The myth of the benevolent slave owner is just that, a myth. The reality is that slaves, being human beings, hated their lack of freedom and rebelled, and that rebellion was met with whips, clubs, imprisonment, branding, and the hanging rope. Lee was no exception, and his belief that negroes were an inferior race unsuited to a free life, justified the brutality that was often needed to keep humans in submission.

Those Confederate warrior statues everywhere in the South were a symbol of Jim Crow, a strategy of Southern white society to keep black people in "their place" with threats of beatings and lynching. Jim, Crow is now resurgent with voter suppression of the black vote, mass incarceration and night riders bombing, murdering, and vandalizing churches.

Jim Crow is still very much among us, and the hard times are resurgent. Those statues mark Jim Crow territory and are a symbol of Jim Crow repression. They need to come down. That would be a good start on the road to equality.