I drive a Volkswagen. Well, not right now, at least since I had surgery, but I do own a ’73 Beetle! And let me tell you, that little car brings me such joy, especially when I turn it out on the road for rides in the country with the windows down and the cool breeze refreshing my face.

It’s simple, uncomplicated, and doesn’t blink and beep at me when the tire pressure gets low or my seat belt isn’t on. (Yes, I do wear mine!) Put simply, we’re best friends. Many a day that Beetle has helped me unwind from a stressful day at work, and after I wrote my first book, rides into the beautiful rural byways of Montgomery, Macon, and Bullock Counties helped clear my head.

I love my little blue Beetle … so it might surprise some to find that I’m also of Jewish ancestry through my father’s side. My Jewish great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and cousins died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia, under Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. Because of this tragedy, there are those who would say that I should hate owning a Volkswagen, since it was Hitler’s invention. (Well, not quite. It was actually engineer Josef Ganz who invented the car, but the Nazis stole his idea, then hired Ferdinand Porsche to give it the classic look that it is known for.)

Still, why should I own a Beetle? Or drive on the Interstate? Or be proud of NASA’s accomplishments, especially the ’69 Moon Mission led by former Nazi Dr. Wernher von Braun? All these were either of Nazi origin or had Nazi connections – and the Nazis killed my family. So I should hate all these things, right?

This is not as absurd as it might seem. My great aunt swore that she would never have anything German in her house, not even a Krups coffee pot, a gift she rejected from my aunt.

For a short season in my life, I, too, struggled in a similar way. It was uncaring and uncompassionate not to feel for my great aunt’s great loss and pain. But when Christ gave me eternal life and His heart to forgive, I learned that forgiveness is life, and love is more powerful than hatred.

By now you may be wondering what the story of my Volkswagen has to do with the Civil War mentioned in the title above. It has everything to do with it!

April 9 marks the 160th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, but practically no one is talking about it. The Civil War has been banished, exiled – practically erased from cultural memory today.

That’s a shame, because just as I should not hate the German people and German things – including my Volkswagen, Von Braun, the Interstate Highway system, Krups appliances, and much, much more – so should American citizens not hate and seek to erase portions of our entire historical narrative as a nation, especially the story of the Civil War.

Everyone these days is talking about Civil Rights, and rightfully so; the story bell of Civil Rights should be rung and rung and rung.

But so should the story bell of the Civil War.

After all, the Civil War was the “Morningstar” of the Civil Rights Movement since it achieved the first freedom from slavery for black Americans, fulfilling the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation. Truly, it was a decisive first victory for Civil Rights. Done.

It’s amazing to me that so many scholars have missed this critical point – or maybe they are in willful denial of the truth of it. Trying to erase it only makes things worse in the end; this history is as important as the rest of the history of our great land.

It was very unfortunate that many Civil War statues were destroyed during recent uprisings – and also very sad that key military installations were renamed due to “wokeness,” as they were great teaching tools for learning about the past, in every respect – good and bad. Likewise, the controversy over the Confederate Battle Flag does not erase it from the story of the war and its appropriate places for display and use.

We urgently need to begin telling the complete story of the Civil War once again in all schools, colleges, and universities. It deserves to be written about and discussed in films depicting it’s richly textured history so that the account may be known today and preserved for future generations. All historic Civil War battlefields, museums, landmarks, sites, and places – on both sides – should be venerated, while the stories of all the actors in the Civil War should be told, restored as significant candidates for research and study. Parents, teachers, and all citizens would do well to become students of its full history, as well as patrons of Civil War museums, battlefields, landmarks, sites, and battle re-enactments in order to teach the next generation about how this critical event helped forge our nation.

So tell the story of the Civil War. Tell it in its fullness, letting history speak for itself. Tell about how providential it was as an agent for freeing black Americans from the evil of institutional slavery. Tell it alongside the story of Civil Rights, letting these two great stories inform each other, enriching the story of America, and why America’s greatness has survived and overcome suffering, injustice, bloodshed – and even war against itself.

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Missouri History Museum, Public Domain