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Confederacy



  • Bemoaning Alabama's King-Lee Holiday Misses a Bigger Point

    by Kevin M. Levin

    While white Alabama still embraces the "lost cause" mythology embodied by Robert E. Lee, outrage about the holiday he shares with Martin Luther King, Jr. shouldn't blind the public to the ongoing struggle to change the commemorative landscape—in Montgomery and nationwide. 



  • Why I Vandalized Ole Miss's Confederate Statue

    Zach Borenstein explains why he painted "Spiritual Genocide" on the base of a campus Confederate memorial, and why he wishes he had talked with local activists first. 



  • The Lost Cause is Alive and Well in Textbooks for JROTC Programs

    Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps texts offer information on a wide variety of subjects, including military history, without the kind of oversight that mainstream textbooks receive. The result is a curriculum shot through with right-wing ideology and historical myth. 



  • Push Confederates Out of Gettysburg for Good

    by Kevin M. Levin

    Why are the forces that fought to preserve slavery, and who invaded the free state of Pennsylvania and kidnapped free Black Americans into slavery in 1863, allowed to march in Gettysburg's Remembrance Day parade? 



  • A Missed Opportunity to Honor Black Troops in Base Renaming Process

    Dwight Eisenhower was a visitor to Fort Gordon en route to golf outings at Augusta National. Critics wonder if Ike was the best choice for renaming the base. Military historian Ty Seidule defended the naming process as open and suggested complete consensus was not possible. 



  • Ty Seidule: Confederates Were Traitors

    The naming of military facilties for Confederates was not a project of post-Civil War reconciliation; it was about valorizing and defending segregation in the 20th century, as with 



  • Sarah Churchwell on the Lies of "Gone With the Wind"

    by Adam Hochshild

    Does a 500 page book on the historical distortions of the novel and film seem like beating a dead horse? What if the horse is still alive and threatening to trample people? 



  • The Virginia History that Conservatives are Suppressing

    by Kevin M. Levin

    Conservatives appointed by Glenn Youngkin to the state Board of Education are ignoring the important history of the Readjusters—a biracial party that governed in the tumultuous era between the end of Reconstruction and the consolidation of Jim Crow. Students need to know about them. 



  • 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.