Notes on a Plaque, Still Imagined

the memory palace

Nate DiMeo

Radiotopia, Publicradio, History, Natedimeo

4.8 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2017

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode was originally released in August of 2015. It was re-released upon hearing that the city of New Orleans has begun the process of removing four monuments to the confederacy and post-civil war era, starting with an obelisk erected in 1891 honoring members of the Crescent City White League who suppressed the African American vote through violence and intimidation and who launched a failed military overthrow of the city’s elected government and integrated police force in 1874.

Music * First up (and returning at the end) is Sandra's Theme, from Heather McIntosh's fantastic score to Compliance, a very good, very disturbing movie. * We hit Frank Glazer leading Charles Ives' Largo for Clarinet, Violin and Piano a couple of times, framing... * Runaway from Olafur Arnalds.

Notes: *The key to researching this episode turned out to be an article in The Journal of Southern History from 2001 by Court Carnay called, "The Contested Image of Nathan Bedford Forrest.". * Also particularly useful was Nathan Bedford Forrest: a Biography, by Jack Hurst. * As was Lynching in America: A History in Documents, compiled by Christopher Waldrep. * Much of my information about the contents of the ceremony and speeches was gathered from this, the digitized journal and scrapbook of Charles Henry Niehaus, the sculptor of the monument. It's an extraordinary resource. * And let us all read Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases, by Ida B. Wells. And let's put her on the $10 while we're at it.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, upon hearing that the city of New Orleans has begun the process of removing four monuments
0:04.9	to the Confederacy and post-Civil War era, starting with an obelisk erected in 1891, honoring
0:10.9	members of the Crescent City White League, who suppressed the African-American vote through
0:14.9	violence and intimidation, and who launched a failed military overthrow of the city's
0:19.2	elected government and integrated police force in 1874, I am re-releasing the following
0:24.5	episode.
0:25.9	This is the Memory Palace.
0:26.9	I'm Nate Dimaio.
0:29.9	It's on an imagined plaque to be added to the Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forest.
0:35.1	Von hearing that the Memphis City Council has voted to move it, and the Exumer mains of
0:39.1	General Forest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forest, from their current location in a
0:44.0	park downtown to the nearby Elmwood cemetery.
0:51.3	First it should be big, the plaque.
0:53.6	Not necessarily because there's so much to say, though there is so much to say, but
0:57.9	big enough to be noticed on the side of this rather grand monument after they move
1:01.8	it and the bodies beneath it, across town to the cemetery.
1:06.0	And not just big for the sake of bigness, it needs to stick out as something off, something
1:11.3	that disrupts the admirable balance of the statue, currently so tasteful, regal even,
1:17.2	this bronze man on this bronze horse, goatee, square jaw, you get it, you've seen it before,
1:24.6	even if you haven't seen it before.
1:27.3	The statue faces north, the sculptor wanted for us to face south, to better catch the
1:32.2	light, but people complained, said it would imply that the general was retreating, and
	...

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