CNN’s Henderson: Robert E. Lee Thought ‘Slavery Was Good for Black People Because They Needed To Be Civilized’

EXCERPT:

HENDERSON: "You know, I do think it reflects that the South, obviously, lost the war but they sort of in some ways won the narrative battle and kind of the memory of the Civil War and that’s what he is speaking to, this idea that Robert E. Lee, who thought that black people were — did some — basically benefited from slavery. That was Robert E. Lee’s philosophy, that slavery was good for black people because they needed to be civilized. He actually thought slavery was bad for white people because they were the ones that had to enslave black people to do them some good. I mean, the thing about — I think that is also troubling about Kelly, is that he does tend to look at the past through these rose-colored glasses. He talked about women being honored in the past and seen in a respectful way. I mean, if you think that women being treated as second-class citizens is honoring them, that was what the past was. And he also seems to be impervious to new information, right? If you look at the Frederica Wilson controversy, he had the story completely wrong, the truth of what she said came out, and he still refused to apologize, refused to change his approach to that story. So, you know, you would hope that John Kelly will read about the Civil War. I mean it’s probably the most covered war and period of history in American history. I mean, multiple volumes, hundreds of thousands of books are written on that period. You would hope he would read a little bit more and kind of broaden his idea of what that war was actually about.”