Minutes 07/28/2020 - Laserfiche WebLink

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July 28, 2020 I urge you to do what other cities, states and federal governments are doing or plan to do. It’s not necessary to destroy them, but put them in the proper places rather than our city streets. Ray Smith Sr. 47. Please remove the Confederate monument to the cemetery where it belongs. It time to stop delays. Just get it done now! Delbert and Mattie Smith 2714 Ash St 48. At this point, it's probably best to remove that monument. If it can be placed where people would prefer it and contextualized, great. But DEFINITELY needs to be removed from downtown. Elena Wynn 2211 Piedmont Avenue 49. I am a recent addition to your city of Portsmouth. I am a recent graduate from NC A&T the local HBCU of Greensboro NC, I am originally from Durham NC. I only got one chance to see the monument in May before I moved in and it was under wraps. It is a beautiful memorial to those that died in the war as most of these memorials are. Since moving in I have had a chance to walk around this historic city and all the wars it has participated in. I know that every war this country has been in since European colonies to the signing of the Articles of the Confederation to the present day can be looked back upon and say it was not for the altruistic reasons. If this memorial is destroyed, then every memorial for every war is at risk and it is a slippery slope. Even Japan has a memorial for WW2, where one day our WW2 memorials will also be seen as something to be torn down. Every July we celebrate the win of a rebellion, and every June there will be celebrating of the loss of a rebellion. Thomas Jefferson agrees that "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." A little rebellion like MLK did, is good. These days they say they want a revolution, well all want to change the world. But when they talk about destruction, know that you can count me out. Since the signing of the articles which established the first constitution known as the Articles of the Confederation, which established a "Confederation known as the United States of America", there has been a great shift in power to the new industrial north states (not New England) which gained more control of the new Federation (removal of Nation Stateshood). To try and shift freedoms back to a Con-Federation, a union of federal nation states (like EU) and separate from what they saw as oppression a pretext was formed. The pretext for rebellion was the implementation of tariffs/Taxes of imported goods to boost industrial north revenue of equipment to the farmers to the south. This power play brought about the first part of the rebellion between the Federation and Confederation. When troops were coming in to put down the rebellious state (SC). This was an "Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them". (Thomas Jefferson). The failure of the Rebellion, put down by Andrew Jackson, led to more extreme measures: "tariff issue was a “pretext” and that the goals of the nullifiers were “disunion and southern confederacy” and “the next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question." " (Andrew Jackson, 1833). Part two of the rebellion and the pretext of slavery was wrong and Jackson should have freed them at that point to preempt it. But slavery and servitude was a thing of the world. European had European slaves, Africans had African slaves, Asians had both (Arab slave trade). Even Jews allowed slavery for a period of 50 years (Jubilee), and Mexico had their peonage. When part two of the rebellion started both the North and South had legal slaves (only a few North States made slavery illegal). It wasn't until the 13th Amendment that North Slaves were freed. Even in Virginia, the first person to legally own another for life, by court order, was the African American Anthony Johnson over John Castor (1653). We can say that slavery was the way of things for millenniums and thank God we are past