Week 9: Freedom from Fear

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, established in 1948 by United Nations, begins with weaving together all people into one human race - a reminder that no matter our melanin count or blood type, cultural or religious preference, zip code or language, a human being is a human being. It includes the following articles that are particularly pertinent to note:
- Article 3: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person."
- Article 4: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
- Article 5: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
- Article 26.2. "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups..."

Today in 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his Four Freedoms speech, which directly impacted portions of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These freedoms are: 1) freedom of speech and expression, 2) freedom of religion, 3) freedom from want, and 4) freedom from fear. 

The freedom from fear. And yet, even with the end of the American Civil War, African Americans and other minority groups were often harassed or intimidated by those that sought to control their actions and hinder their equality of rights, which had been newly established by The United States of America's Constitution. For example, the Freedmen's Bureau Records report cases in 1868 (nos. 36 and 38) of an African American woman, Celina Jackson, who witnessed the burning of the US flag at an official's Shenandoah County office in his absence by a white mob. She was assaulted; and yet the Civil Authorities did nothing to protect her or her rights.

The freedom from fear. And yet, even in 2020 - the same year George Floyd was murdered - one of our own Shenandoah County residents was assaulted on his own property by a white mob, called 911, and then was himself arrested because he brandished a firearm he legally owned in order to dissuade the trespassers from further abuse. Even though the police later apologized and the case was dropped, the harm had been done. That arrest placed a message in our community that required action. That death in our country placed a message in our community that required action. And it is all related to FDR's freedom from fear. The freedoms of equality that Thomas Jackson, Robert Lee, and Turner Ashby fought against by canceling their citizenship to The United States of America and instead placing their allegiance into The Confederate States of America, whose message of economic exploitation of other human beings was quite clearly pronounced and embedded into their Constitution.

The required action was taken when two public schools that still bore the names of Confederate leaders were renamed from Stonewall Jackson to Mountain View High School and from Ashby-Lee to Honey Run Elementary School. This action was done to create freedom from fear. Our county continues to brandish fear as a weapon and that is not right. I implore you to consider the message that would be made in reverting to the previous school names - know all the history, not just the Lost Cause Narrative. Our children deserve freedom from fear. They deserve the right to life, liberty, and security of person. They deserve freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. They deserve freedom from slavery. They deserve understanding, tolerance, and friendships. And yet if we really stop and think about it, the previous school names did not insinuate these rights at all.