Johnny Reb comes down so he don’t have to get **** on by pigeons anymore, and Oliver Bennett up on the huge destrier’s back wearing boots of Spanish leather and those silver Spanish spurs with the big rowels the Mexicans always like to wear in the cowboy movies with his plumed hat high in the air in one hand, holding the reins with the other while raking the bejaysus out of the destrier’s flanks with those big rowels to get as much mileage out of that horse ride that he can.
GLund says
What is absolutely fascinating is that Oliver Bennett didn’t have a vote. Typical responses from the peanut gallery
Frank Ulrich says
The Board paid to have a study done on pay for county workers. Showed they were underpaid. Instead of raising the scale to where they should be at the time, they broke it down over three years, to get where they should be now. After approving it, it was held up to start this year. All of a sudden, they are now looking at up to $60,000 to remove a statue that has been there for decades. How about breaking that down over three years to remove it and give your underpaid workers a raise that they have not seen in years!
MJM says
All we need now are a couple of wealthy folks to stand in front of the statue on the day it is slated to be removed. Refuse to move. Force their arrest. Then have their attorney present the county with papers accusing the county suoervisors of making a racist decision and causing millions of $ of irrreparable emotinal harm if the statue is moved. The Board of Supervisors will be forced to recognize that $60K for moving a statue is nothing compared to where the costs of a court battle would go.County attorneys are not free and anybody can be sued for anything these days. Maybe the county workers could get a proper raise after all. Probably 100% of those workers would rather have a raise than a statue removed, but then again, Dr. Strong and his bad memories are more important than those workers and their families. Talk about selfish.
Stuart Bell says
How about leave it the hell alone.
Stephen says
Sad to read that there is still so much hatred of one man for another. None of us is guilty of what our ancestors did tens of decades before we were even conceived. So, why to we continue to carry and propagate their ignorance and racism and hatred? Examine yourselves to see if you are the harborers of hate. Hate doesn’t move us forward. Hate mires us in the past.
MJM says
Very true Stephen. Very true. Kindness begets kindness in word and deed, and violence begets violence in word and deed. Which is exactly why I pointed out several weeks ago that the violent act of tearing down a statue was totally unnecessary and would not heal any childhood, or lingering emotional wounds. Yet some highly educated people insisted on pursuing this violent act anyway, and wielding the sword of past racial strife served their own selfish needs. I know, and they will soon learn, removing a statue will not relieve some sadness in their hearts from many years ago. I could be wrong, but I believe it to be a deliberate act of making totally unnecessary racial and racist accusations, that were not accurate or appropriate. Letting a sleeping dog lie would have been the proper social solution. If there are truly past memories causing personal emotional difficulties, see a bartender or a psychologist rather than create community social strife.
Stuart Bell says
You can not tell another human what they prefer to like or dislike. The facts speak for themselves.
A seventy percent illegitimacy rate, an equally egregious school dropout rate, functional illiteracy and unemployability, failed parenting and families, and grossly disproportional criminality–that’s Black America!
No surprise, here he’s just another example of the totally dysfunctional 13%!
Scotiagirl says
Because yesterday many celebrated MLK’s birthday by reading aloud many of his speeches (family owns all the recordings so apparently there are copywrite issues with playing them), Scotiagirl paused to reflect on his message. Although he is touted as a great orator who presented significant analysis concerning interracial relations, and although through his words he envisioned a whole new way for us to view ourselves and each other, Scotiagirl doesn’t see where MLK has made a damned bit of difference in anybody’s life. Is it that NOBODY has listened to his message? Or is it that, in actuality, it was devoid of substance? What are we all supposed to derive from MLK’s “legacy”, and when?
Paul Plante says
He liked women and who can blame the dude for that!
Well, I guess some gay guy could, but outside of them …
Scotiagirl says
Paul, you usually have facts to guide your proclamations but this time Scotiagirl really wonders! MLK “liked women”????? FBI investigative reports state that, while married, he had affairs with at least 40 women AND that he “stood by and watched a friend rape a woman”. No man who has respect for women behaves this way.
Paul Plante says
Scotiagirl, one I was being flip, and I suppose I should have put that in there as a warning before my post, that I was being flip when I said MLK liked women – obviously a lot of them from your research, but as I was around back then, and never liked MLK, partly for that reason, I was aware of that.
I thought MLK was a typical “user” of women, to be truthful, probably like a lot of rock stars and oversexed politicians like Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
And saying who can blame him for liking women is an innocent statement.
How he treated the women he liked is an entirely different matter, in my eyes.
There are many males who, like women, me included, but because I do like women, I treat them very respectfully, and do not look on them as objects to satisfy my lust or whatever MLK needed them for.
Scotiagirl says
Paul, thank you for your clarification. I certainly would not put you in the same category as MLK who, according to several sources, was an abuser–or at least very disrespectful,– of many, many women. Seems we may come to this from the same place, Paul, as Scotiagirl both likes and respects the men she has been lucky enough to know in her life. She has always been treated well by men and hopes that REAL, confident and well grounded men will continue to be a part of her life.
Paul Plante says
Amen!
Scotiagirl says
Paul, usually your comments reflect that you have thoroughly researched a topic but this time Scotiagirl believes you have really come up short! Records of investigation into MLK by the FBI reveal that, while married, he had “affairs with at least 40 women”. It was also discovered that MLK “watched while a friend raped a woman.”. Scotiagirl does not believe that a man who has ANY respect for women would behave in this wsy.
Paul Plante says
Look at my reply in the context of what we are all supposed to derive from MLK’s legacy.
As to anything MLK said, he was not teaching me anything that I had not already learned as a child, and to this day, my impression of MLK is that he had to keep the Black Folks oppressed, because the instant they were really free (freedom is in the mind), MLK was out of a job, out of the spotlight, and I don’t think that was something his ego could take.
Stuart Bell says
If MLK had made a difference, 13% of our population would not be committing over 70% of all violent crime. Hell, if New York City were suddenly all white, the murder rate would drop 91%. No, there were no lasting effects on his people that we could enjoy and admire today.
Billy says
Blacks have the same opportunity as anyone else in this country. The problem is the lack of their fathers in their lives. If they have any initiative , they can do whatever they want. Complete high school, there is more money out there for blacks than whites for scholarships and grants to go to college. It has nothing to do with Confederate statues or lack of opportunities. The left is trying to rid our country of our heritage. We have a great history and we need to keep it. The liberals want to forget our past , turn us into socialist and give everything away for free. Who the hell pays for all of this, we do and when the money runs out,what happens then, no more freebies. Go to school get a good job and don’t wait for the government to support you and leave our history alone.
Blue Hoss says
Many white kids lack fathers too. Please stop giving them crutches to lean on.