When hammer-thrower Gwen Berry turned her back on the American flag at the Olympic Trials last weekend, it made me think of Sergeant William Carney.
Berry probably doesn’t know who Carney was.
Neither, I bet, do the Black Lives Matter activists who spent last summer blindly tearing down statues of historical figures to protest the racist origins of America and the systemic racism they claim exists today.
Thanks to the lousy way history is taught in our schools, most Americans – of every color – have never heard of William Carney.
But who he was, what brave things he did on a Civil War battlefield, and what he thought about America and its flag should have become common knowledge many July 4ths ago.
Carney was born a slave in Virginia in 1840, but his father escaped to the North on the Underground Railroad and made enough money in Massachusetts to purchase the freedom of the rest of his family.
In 1863 Carney, at age 23, joined a local militia and became part of the all-Black Company C of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.
As shown in the Oscar-winning 1989 movie “Glory,” the historic 54th and 55th regiments were founded to prove that Black men could be good, brave soldiers – and they quickly proved it.
During the bloody battle of Fort Wagner in Charleston, S.C., in 1863 Carney saw that the soldier carrying the 54th regimental colors had been wounded.
He left his position and ran into the thick of the fighting to save the American flag from being captured or hitting the ground – which was something they cared about deeply in those days.
Despite being hit four times by bullets, Carney was able to bring the U.S. flag safely to Union lines, where he collapsed.
It took 40 years for Carney’s battlefield heroics to be rewarded, but in 1900 he was awarded the Medal of Honor in Boston.
The first Black person to receive the award, he explained his heroics by simply saying, “I only did my duty.”
Can you imagine how Carney – a former slave – and the other patriotic Black men who enlisted in the 54th and 55th would react today to the protests of Gwen Berry or the constant complaints of the BLM crowd and Critical Race Theorists?
America’s not perfect now, and it never was.
But BLM and the others are fixated on the past – on the shameful stuff that our white ancestors did to blacks that we regret and are ashamed of but can’t do anything about today.
That shameful stuff includes the horrors of slavery, 70 years of legalized racism in the Jim Crow South, the de facto discrimination and segregation in the North and white race riots like the Tulsa Massacre of 1921.
Activists need to acknowledge all the good that has been done to make America a better, fairer, freer country that lives up to its founding ideals.
Blacks in America live far better and freer lives than Carney’s generation could ever dream of living.
Yet they constantly disrespect the flag and the country it represents, which they claim was founded on racism and is still systematically racist.
Gwen Berry said this week she doesn’t hate America.
She said she turned her back to the flag because she doesn’t like the third (and basically unknown) stanza of the National Anthem, which she claims “disrespects” Blacks with its brief reference to slaves.
Berry says she knows her history, but she really doesn’t. She and the BLM and its allies have no appreciation of what life was like for Black people like Carney and his generation.
They take a knee to the National Anthem or turn their backs on the same flag that Sergeant Willian Carney, a former slave, loved and risked his life to keep from touching the ground.
What would Carney say to Gwen Berry, Colin Kaepernick and the members of BLM today?
He’d probably want to turn his back to them. Download the movie “Glory” if you want to see why.
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Copyright 2021 Michael Reagan, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Send comments to [email protected] and follow @reaganworld on Twitter.
Excellent article. Does this ever need to be taught. It shows just how one-sided schools and the Media present everything and how they dramatize and aggrandize anything and everything negative that they can use to promote their agenda of division and hate. It shows where the true racism is in the country.
“to promote their agenda of division and hate.”
This has been the intensions of the treasonous Democrat Party since its founding in 1829.
Nathaniel Grigsby curses Democrats from 120-year-old grave. Inscribed on his tombstone is:
“Through this inscription I wish to enter my dying protest against what is called the Democratic party. I have watched it closely since the days of Jackson and know that all the misfortunes of our nation have come to it through this so called Democrat party. Therefore, beware of this party of treason.”
The Democrat Party’s treason has been from its beginning. Since its founding the Democrat Party and the Democrat Party’s traitorous and treason character was apparent and is very apparent today.
The traitorous Democrat Party has become our country’s most destructive and deadliest ENEMY.
Hey Gwen Berry, why don’t you move to Cuba and then you can proudly face their communist flag? You can live in poverty with the rest of the Cubans, since according to you, the United States of America is an evil Country.
I have often seem blacks, whine about that supposed third stansa. BUT NOT ONCE HAVE I EVER HEARD IT SUNG anywhere..
I agree with you, Son of Thunder, it is a excellent article and needs to be taught. Scuff, your comments are spot on. I’m sitting here thinking about the condition of the African slaves that brought to this part of the world, wondering how their life might have been had they went someplace else. Would they have been worse off? I can only wonder. But this I do know, that eventually the actual descendants of the slave became a free people, to enjoy the fruits of their own labor and the freedoms this country has to offer. So, in a sense, and I know I will be condemned for saying this, that they should be very fortunate that there were Americans with the will and fortitude to fight a war to facilitate that freedom. Unfortunately, there has been a roadblock for many of them to progress in life, and that is the members of the Democrat Party, who profit from the calls of repression and endless cries for reparations. I have family members and friends who are black and fortunately have not fallen into the democrat trap. I’m so greatful for those who have served and are serving this nation. May God bless America!
I did not serve in the military, but 100% support those that have and that are.