Lost Cause

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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: 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: 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: The Guardian
  1/8/2022
  

  We Must Fight the New Lost Cause Myth Trump has Birthed

  by David Blight

  "Yes, disinformation has to be fought with good information. But it must also be fought with fierce politics, with organization, and if necessary with bodies, non-violently."

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  12/14/2021
  

  The Right's 1877 Project

  Helen Andrews's recent "American Conservative" column revives the myths that Reconstruction was a "tragic era" and that Black disenfranchisement was a force for progress, troubling indicators of the current right's views of democracy. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/18/2021
  

  The Lost Cause Resonance of Pledging Allegiance to Flag from January 6 Capitol Attack

  A rally in support of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin pledged allegiance to a flag carried at the January 6 seige of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Is the day turning into the Lost Cause of the far right?

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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.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/24/2021
  

  Like the Confederates, it's Dangerous to Let the January 6th Losers Rewrite History

  by Shira Lurie

  The right's effort to recast the events of January 6 as a peaceful protest is a dangerous attempt at rewriting history. The ongoing mythology of the Confederacy shows it needs to be nipped in the bud. 

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• 8/1/2021
  

  Charlottesville's Lee Statue Belongs in a Museum

  by John Troast

  "Charlottesville’s recently removed statue of Robert E. Lee is not a statue of a man, it is a statue of a myth," and the history of that dangerous myth needs to be preserved.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/28/2021
  

  Charles Blow: ‘The Lost Cause’ Is Back

  by Charles M. Blow

  "Republicans are on a political crusade to protect lore and lies. They know that many Americans, many of them their voters, will take a lie over guilt and atonement, every day of the week."

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• SOURCE: Charlotte News & Observer
  7/12/2021
  

  Far-Right Activists Protest with Confederate Flags at UNC’s Unsung Founders Memorial

  Two white supremacists picketed the University of North Carolina's memorial to the free and enslaved Black workers who built the university, the latest incident of racial tension on the campus. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  7/4/2021
  

  Manual Advises how to Stop Removal of Confederate Statues: Don’t Mention Race

  "The document is attributed to the highest level of SCV leadership at that time and buttresses its defense of monuments with a detailed account of the civil war which falsely denies the centrality of slavery in the conflict."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/10/2021
  

  Why Confederate Lies Live On

  by Clint Smith

  Throughout the south, and in the minds of Americans, aesthetics and idealized depictions of valor continue to obscure the fact that the Confederacy fought to maintain a social order based on the ownership of human beings and white supremacy.

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  4/12/2021
  

  ‘Darn’ Tootin’ It Is!’: Gov. Tate Reeves Again Declares Confederate Heritage Month, SCV Says

  While official state web pages have not posted such a proclamation, Governor Tate Reeves has apparently signed a proclamation again declaring April Confederate Heritage Month, as posted on the Facebook page of the Sons of Confederate Veterans of Rankin County, MS. Writer Donna Ladd says Reeves' proclamation equates the Union and Confederate causes in the Civil War.

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• SOURCE: WWLTV
  4/9/2021
  

  Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair Stolen from Alabama Cemetery Found in New Orleans, 2 Arrested

  The chair was recovered in New Orleans, and two suspects have been arrested with a third at large. 

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• SOURCE: TedEd
  3/1/2021
  

  Debunking the Myth of the Lost Cause: A Lie Embedded in American History

  by Karen L. Cox

  Karen L. Cox examines the cultural myth of the Lost Cause.

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• SOURCE: Virginian-Pilot
  3/1/2021
  

  How a Wave of Segregationist Tributes, from Streets to Schools, Entrenched the Idea of White Supremacy

  Understanding the stakes of renaming public buildings, streets, or schools requires understanding the purposeful politics that attached the names of Confederates to public spaces a century ago, say Virginia historians Dan Margolies and Calvin Pearson.

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• SOURCE: Muster
  2/23/2021
  

  The Necessity of National Unity: Defeated Confederates’ International Appeals to Unity

  by Ann Tucker

  Defeated Confederate partisans found justification and support for national reunification without accountability by pointing selectively to the contentious politics of the European nationalist movement. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/5/2021
  

  A Southerner who abandoned the Lost Cause (Review)

  West Point historian Ty Seidule's book traces his own personal path from venerating the Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy to rejecting it, including questioning the number of monuments to Robert E. Lee at the US Military Academy.