An Article about Roadside Memorials Essay

People cope with tragedies in many ways. Some people try their best to forget, while others work to make sure the tragedy is never forgotten. The most constructive attitude towards memorials is sanctification.

Imagine walking through a town plaza and suddenly spotting a bust depicting Adolf Hitler, or a statue of a Nazi Swastika. A passerby may stare in horror upon its recognition, and wonder why a symbol of such hatred and violence is displayed prominently in a town. These statues would incite an uproar and immediate demands to remove such offensive monuments. Thankfully, such a situation would never arise in modern America; however, a similar plight is unfolding across the country concerning the removal of Confederate statues. Confederate statues should not be displayed in public areas because they are reminders of a time when racial violence went unpunished, they are honoring people who wanted to keep other

Confederate Monuments began to erect across the nation well after the civil war between the 1890’s and 1950’s. There seems to be a correlation of when these monuments began to pop up and the era of the Jim Crow Segregation. The highest spike of monuments being built were between the 1900’s and 1920’s. These monuments were meant to be a teaching point of values to people rather than being a symbol of hate as many people took them to be. According to Mark Elliot, professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; “The values to which these monuments stood for included a glorification of the cause of the civil war.”

There are many monuments in the world and they are all built to honor someone or something that was done by that person. For example, after the Maine Lobsterman was built, the fake bronze statue returned to Maine and spent several decades being moved from city hall to museum to museum. No one seemed to want the man and his lobster. The issue at hand is if the monuments being built are memorializing the person or moment created accurately. Monuments capture legacy and preserve the individual's actions throughout history. Specifically, monuments should consider purpose, location, and size in their creation.

Unlike a grave site memorial, which marks where a body is burried, roadside memorials shows where a person died abruptly and unpredictably. When we see one, we get curious automatically and ask what might have happened in that place. Perhaps the basic reaction that we give when we see a roadside memorial is enough to understand its purpose and tolerate its presence when we are on the road. However, Some of the usual arguments that people post in opposing the presence of these memorials are dangerous distractions for drivers, illegal displays of religious symbols and it constitute the taking of public property for private purposes (Tiernan, 2009). I would like to argue all these arguments as I believe that the relevance of memorials outweighs all these concerns.

Roman grave markers, while much simpler than grave markers that are used today, still consisted of inscriptions to commemorate the person who passed. In the example of document four, the funeral inscription on the gravestone read, "To the gods of the [afterworld] ,To Julia Chrestes Junius Phoebion for his wife well deserving it he made it." The Romans wrote inscriptions on the grave markers to tell a little about the person’s life and to honor them for the life they lived. Many people of the United States adopted this same tradition in order to honor their dead. Grave markers now-a-days have evolved to include the date of the person’s birth and death, their full name, and a short note about their life. Like the Romans, modern day citizens put the gravestones up in memory of the people in their lives who have passed away. Years may have passed, but the tradition the Romans exhibited of honoring the dead remains a prominent feature of the United States

There are said to be four different ways people respond to tragedies, Ken Foote, a professor from the University of Colorado Boulder, has proven it. Based on his studies, the four attitudes toward memorials are sanctification, obliteration, rectification, and designation. Out of all four attitudes, sanctification would be most helpful. To define sanctification, it is when people

The graves of many famous people are at Arlington Nationel Cemetary. It did not start out that way. In 1861, a Confederate General and his wife owned the house and the land. That General was Robert E. Lee. His house was across the river from Washington, D.C. The Union Army took over the land at the start of the Civil War. Union soldiers that were killed in the war was buried near the house. These soldiers were poor. Their families could not pay for them to be buried. Arlington was called a "potter's field." A potters field is a place where poor or unknown people are buried. After the war, something odd started to happen. Union officers asked to be buried at Arlington. They wanted to be near those men who had been in the war with them. Americans

This way of life may have been acceptable before and during the Civil War, but in today's society that way of life is not acceptable because times have changed. It is very clear that these statues do not stand for things that our country should believe anymore. Is this what we want people to think of when they think of America. We used to stand for these things ,but now we have changed and our monuments should change with us.

In the article "The Monuments Must Go”, Christian and Christian are writing to the Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, Levar Stoney, as well as the members from the Monument Avenue Commission and requesting them to remove the Confederate statue of Stonewall Jackson along with the rest of the Confederate monuments that lie along Monument Avenue. The authors argue that these monuments in Richmond, Virginia that line up Monument Avenue serve to preserve a racist ideology. Christian and Christian begin their article by initially stating, “We are native Richmonders and also the great-great-grandsons of Stonewall Jackson. We are writing today to ask for the removal of his statue, as well as the removal of all Confederate statues from Monument Avenue. They are overt

Why do you think McCarthy has chosen not to give his characters names? How do the generic labels of “the man” and “the boy” affect the way you /readers relate to them?

Now many who oppose this will say that this isn’t true due to groups like Neo-Nazis and the K.K.K going out of the way to stop the removal of these monuments, but supporters feel that small groups not directly associated with the confederacy should not be a just cause for removal, because to many it is misrepresentation. The K.K.K might be the hardest to argue on this idea, but their clan was made after the Civil War, on behalf of the Confederacy, not part of it. Therefore, the Confederacy and its symbols should not be held accountable for what groups after it take action

Monuments, are how we as people can relive the past and be able to put ourselves at that time period. For Americans the 9/11 memorial puts us in the gravity and it gives us the impact of what that disaster did but, it also shows a sense of beauty with how the water falls into the spot where once stood a tall and powerful building. Monuments, have the aura that has a sense of empathy and shows more emotion than words ever could, the Holocaust museum gives a solid reminder of what genocide really is. Monuments and memorials should be based on the size location and what it is actually standing for it should be for someone who has been influential or it should be something of war or tragedy. We as Americans don’t pay attention to local cemeteries but when they see the Arlington cemetery or Vietnam memorial or even the WWII memorial people understand what death is really like and are more appreciative of those people who fought for the United States. Monuments and Memorials are not to remember those who fought for slavery, who have committed genocide, or any acts of treason and terrorism there should be no reason to make a statue that symbolizes something that a culture and a nation does not stand for anymore. Therefore, a Monument should consider the location, size, and why the monument is built along with the emotional aura that goes along with it.

Many people today hold on to the topic of immortality because they find it so difficult to say goodbye to a loved one. Placing flowers on graves is a popular way to remember the deceased. Even years after the person has died, the family members and friends still go to the gravesite to reminisce. People find it

With many confederate monuments coming down across the country a debate has come up. Should the monuments be removed, or should they stay? Are they racist, or do they show America's heritage? These are questions that are being asked across the country and according to a study by Massincpolling (2017), 28 percent of Virginians support removing the monuments but 51 percent want to keep them, a quarter of them thought the monuments were racist and over half thought they were part of Southern heritage. This data shows that the majority of Virginians think that the monuments are not racist and they want to keep the monuments up, but only 28 percent, which is just over a quarter, of everyone that took the survey thought that they were racist and that they should come down. This means that the monuments should stay up, unless the local governments wanted the majority of Virginians to get mad.