Confederacy

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• SOURCE: Hattiesburg American
  7/2/2020
  

  Confederate Monument in Mississippi City Pays Tribute to Past that Never Was

  by William Sturkey

  That monument does not deserve its place of reverence. It never did. And it’s never too late to tell the truth.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/1/2020
  

  Trump Vows To Veto Defense Bill If It Removes Confederate Names From Military Bases

  Trump stood up for the honor of Confederate leaders while also lobbing a racist insult at Senator Elizabeth Warren and native Americans. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  7/1/2020
  

  Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

  by David W. Blight

  We should not celebrate too much as monuments topple and old slave-auction blocks are removed. History did not end when the Soviet Union dissolved, and it will not end now, even if a vibrant movement sweeps a new age of civil rights into America. Most of all, we must remember what the Lost Cause is and was before we try to call it past.

• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/29/2020
  

  Confederates in the Capitol

  by William Hogeland

  Even as the United States declined to enforce the Constitution in the former Confederate states, demolishing black citizens’ lives and liberty, first Lee and then the ten other Confederate statues arrived in the hall, with others that have since been replaced, and were embraced by the collection. The whole federal government approved.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/2/2020
  

  Yes, President Trump, Confederate Base Names Celebrate Heritage — A Shameful One

  by Chad Williams

  The military currently has problems with racial equality in its ranks, and removing the names of Confederate leaders from military facilities represents one step in the direction of reform. 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  7/1/2020
  

  Mississippi Changing Its Flag Isn't the End of Confederate Symbols in State Flags

  "For the first third of our nation's history, from about 1777 to 1861, it was almost unheard of for individual Americans to fly the flag," says historian Marc Leepson.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  6/30/2020
  

  Mississippi Governor Signs Law Removing Confederate Design From State Flag

  "People who wanted to keep the flag couldn't ignore what it meant anymore," says Democratic state Rep. Robert Johnson, the minority leader in the Mississippi House.

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  6/30/2020
  

  The Confederates Loved America, and They’re Still Defining What Patriotism Means

  by Richard Kreitner

  For most of U.S. history, patriotism and white supremacy, the values supposedly embodied by the two flags, have hardly been at odds. Rather, they have been mutually constitutive and disturbingly aligned.

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• SOURCE: The Hill
  6/29/2020
  

  Trump Doubles Down on 'Heritage' Defense of Confederate Statues

  In response, the President said, "We have a heritage, we have a history and we should learn from the history, and if you don’t understand your history, you will go back to it again. You will go right back to it. You have to learn. Think of it, you take away that whole era and you’re going to go back to it sometime."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/28/2020
  

  Mississippi House and Senate Vote to Remove Confederate Icon from State Flag

  “In the name of history, I stand for my two sons who are 1 and 6 years old,” said Sen. Derrick Simmons (D), who is black. “Who should be educated in schools, be able to frequent businesses and express their black voices in public spaces that all fly a symbol of love, not hate. A symbol of unity, not division. A symbol that represents all Mississippians, not some.”

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/30/2020
  

  Southern Neighborhoods Have Been Named ‘Plantations’ For Decades. That Could Be Changing.

  In recent years, even as activists have decried Confederate monuments and flags, developers have continued using “plantation” in neighborhood names to evoke elegance. But now plantation place names and the word itself are under new scrutiny.

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• SOURCE: WAPT
  6/28/2020
  

  Millsaps History Professor Explains History Behind Mississippi State Flag

  Professor Stephanie Rolph says that lawmakers in 1894 chose the design to appease Confederate veterans.

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  6/26/2020
  

  There’s Another Confederate Monument in the US Capitol: Jefferson Davis’ Old Desk

  Once a symbol of treachery, his former Senate seat has become a tribute to his memory.

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• SOURCE: Washington Postq
  6/27/2020
  

  Take the Statues Down. Replace them with any of These People.

  by Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz

  A national monuments program to honor the U.S. Colored Troops, the Greensboro Four and Reconstruction lawmakers, for a start, would create jobs, art and renewal.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/25/2020
  

  When the Toppled Statue Is of Your Great-Great-Great-Grandfather

  Descendants of Robert E. Lee and others whose statues are coming down are confronting this moment’s reassessment of history in a very personal way.

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• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  6/26/2020
  

  My Confederate Past

  by Stuart Stevens

  I ask myself now why did it take so long for me to realize what it might be like for nearly 40 percent of my state to go to school and work under a flag that represented a cause dedicated to the right to own their ancestors? 

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• 6/28/2020
  

  Newest Born of Nations: European Nationalism and the Confederate States of America

  by Ann Tucker

  White southerners looked to contemporary European nationalist movements and compared the South to aspiring nations abroad. This allowed them to conceive of the South as a potential nation, distinct from the North and separate from the United States, and to justify secession and the creation of the Confederacy.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/23/2020
  

  Funny how Trump’s Dislike for 'Losers' Doesn't Extend to Confederate Generals

  by Max Boot

  "When we celebrate Confederates, we do so because of their racism. By contrast, when we celebrate other great Americans, from Jefferson to Theodore Roosevelt, we do so despite their racism. That’s a crucial distinction that should not be lost in the heat of the moment."

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• SOURCE: WTOP
  6/22/2020
  

  Students of Robert E. Lee High in Fairfax County Call for Name Change

  Students of the school, 80% of whom are nonwhite, expressed their desire to stop memorializing the Confederate general. 

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• SOURCE: Commonweal
  6/23/2020
  

  American Oligarchy: ‘How the South Won the Civil War’

  A review of Heather Cox Richardson's book How the South Won the Civil War.