Whose Confederate Heritage?
This story out of Haywood County, North Carolina about the display of the Confederate flag on public ground is perfect for helping us to move beyond the popular narratives of North v. South and black...
View ArticleOur Obsession With the Confederate Flag
My editor at the Atlantic asked me to revise a recent post on the DNC and the Confederate flag. You can read it below or at the Atlantic. I have no doubt that it will raise the usual cries of...
View ArticleShould These Men Be Prevented From Serving on Juries?
Update: Leave it to Ta-Nehisi Coates to remind us of just how silly this project actually is. Anti-Neo-Confederate crusader Edward Sebesta is best known for his push to petition President Obama to...
View Article“No Hired Hessians or Negroes in the Southern Army”
In 1909 Philip K. Fall, Commander of the Dick Dowling Camp in Houston, welcomed the United Daughters of the Confederacy to their annual meeting. His brief welcome acknowledged the UDC’s crucial role in...
View ArticleIs This Group Ready to Reenact Olustee?
Jimmy Price notes that reenactments of engagements in which black soldiers participated have already taken place, though on a smaller scale. Even in these cases, however, it is not at all clear as to...
View ArticleMore Selective Outrage Over Confederate Heritage
One of my favorite places to take students in Charlottesville was the University of Virginia’s Confederate Cemetery. It was a short walk and it allowed me to talk about wartime hospitals as well as...
View ArticleCivil War Memory in4
While I was in Gettysburg this past June for the CWI I took a few minutes to record a Civil War Trust Civil War in4 video with Garry Adelman on Civil War memory. I was way over-prepared and incredibly...
View Article“The slave-running drunkard and Ku Klux Klan leader, Nathan Forrest”
Although the Florida school district in Jacksonville, Florida has voted to change the name of Nathan Bedford High School there is still no word on what the new name will be. What follows is Susan...
View ArticleHe Survived Slavery
I wasn’t going to say anything when this story first appeared. How many black Confederate induction ceremonies are necessary to share. This is the first one to appear in the news in some time. Last...
View ArticleDid Impressed Slaves Serve the Confederacy?
I want to quickly follow up on the last post about the UDC’s recent induction of an African American woman, whose ancestor was brought into the Confederate army as a camp servant. In the post I...
View ArticleThe History of Confederate Flags at Washington and Lee University
A couple of documents related to the history of the display of Confederate flags at W&L’s Lee Chapel were sent to me earlier today. They detail a history that is much more complicated than what...
View ArticleA Victory For the Good Guys
Last week I shared the news that the iconic image of Andrew and Silas Chandler had been donated to the Library of Congress. Over the weekend The Washington Post picked up the story. The title of the...
View ArticleEven in Death They Still Can’t Get It Right
This past week Mattie Rice, who was a descendant of Weary Clyburn passed away. Over the past few year I wrote extensively about the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ and United Daughters of the...
View ArticleWhat I Told the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History
This morning I had a pleasant conversation with the executive director of the Danville (Va.) Museum of Fine Arts & History about how to respond to public concerns regarding plans to remove a...
View ArticleWeary Clyburn Didn’t Serve the Confederacy, He Survived It
It’s been a week of posts about Weary Clyburn and I suspect many of you would prefer that I move on to something else. Many of the usual suspects in the Southern heritage community believe that I am...
View ArticleConfederate Monument Replaced By a Bud
Update: No surprise that Richard Williams is upset about the removal of the statue. He goes through his standard schtick by blaming the politically correct crowd, but then refers to me as part of the...
View ArticleQuote of the Day
On Tuesday night the local chapters of Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy of Murray, Kentucky came out to commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The keynote address...
View ArticleThe United Daughters of the Confederacy’s Curious Silence on the Confederate...
We have heard quite a bit from Sons of Confederate Veterans over the past week in response to the debate over the Confederate flag on the state house grounds in Columbia, South Carolina and beyond....
View ArticleBlack Family Reclaims History From Sons of Confederate Veterans
This is an encouraging story. Over the past twenty years the Sons of Confederate Veterans has distorted the stories of African Americans who worked as impressed slaves for the military and camp...
View ArticleA Shrinking Confederate Universe
A quick thought. Tomorrow the local UDC and SCV chapters in Charleston, South Carolina will commemorate Confederate Memorial Day in Magnolia Cemetery. It’s a beautiful place that both evokes the scale...
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