Black Alabama man against the removal of Confederate monuments
A Black man who claims Confederate heritage through his family says he wants the controversial monuments to remain standing
What in the Clayton Bigsby hell is this?
An Alabama man trended on social media when he was interviewed about the removal of Confederate flags and statues in his hometown. Daniel Sims told WHNT that he was opposed to the removal as his white ancestors had fought in the Civil War.
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However, he didn’t mean his biological ancestors. He meant the ancestors of the white family who adopted him, as he explained.
“My whole family is white,” Sims told WHNT in a man on the street interview about the monuments being removed in Guntersville and Albertville, Alabama.
He is a member of Captain John Rayburn Camp 452 Sons of Confederate Veterans, part of a counter-protest against those who want the monuments removed and relocated.
“[I] went to all-white school, grew up in all-white neighborhood. My grandfather was white and he was the main one that fought in this war here. And he’s taught me everything I know,” he said.
While it’s unlikely that Sims’ grandfather could have fought in a war that ended in 1865, Sims says that the monuments as they remain are not an issue for him.
“It may make my blood boil if they just feel like they can come up here and feel like they can just tear it down. I don’t see me still living if they do that. That monument ain’t hurting nobody. That monument ain’t killing a soul. It ain’t talking bad to nobody. It ain’t even racist!” he declares.
Say Their Names Alabama organized the protest outside the Marshall County courthouse where one of the offending Confederate monuments stands.
“The rebel flag does not represent all Americans so it should not be at a place where all Americans in the county come, which is the courthouse. So, it is out of place and it has been out of place since they placed it here in 2005,” Say Their Names Alabama leader Unique Dunston told WHNT at the protest.
Sims, whose video was viewed 2.5M times, was dragged on social media by those who likened him to Bigsby.
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Bigsby, as some may remember, was the Black, blind character portrayed by Dave Chappelle on his eponymous Comedy Central show that believed he was white to the point he identified as a white supremacist.
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