Fort Mill’s confederate monuments point to conflict, heritage. The debate goes on.
Names and the monument at the heart of downtown Fort Mill are set in stone. But opinions on the “faithful slaves” monument in Confederate Park aren’t.
Even among people who trace their history to it thoughts have changed with time, and new generations are more likely to ask why it’s there, who it’s for and how it helps. More and more they’re asking, what’s next?
Daniel Watts is 83 and a lifelong Fort Mill resident. He’s the first Black member to serve on the Fort Mill School Board (1972-80) and town council (1990-94). His grandmother’s father is Handy White, one of 10 names inscribed on the monument. It was recently announced that a Fort Mill road will be named to honor White’s memory.
Watts doesn’t know of any relationship to Nelson, Sandy, Warren, Silas, Anthony, Jim or Henry. They are the others listed on the monument, all with White as their last name. Nathan Springs and Solomon Spratt also are listed. The monument describes “faithful slaves” who with “matchless devotion and with sterling fidelity guarded our defenseless homes, women and children” during the Civil War.
The other name is Samuel White, who erected the statue. He is the son of William Elliott White, a member of one of Fort Mill’s most prominent early families who owned Handy White.
“This thing’s been here since 1895,” Watts said. “And even though that’s my great granddaddy, I have never brought my children down here to see this thing. My grandmother never brought me here to look at it.”
Protests in Charlottesville, Va., sparked a round of national debate in 2017 on monuments that honor the Confederacy. Few such monuments nationwide recognize slaves by name. Watts and other descendants of former slaves listed on the Fort Mill monument said at that time they believed it should stand where it is. Some said it was meant for atonement, or there’s pride in what their ancestors survived. Watts himself said then the monument was part of where he comes from, part of him.
Now monuments and street names honoring the Confederacy are in focus again.
The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and continued questions about racial equality have prompted the discussion. A flurry of letters and calls to the Fort Mill town council in recent months have called for the name Confederate Park to be changed, monuments there removed and street names changed. There have been public protests at the park.
Last week when more protests were set off by news that Louisville, Kentucky police wouldn’t be charged in the death of Breonna Taylor, Watts stood beside the Fort Mill monument. He doesn’t demand it come down. He doesn’t particularly want it to stay.
“I don’t know what the big deal about this monument is right now because all of a sudden it’s, take it down, put it up, leave it up,” Watts said. “Even the name Handy White must have never been that significant to my grandmother because she never brought us up here or said anything about it. I haven’t bothered it, and it hasn’t bothered me.
“...I think some of my kids, the younger people, most of them want to see it go.”
Generational change, racism
Sonya Davis is Watts’s daughter. She lives in Chicago. She doesn’t share the either-way view of her father.
“I think it should come down,” Davis said.
Davis said she wasn’t aware of any connection to the monument until a family reunion several years ago.
“My dad never took us up there,” Davis said. “His mom never took him up there. So my question is, why all of a sudden now there’s interest in it?”
Davis, 59, grew up in Fort Mill in the 1960s, and said she experienced racism. A lifetime of experience, she said, colors her view about the monument.
“I don’t see a need for it to stay,” Davis said.
She said the monument should never have gone up, and wonders why it’s there when even the people connected to it are connected only by a name.
“I didn’t grow up knowing about it,” Davis said. “I grew up knowing (it) was a Confederate Park, and Blacks didn’t go up there. They weren’t even allowed in there.”
That’s the same story her father tells. He said he passed by the park for decades but seldom if ever stopped.
“The name of it by itself lets you know that there’s some prejudice, racism behind it,” Davis said.
For Davis, the monument is a reminder of an awful time in U.S. history.
“Slavery to me has been sickening,” she said. “I don’t think no black person should’ve ever been enslaved and the way they was treated then, and still it’s going on now. Slavery, it never left. It’s still going on right now, just in a different way.”
A source of division in Fort Mill
Danielle Watts (Redmond) Everett is Watt’s granddaughter. Watts raised her as his own. Everett traveled extensively for work, but came back to Fort Mill. She understands why Watts and other family members initially saw no reason to remove the monument.
“Initially, we thought that this was a way to kind of pay homage or show gratitude,” Everett said.
A medium.com article by End White Supremacy Fort Mill appeared this summer during protests. That article painted the monument as part of a myth about loyal slaves and was designed to extend ideals of white supremacy. The article impacted Everett.
“We found out the intentions were not sincere,” she said.
Now Everett, 41, wants to see the monument gone from Confederate Park.
“We don’t want this to be an object of division in our town,” she said.
Everett said she wouldn’t mind the monument perhaps at a museum or somewhere in the Paradise community, which is historically Black.
“It can be somewhere else where it can have a truer meaning, a more historical significance,” Everett said. “But uptown would not be the place for it. We don’t want them to use that as an object to symbolize white supremacy or anything else polarizing.”
