Caroline Randall Williams: "My Body is a Confederate Monument."

Let's Find Common Ground

USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future

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5.0 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from," wrote author, poet and academic Caroline Randall Williams in a widely-read opinion column for The New York Times. As a Black southern woman with white ancestors, her view of the debate over how America remembers its past is deeply personal. This episode is the latest in our podcast series on racism and its painful legacy. Recent protests across the country have sparked renewed controversy over confederate statues, and the naming of military bases and public buildings that celebrate men who fought in the Civil War against the government of the United States. Should the monuments be repurposed or removed? We discuss ways to find common ground and better our understanding of the American history. Caroline Randall Williams is a writer in residence at Vanderbilt University. She is a resident and native of Tennessee. Some of her ancestors were enslaved. Others included a prominent poet and novelist, and a civil rights leader. She is the great-great grand-daughter of Edmund Pettus, who was a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and U.S. Senator from Alabama.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments,
0:05.2	well then my body is a monument, my skin is a monument. Our guest Caroline Randall Williams
0:12.3	wrote those words in a widely read opinion column for the New York Times.
0:16.0	As a black southern woman with white ancestors, her perspective on how America remembers its past is deeply personal.
0:24.0	This is Let's Find Common Ground.
0:31.0	I'm Richard Davies.
0:32.8	And I'm Ashley Meltite.
0:34.8	This episode is the latest in our podcast series on racism and its painful legacy.
0:40.4	Recent protests across the country have led to a much more passionate debate
0:44.3	over what to do about Confederate statues and monuments as well as the namings of
0:50.4	buildings and military bases.
0:53.0	Should Confederate monuments be repurposed or removed?
0:58.0	Caroline Randall Williams is a poet and writer in residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
1:04.0	She was born and raised in Tennessee.
1:06.0	Her black ancestors include enslaved people,
1:10.0	and in the 20th century a well-known poet, lawyer, and civil rights leader.
1:14.8	Caroline has white ancestors too, and is the great-great-granddaughter of Edmund Pettus,
1:21.2	who was a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and a US senator from Alabama.
1:26.8	She joins us from Nashville.
1:29.1	Caroline, you said my body is a monument. What do you mean?
1:35.2	When I said that my skin is a monument, that my body is a monument, I arrived at that line by first sort of asking, well, what is a monument?
1:48.0	And I came to the conclusion that a And there are mixed race people for whom their light skin isn't a hard story.
	...

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