Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the best writers in our country, made this astute observation just a few weeks ago. It is something to think about as we grapple with understanding the sad events in Charlottesville.
“Nazi Germany was also defeated. But while its surviving leadership was put on trial before the world, not one author of the Confederacy was convicted of treason. Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was hanged at Nuremberg. Confederate General John B. Gordon became a senator. Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues.