Make the first right on Claiborne

I have often heard people who oppose changing the names of Army bases named for Confederate generals say, “But that’s re-writing history.”

In his book How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith explains why people might want to change those names.  Smith is from New Orleans.  Here’s what he wrote:

Every time I returned home I would drive on streets named for those who thought of me as chattel.

“Go straight for two miles on Robert E. Lee.”

“Take a left on Jefferson Davis.”

“Make the first right on Claiborne.”

Translation:

“Go straight for two miles on the general whose troops slaughtered hundreds of Black soldiers who were trying to surrender.”

“Take a left on the president of the Confederacy who understood the torture of Black bodies as the cornerstone of their new nation”

“Make the first right on the man who allowed the heads of rebelling slaves to be mounted on stakes in order to prevent other slaves from getting any ideas.”