Controversial Legacy: Examining Robert E. Lee

Was Robert E. Lee a Hero or a Hitler? Like Hitler, Lee’s legacy is very controversial. The three page web-based biography our class was asked to read gives a lot of facts about Lee, but also leaves out a lot of facts that are important for people to know. Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807 and died October 12, 1870. He was born in Stratford Hall, Virginia and was the son of Ann Carter and Henry Lee.

It is a fact that Lee’s family was not rich ever since his father made some bad business deals, so they had no money, however the biography does not mention that Lee’s mother and father were slave owners. It is also a fact that when Lee was only two years old, his father went to debtor’s prison and a few years after that, he went to the

Grant at the battle of Appomattox? The biography further states that President Abraham Lincoln forgave Lee. The fact is that Lincoln was pained by the war and even wrote that the casualties suffered by U.S. Grant, and those who fought to get rid of slavery, did not leave him in a sentimental mood also writing, “Broken eggs cannot be

Did you know that just outside of Lexington, Virginia (where Lee is buried) a Confederate battle flag, which Lee defended flies from an 80-foot pole on private property and after the property owner put up the flag he also put an ad in the local newspaper that read no “black people” are allowed on his property until further notice? Also a fact, the Confederate flag, which Lee defended, is the emblem of the KKK, a white hate group that is anti-black, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jewish.

Even today the topic of Lee is especially sensitive and hurtful to many after Dylann Roof, a white supremacist was sentenced to death for massacring members of a black church in South Carolina.

The biography gives a lot of facts that seem to glorify Lee, but leaves out the fact that Lee’s legacy, like Hitler, is drenched in racism, intolerance and white supremacy which lead to the massacre of thousands. It is a fact that in recent years Lee’s name as well as statues commemorating him have been removed from schools and public parks.

Robert E. Lee, a Hero, or a Hitler? Now that you know many of the facts, that were left out of the three page web-based biography our class was asked to read, I will let you be the