No offense, but I tend to take a cynical view of the DOC's erection of that statue. Please understand I grew up in the MS Delta proud of my Southern heritage - my family's direct line are all buried in the same Southern Baptist cemetery in the Delta all the way back to 1870. I know first-hand how it felt to "look away to Dixieland".

I would say their motive was more likely the same as those apologists who point out how a few Blacks fought for the Confederacy, in an attempt to (falsely) imply that the Civil War wasn't about slavery (when it absolutely was).

And after the war, Lee himself indicated in so many words that the Confederacy should not be glorified or memorialized. That, when considered with the realization that the great majority of Confederate statues were erected during the rise of Jim Crow and during the Civil Rights struggle, shows the real motivation of those who wanted to raise those monuments.