Confederacy

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• SOURCE: NextCity
  5/23/2022
  

  Virginia's Governor Took Away the Most Important Piece of Protest Art in the Country. What Should He Have Done?

  Outgoing governor Ralph Northam removed the graffiti-covered pedestal of the former Robert E. Lee monument, which has become a site of community gathering and a public forum to express alternative visions of history. Cities should try to encourage such openness (if not spray-painting). 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  5/24/2022
  

  Congressional Commission Unveils Proposal to Rename Bases Honoring Confederates

  West Point historian Ty Seidule was vice-chair of the renaming commission, and sought community input for the proposal. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/23/2022
  

  Facing the Truth in the Land of Lee

  by Laura Brodie

  The controversy over removing Robert E. Lee's portrait from diplomas at Washington and Lee University points to an uncomfortable truth: Lee's historical depiction as handsome has been a visual symbol of the Lost Cause that has contributed to acceptance of the pro-Confederate mythology. 

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• SOURCE: Baptist News
  5/13/2022
  

  The Religion of the "Lost Cause" Is Back, and It May be Winning

  by Bill Leonard

  The weaponization of Southern Christianity around perceived threats to cultural integrity today adapts the playbook of the Lost Cause to the present. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/15/2022
  

  A Neighborly Civil War in Virginia over Street Names

  Leaders of a group of suburban Virginia homeowners who want to change the Confederate-related street names in their community have been accused of being puppets of George Soros and threatened. 

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• SOURCE: WLBT
  4/14/2022
  

  Former Mississippi Governor Slams Tate Reeves over Confederate Heritage Remarks

  Ray Mabus did not sign a Confederate Heritage Month declaration, a tradition which began with former Governor Kirk Fordice, whom Mabus also called "an overt white supremacist." 

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• SOURCE: Oxford American
  3/22/2022
  

  Questing for the Past

  by Katherine Churchill

  A nameplate in an 1864 edition of Gawain and the Green Knight led the author to discover the connections between a mythic medieval past and the Lost Cause ideology of Jim Crow Virginia. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  3/12/2022
  

  Erin Thompson's "Smashing Statues": Tear 'Em All Down

  How does taking down a statue relate to the more complicated work of eliminating the racist ideas and structures that put it up? 

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• SOURCE: Stars and Stripes
  3/6/2022
  

  He Grew Up With a Dog Named Dixie; Now He's Renaming Military Bases Honoring Confederates

  “People try and say ‘Oh, you’re not a patriot because you don’t love the Confederacy.’ No. I love the United States of America. And anybody that kills U.S. Army soldiers, that tries to destroy the country that I love — I can’t honor that.”

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/15/2022
  

  Will Monuments Honoring People of Color Replace Confederate Statues?

  by Frederick Gooding, Jr.

  "With few new exceptions, public and prominent statues of Blacks people are nonexistent."

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• SOURCE: Nashville Tennessean
  2/8/2022
  

  Confronting Confederate Heritage is Necessary to Understand White Supremacy

  by David Barber

  Everyday social life in the Confederacy required white Southerners to close their eyes and hearts to terrible cruelty. No reconciliation today is possible without acknowledging it. 

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• SOURCE: Richmond Times-Dispatch
  2/4/2022
  

  The Fate of Richmond's Confederate Monuments Lies with a Black Organization – As it Should Be

  Columnist Michael Paul Williams writes that the decision to turn Confederate memorial statues over to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia shows the arc of the universe bending toward justice, but taking an occasional turn through irony. 

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• SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
  1/26/2022
  

  Rep. Cawthorn Lawyer's Defense against 14th Amendment Disqualification? Confederate Amnesty Act

  It is perhaps fitting that Cawthorn, who faces a challenge to his eligibility for office based on his endorsement of the march which led to the attack on the Capitol, would invoke an amnesty for Confederates as a defense. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/23/2022
  

  Confederate Groups are Keeping the Lost Cause Myth on Life Support

  by Erin L. Thompson

  "Confederate heritage" groups have used their financial resources to bring lawsuits before sympathetic judges to thwart the public's desire to remove monuments to the white supremacist pro-slavery government in public spaces. 

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• SOURCE: AL.com
  1/12/2022
  

  Alabama's Capitol is a Crime Scene, with a 120 Year Coverup

  The Alabama Capitol in Montgomery was the first seat of the Confederate government and the place where white Democrats ratified a Jim Crow constitution in 1901. You'd learn little of this by touring the museum-like building. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/30/2021
  

  Richmond's Lee Statue, other Confederate Memorials Could go to Black History Museum

  Marland Buckner, interim executive director of the Black History Museum, said in the release that his institution “takes very seriously the responsibility to manage these objects in ways that ensure their origins and purpose are never forgotten: that is the glorification of those who led the fight to enslave African Americans and destroy the Union.”

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/5/2021
  

  Virginia to Dismantle Lee Statue Plinth

  Outgoing Governor Ralph Northam will execute the removal of the pedestal and the transfer of the surrounding traffic circle to the City of Richmond before Glenn Youngkin succeeds him in office. 

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• SOURCE: Orange County Register
  11/8/2021
  

  Cal State Fullerton Students Develop Public History Archive of Confederate Monuments

  The recent movement to reconsider Confederate monuments represents a kind of synthesis of public and academic histories with a moral component, which Benjamin Cawthra encourages his public history students to investigate. 

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• 10/24/2021
  

  Flying the Confederate Battle Flag in the North is a Special Sort of Disgrace

  by Daniel Koch

  Upstate New York was once the most pro-Lincoln and anti-slavery part of the Union. The growing presence of Confederate symbols there insults the region's history and contributions paid in blood for freedom. 

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• SOURCE: University of Virginia Batten School
  10/11/2021
  

  New Research: More Lynchings in Places with More Confederate Monuments

  Empirical research supports what activists have been saying for decades: Confederate memorials encourage violence in the name of white supremacy.