Everett said the monument might’ve had been a symbol of nobility in its time, but the larger picture now can’t be overlooked.
“Times have changed,” she said. “It’s bittersweet, but it’s heavier on the bitter side because times have changed.”
The impact of the Heritage Act
Removing an historic monument isn’t simple.
In 2000 state legislators reached a compromise that brought the Confederate battle flag down from the statehouse dome. That compromise led to the Heritage Act, which requires a two-thirds approval by the state legislature to alter or remove any war or historic street name or monument — like the “faithful slaves” monument at Confederate Park.
In June, Fort Mill town council voted to have town staff explore renaming Confederate Park and disposition of monuments there, and see if there is “any avenue the town can take” in relation to the Heritage Act.
Mayor Guynn Savage said in multiple recent council meetings that there are people who contact her on both sides of the issue. Some see history, others see hate.
Rudy Sanders, a founder of the Fort Mill History Museum with his own family ties in the Paradise area, has extensively researched the Confederate Park monuments. Along with the “faithful slaves” marker there are others honoring the memory of the Catawba Indians, Confederate veterans and women of the Confederacy.
Sanders said it’s for others to debate and decide whether the monuments should stay. But from an historic perspective he notes the monuments recognize men and women. White residents are memorialized, as are Blacks and Native Americans.
“That was the original makeup of the town,” Sanders said.
Focus should be on fairness
One sentiment crosses generations in the Watts family.
“Taking it down, would that make a change?” Watts said. “Would that change people’s hearts? Would it make any difference to people’s hearts? Would it be what’s right? That’s what I’m about, what’s right. What’s right for now?”
Watts said he sees explosive residential growth, traffic, new homes and schools in Fort Mill.
“I want to see unity for all people — all people,” Watts said. “I want to see everything fair.”
He said he believes his voice carried weight on town council and the school board. He twice served as mayor pro tem, elected by peers. Still, his was just one vote. Today Watts sees a council and school board split almost evenly among men and women. There is no minority voice.
“You don’t see any diversity on these different things,” Watts said. “Maybe some on these committees and stuff, but I haven’t seen that much change since I was on the school board in 1972, than I see right now in 2020.”
Davis said she wants to see everyone get equal job opportunities. She wants grandchildren who grow up in a place where equality is both an expectation and reality.
“Blacks have been treated unfairly all my life, and I know all my dad’s life,” Davis said. “And I keep hearing that Black Lives Matter and all this stuff that’s going on right now. What I would like to see is fairness.”
Davis said she doesn’t want anyone to get stuck on a monument that, left alone or removed, won’t help her see that fairness.
“All of a sudden you want to do something, but is it something that you’re doing that’s going to make a difference in people’s lives?” she said
Everett agrees purpose is in the present.
“We weren’t there at the time,” she said, “but we’re here now.”
Alive in Paradise
Everett heads the Historic Paradise Foundation. That group began in summer 2019 to support the Paradise area with youth programs, telehealth visits, edical care signups for seniors and other services.
Homes need repair. The group also has held coat and masks drives. There’s talk of a community center, and Fort Mill School District superintendent Chuck Epps recently mentioned work on an educational site.
Paradise has somewhat of an hourglass population, Everett said. There are many youth and older residents but not as many in between. The community hasn’t experienced what the more transient town at large has, she said.
“It’s not the same little small town that we grew up in, or the rural town that (Watts) grew up in,” Everett said. “We’ve seen where the rest of the town is thriving.”
That influx of new people to Fort Mill, she said, brings investment into that larger community. Everett said Paradise is different.
“We don’t have the resources in the community to keep it thriving,” she said.
A Paradise master plan and block grant through the town from almost a decade ago still hasn’t been fully carried out, though some work has been done. It included items from public signs to utility and home improvements. Everett said the town has been responsive to Paradise’s needs, though she’d like a little more proactive public approach.
“There are people who care,” she said. “There are people who are willing.”
With so many projects, the foundation has more to do than focus on a downtown monument.
“There’s a lot of good people out here,” Everett said. “People want to focus on that monument. How about putting that energy into helping out the community? No one’s obligated. But if they want to, why not come out and help people? Not people who are dead, but people who are alive.”
Watts said while he never took children or grandchildren to Confederate Park to show them the name Handy White, he now can take them to the newly named Handy White Way not far from Paradise. The new road off Springfield Parkway honors not just a former slave, but a man who, after he was freed, earned money and re-invested it in what would become Paradise.
“That’s a start, and I think it’s a great thing,” Watts said.
Ask Watts about the monument, why opinions change with time and generations, and he gives an answer much broader than one downtown marker.
“Things are changing,” he said. “Minds are changing. People think different.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2020 at 8:38 AM with the headline "Fort Mill’s confederate monuments point to conflict, heritage. The debate goes on.."
