The #woke destroy more history Will they go after the Jefferson Davis historical marker in Lexington?

Site of the old Jefferson Davis Inn. From Google Maps streetview. Click to enlarge.

As I saw the stories about the removal of statues of Confederate Generals Robert E Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson in Charlottesville, Virginia, I thought back to when I lived in Lexington previously, from 1971 through 1984. When I lived there, last century, the building in the photograph to the right was painted white, and the ground floor housed the Jefferson Davis Inn.

Why was it called the Jefferson Davis Inn? For three years, 1821-1824, then a student at Transylvania College, boarded on the second floor of the building with Joseph Ficklin, then the United States Postmaster in Lexington.

Historical marker attached to 102 West High Street, Lexington, Kentucky.

I’ve never been much of a beer drinker; two is about my limit, because I don’t care what any beer says about being “less filling,” two twelve ounce bottles of beer is more than enough for me.[1]And I really don’t like the feeling of getting drunk. But I have eaten, and had a few beers, at the Jefferson Davis Inn before. As I recall, it was pretty decent.

Alas! The original Jefferson Davis Inn closed in 1996. A second JDI opened, at a different location, in 2013, but closed at the very end of 2016.

Joe Stearns, proprietor of the bar High on Rose in June of 1981. High on Rose was a popular downtown watering hole situated at the corner of East High Street and Rose Street. Stearns opened the business in June of 1975. Photo by Christy Porter

Returning to the Bluegrass State in 2017, I did want to see some of the places I had frequented previously, and the closure of the Clubhouse, more frequently referred to as High on Rose, at the intersection of East High and Rose Streets, saddened me. Creaky old wooden floors, greasy hand cut French fries, general beer bar fare, and beer by the mug or the pitcher.

But, I digress. Reading about the removal of the statues made me wonder: will the #woke[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading in Lexington demand the removal of the historic market on 102 West High Street? In 2017, the Democrat-controlled city government removed the statues of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and John C Breckinridge, a former U.S. Vice President and the last Confederate Secretary of War from the lawn of the former Fayette County courthouse. The statues were taken to the Lexington Cemetery, where both men are buried.

Drinking a couple of beers and eating some food at the old Jefferson Davis Inn did not make me want to run out and join some Confederate memorial society, or become a Civil War re-enactor in a grey uniform, or somehow celebrate the Confederacy. It was a decent place, in an historic building, and it was well done.

Our history is our history, and trying to erase it won’t erase it. But today, the left want to look at everything through the prism of race. Given the way things are going, in twenty years students will be taught that Jefferson Davis had horns and cloven hoofs.

References

References
1 And I really don’t like the feeling of getting drunk.
2 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

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