It is amazing how nostalgia turns into public policy.

The state of Virginia is wrestling with what to do about an already removed statute of General Robert E. Lee, military leader of the Confederacy and an outstanding student at West Point.

However, Lee lost the Civil War to Union General Ulysses S. Grant who died 138 years ago this week. Conversely, Grant was a mediocre student at West Point, and one with a drinking problem at that. Grant, a staunch supporter of Reconstruction, became our 18th president.

Which one is remembered in a more favorable light? Not Grant. He has been the butt of many jokes, such as: “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?”

I will always remember a political science class I taught at the University of Virginia. A question I posed to the students was on Reconstruction. Was it good or bad? One of my best students in class quickly raised his hand to give what he thought was the “obvious answer.” He was a white youngster from Mississippi. The class had every color of the rainbow – you know, it was one of those “diverse” classes.

Most of the white students said Reconstruction was horrible, with some even claiming it was “the worst thing ever.”

I tasked the class to research the topic. But I gave them directions on what the “truth” would be, at least from the perspective of former slaves. My great grandparents were part of that number, and my grandfather was born during Reconstruction in 1870. People do see it differently, however, depending on their perspective.

Black people were making tremendous progress thanks to President Grant, Radical Republicans, hard-working Black people, and good white people.

Here is an excerpt from the last speech by Rep. George White, given on Jan. 29, 1901. He was the last Black congressman of the 19th century. He describes a few highlights and “low” lights of what happened from 1865 to 1899:

“Since that time we have reduced the illiteracy of the race at least 45 percent. We have written and published nearly 500 books. We have nearly 800 newspapers, three of which are dailies. We have now in practice over 2,000 lawyers, and a corresponding number of doctors. We have accumulated over $12,000,000 worth of school property and about $40,000,000 worth of church property. We have about 140,000 farms and homes, valued in the neighborhood of $750,000,000, and personal property valued about $170,000,000.

“We are operating successfully several banks, commercial enterprises among our people in the South land, including one silk mill and one cotton factory. We have 32,000 teachers in the schools of the country; we have built, with the aid of our friends, about 20,000 churches, and support 7 colleges, 17 academies, 50 high schools, 5 law schools, 5 medical schools and 25 theological seminaries. We have over 600,000 acres of land in the South alone. The cotton produced, mainly by black labor, has increased from 4,669,770 bales in 1860 to 11,235,000 in 1899. All this was done under the most adverse circumstances.”

Then we had the Compromise of 1877, which ended Reconstruction.

This resulted in the removal of the “pesky” northern troops meant to force former slave owners to treat Black people fairly – we could call it the 19th-century’s version of affirmative action.

The main part of the “Compromise” was the following: Republican Rutherford Hayes agreed to remove northern troops, once led by General Grant, from the South in exchange for the presidency over Governor Samuel Tilden.

The Democrats favored a Republican president in order to get back control of the South. It was then that Jim Crow was born and over 4,000 Black people were lynched over the decades. States that were majority or near-majority Black saw a mass exodus of Black people to the North and West – called “The Great Migration” – making all the southern states majority white.

Easily, the post-Reconstruction made white people in the South happy and it was arguably the beginning of a dire period – second only to slavery itself – for Black people in America.

And today we have a large number of descendants of slave owners playing a role in getting rid of those “pesky” folks trying to help Black people again.

Last month, a Reuter’s news story listed Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett as descendants of slave owners. They were also the two justices who voted against affirmative action. Who else were descendants of slave owners? Scores of Republicans in Congress from the South, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The statute of Robert Lee, along with streets named after segregationists, and for some the confederate flag, may be nostalgic for some folks, but we must not relive the past. They seem to want to have a “mulligan” on what took place when Grant and Lee were in Appomattox, the surrender of the Confederacy.

I have yet to find a Black leader or respected Black figure even in history who felt compelled to want the Aunt Jemima logo removed from pancake boxes or the Uncle Ben’s logo from rice boxes.

I don’t know anyone from this same pool of people who were crying for the name change of Fort Bragg or any other fort.

No, Black people could care less. Black people would like to have good paying jobs that they are qualified to hold, possibly given the opportunity to work next to “you,” with a comparable salary and title. That is it. The rest is a “your (white people) problem”; it’s not a Black people problem.

With slavery, and post-Reconstruction Jim Crow (segregation) in our memory bank, Black people are not as nostalgic about the past.

Gary Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticut’s 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New England’s first Black member of the House. Host: podcast “We Speak Frankly.” Author: “With God, For God, and For Country.” @GaryFranks/Tribune News Service