Lee Chapel Response- Jimmy Fiume

I thought that Lee Chapel was an interesting example of how a person or idea can mean different things to different people, and that these people will have different ideas of how to memorialize that event or person. Who gets to decide how something is portrayed? In this case it is the school. To the school, the most important part of Lee's life was his time after the war, and the chapel is representative of that. To outsiders, the most important part of Lee's life was his time with the Confederacy, and they want the chapel to represent that. This gives the school the opportunity to shape Lee's legacy for future generations and use his memorial to promote values they find important. These values are most likely different than the values that many other groups may want to use his memorial to promote, but memorials offer a subjective view of history. Due to this, it is hard to design monuments that will result in no controversy at all.