Allan Appel Photo
Reenactors from the Spirit of Black Rock Fife and Drum Corps, of the First Connecticut Cavalry.
A bell in Aliyah Rodriguez’s hand joined those in the steeples of the Green’s three churches at 3 p.m. Thursday, as New Haven joined the nation in a remembrance of the Civil War’s end — and its ongoing legacy of the struggle for racial justice and the balance between federal and state’s rights.
That was the message of a moving bell-ringing ceremony, New Haven’s local edition on Bells Across the Land, a nationwide observance organized by the Interior Department’s National Park Service.
The little bell ringer with her dad, former Alder, Joey Rodriguez, and the New Haven Symphony’s Boughton.
On April 9, 150 years ago, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomatox Courthouse, Virginia ending the bloody Civil War.
Not ended when Lee’s soldiers stacked their rifles and went home is the ongoing struggle for racial equality and the debate about states rights, said the main speaker at the event, Yale American History Professor David Blight.
“The shooting war ended, but the real legacy of what that war was about goes on. And it’s represented on the front pages” of our newspapers today, said Blight.
Blight speaks beside the statue of Cinque, at the Amistad Memorial.
As two dozen passers-by and history aficionados gathered in front of City Hall and by the Amistad Memorial statue, Blight (pictured) said that race relations and civil rights and also federalism versus state’s rights remain pressing modern issues, the latter “especially in the the 36 legislatures [across the nation] controlled by Republicans. These are ways that the Civil War’s issues today are not over and could [still] be lost.”
The gathering was triggered by William Boughton, the conductor of the New Haven Symphony, who received notification of the scheduled bell-ringing event from the National Park Service. He alerted city Director of Arts, Culture, & Tourism Andy Wolf.
Wolf in turn corralled the bell ringers, reenactors, as well as participants from the Knights of Columbus Museum, where a current exhibition, “Answering the Call,” celebrates the contribution of Connecticut clergy and nurses in the Civil War.
Reenactors from the 27th Connecticut Infantry strut their stuff.
New Haven Peace Commission chief Al Marder called the event important “if we understand its significance. It’s the second [American] Revolution. The first was against monarchy. And the second was not only maintaining the Union but establishing what was supposed to have been that ‘all men are created equal.’”
In her remarks, Aliyah Rodriguez said, “I enjoy ringing the bell.”
In the spirit of Thursday’s event, Wolf said that the city is continuing to try to build on its history resources. He said he approved the idea, suggested in this Independent article, that March 6, the day of Abraham Lincoln’s only appearance in New Haven and the occasion for a great speech, might be marked annually.
“I’m putting it in my calendar. March 6, next year. Be there, ” Wolf said.
Professor Blight uses the occasion to make a politically partisan stab at "Republican" controlled state legislatures. Real classy. Some history professor he is, failing to mention that a Republican president freed the slaves & carried out and won the war against the South, and did so against an oppositional, racist democratic party. I'd hate to have a kid in his classroom; he/she would come out indoctrinated, not educated.