Color

 Ruth Middleton shared: "Have you and Caleb been to Cemetery of Morne a L' Eau Guadeloupe?  One of the oddest cemeteries we have seen.  Our guide wasn’t sure of the symbolism of the black and white.  She thought it could represent death & birth.  One idea online was that black was symbolic of mourning in European culture and white was in African culture. Any thoughts?"

Symbol

 Skulls

These tiles are at a Mexican restaurant, Birria El Gordo, Lindbergh Station, Atlanta, Georgia, where we ate lunch. Skulls convey mortality, the worldly survival of death, death, the transitoriness nature of life on earth, the useless nature of earthly things, sin, and the fall of man.  

Books

 

A writer that I enjoy reading is Erik Larson because his books show all the warts and ugliness of a certain time period and explains the different pieces that were affected by a certain time of history. His latest book, The Demon of Unrest, explains the beginning of the Civil War and the attack on Fort Sumter by the Confederate Army and how that decision reverberated throughout the United States. I also enjoyed reading about how the leadership of the U.S. Presidency shifted so dramatically from James Buchanan to Abraham Lincoln.

Sculpture

 Benjamin Harvey Hill Statue

I don't know if you read the excellent magazine Georgia BackRoads, but in the Winter 2024 issue, there is a captivating article -  Shaking Georgia from Center to Circumference: Henry Grady and the 1886 Governor's Race. In that article, Ray Chandler writes that Jefferson Davis came to the unveiling of the Benjamin Harvey Hill statue on April 30, 1886, which used to be at the southern intersection of Peachtree Street and West Peachtree Street in the vicinity of what is today Hardy Ivy Park. The picture above shows its original location. 

Benjamin Harvey Hill was a politician and served as a member of the Confederate States Federation and was a spokesperson for Jefferson Davis. Following the war, he continued his political career and served as a member of the United States Senate. He died on August 16, 1882 and was buried in Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia

The sculpture was designed by New York City sculptor Alexander Doyle. Other monuments he designed were the Washington Artillery Memorial Cenotaph, Metaire Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana, the Francis Scott Key Grave and Monument, Mount Olivet Cemetery, Frederick,Maryland, and the William Pinkney Funerary Monument, Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia. 

In 1890, the Benjamin Harvey Hill monument was moved to the Georgia State Capitol because another monument was to be placed in that location. On May 30, 1893, during the funeral procession of Jefferson Davis from New Orleans to his tomb in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, he was temporarily laid in state inside the Georgia State Capitol, where his coffin was placed in front of the statue of Hill.