Editorials

Alabama does — in this case, did — something to honor a hero of the Confederacy. The honoring was done in 1955, a year, not coincidently, in which anything done to honor the Confederacy was a statement of the state's determination to defend the racial status quo.

(No matter what one believes Confederate soldiers fought for, it is hard to successfully argue what those waving the Confederate banner in the 1950s were using that symbol to say.)

More than half a century later, a group of black legislators discovered that the Confederate hero was honored and want the state to rescind the effort.

Neo-Confederates and their sympathizers say "no" — loudly.

Those who see the Confederacy as nothing more than a slaveholders republic say "yes" — loudly, too.

Why? It's all because of a student-loan program that has awarded 53 loans of $1,000 each since October 1989.

And what does a student have to do to get a loan? Write an essay on some aspect of the life and career of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson — the Confederate hero being honored.

Such an award carries a great deal of historical baggage — from both the Civil War and the civil rights movement. And whether the state should set up such an award is questionable.

In addition, the judges who select the winning essays were not chosen because they were unbiased in their interpretation of Jackson and the Confederacy. An essay praising Jackson's Valley Campaign would surely stand a better chance than one focusing on his unorthodox (for a Presbyterian) religious views.

However, having the essays focus on Jackson also could be a way to get students to look more closely at the general and the era in which he lived.

One year the essays could address the topic of "Why Jackson fought?" — a subject that would reveal a complex set of reasons, including the providence of God.

Another year the essays could be titled "Jackson and Slavery" — which would open to students a world in which a deeply religious man violated state law to teach young slaves to read (at a Sunday School that also worked to save their souls).

Here was a man who owned slaves, yet a man whose recent biographer said "probably opposed the institution." Having students grapple with such an apparent contradiction would be a worthwhile assignment.

As for judges, much of the controversy could be defused if they were selected from the academic community (although many Neo-Confederates distrust a Ph.D. in history as much as they distrust members of the Black Caucus).

How about one judge from teachers who teach AP history in a public high school, another from history professors in our public universities, and one from a member of the non-teaching history profession (museum directors, archivists, etc.)? There are professional organizations that could help identify these judges.

In other words, a student loan program is a good idea and studying Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is a good idea.

How to do it without making it an exercise in historical partisanship is the question.