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That’s A Wrap

August 20, 2010 By Kevin Levin Leave a Comment

We finished shooting my interview for Ken Wyatt’s documentary on black Confederates not too long ago.  I thought Ken would come in with a camera and a few other pieces of equipment, but this was a full production.  It took 1 hour just to set everything up.  Overall, it was a positive experience, but it was also incredibly draining and even a bit nerve racking.  I was pleased with the questions and I feel comfortable with most of my answers and I tried to be as concise as possible and to answer the questions directly.  At times it felt more like a conversation as opposed to a straightforward interview.  Still, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I am still just a little nervous about how my answers will be used in the final production.  From what I can tell Ken is more interested in presenting the multiple perspectives on this subject rather than arriving at any firm conclusions.  I know Ervin Jordan has been interviewed and Ken is trying to find the time to interview Earl Ijames as well as H.K. Edgerton.  A few of the questions asked me to respond to folks that I have challenged on the blog.  I am not surprised by this, though I tried my best to steer clear of mentioning people by name because I would rather keep the attention focused on the subject itself.

O.K….back to work.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Memory Tagged With:

Why Are Whites So Interested in Black Confederates?

August 18, 2010 By Kevin Levin 30 Comments

I think this is a question that anyone interested in this subject eventually has to come around to.  For the moment let’s set aside H.K. Edgerton and the very small number of African Americans who have involved themselves in this movement.  When you get right down to it, this is a subject that whites, who are mainly associated with Southern heritage groups are interested in promoting.  You don’t find black Americans celebrating the participation of freed and enslaved blacks in the Confederate army as part of Emancipation Day celebrations at the turn of the twentieth century and you will be hard pressed to find references to these individuals during the 1960s, at a time when the African American community had rediscovered its Civil War past as part of the broader Civil Rights Movement.

You don’t even find whites highlighting the sacrifices of black Confederate soldiers until relatively recently.  What you will find are plenty of ceremonies, monuments, and markers to the “faithful slave” that dot the landscape in parts of the South.   As I pointed out in a previous post the subject of black Confederates can be traced to the late 1980s- early 90s and I suspect in reaction to the success of the movie, Glory.  Why did the black community of Petersburg not recognize Richard Poplar before five years ago or even Weary Clyburn.  [Note: The evidence suggests that Poplar may have indeed served as a soldier, but I still have some questions about the documentation.]  What about the rest of the ceremonies that have taken place over the past few years?  Why are whites the ones who get so enraged when I write about this subject and question the veracity of claims made about these men?  Apart from one comment by H.K. Edgerton I have never heard from an African American who was upset with me for addressing this issue or believed that I was somehow denigrating the Southern past.  As some of you know I am currently co-authoring an article with a descendant of Silas Chandler, who is one of the most visible black Confederates.  It turns out that almost nothing about the popular account is right.

I guess we could explain this new direction in Southern history as one of whites coming to the rescue of African Americans in revealing a history that was somehow forgotten or even intentionally ignored.  No doubt, that is a comforting explanation.  Unfortunately, it’s a bit more complicated.  Perhaps the fact that the Confederate government and military explicitly denied the right of free and enslaved blacks the right to serve as soldiers has something to do with this.  That would leave us with the question of why whites are so interested in black Confederates.  Of course, I think I know the answer to this question.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Lost Cause, Memory, Slavery, Southern History Tagged With:

A Few More Black Confederate References

July 9, 2010 By Kevin Levin 3 Comments

Unfortunately, I had to postpone my documentary interview on black Confederates until mid-August.  In lieu of that I thought I might pass on a few more little gems in this department.  I know some of you are probably sick of hearing about this, but keep in mind that I am collecting various sources for the upcoming book project as I bring my Crater manuscript to a close.

The first example comes from a recent Confederate Day celebration in Dixie County, Florida, which was hosted by the SCV Dixie Defender Camp 2086.  The speaker is Al Mccray, who hosts a radio/talk show in the Tampa Bay area.  This is a wonderful example of why the black Confederate argument has proven to be attractive to a certain number of African Americans.  Listen to Mccray’s understanding of Lincoln’s emancipation policy.  Behind the vague references to his position on colonization and his famous response to Horace Greeley in the spring of 1862 there is disillusionment with the mythology attached to the mythology/narrative of the “Great Emancipator.”  It’s that same narrative that drove Lerone Bennett to write his famous essay for Ebony magazine and later, Forced Into Glory.  The problem, of course, is that Mccray substitutes an incredibly vague account for this mythology.

More interesting, however, is the way in which this argument morphs into commentary about what Mccray and the SCV perceive as our present political situation.  Mccray bounces back between history and politics with ease.  In referring to slavery, Mccray suggests that “pretty soon we all will be slaves to the Washington administration” and later notes that the “Army of the Potomac is still around.”  Finally, Mccray argues that we are losing more and more rights at the hands of a corrupt government.  I suspect that both H.K. Edgerton and the economist, Walter Williams, also fit into this camp.  All of them operate on the flawed assumption that while the Civil War led to a larger and more intrusive government in Washington, D.C. the Confederate government preserved a stricter state sovereignty and states rights.  This is simply not true.  In fact, most slaveowners viewed the continued attempt by the Confederate government to impress and later recruit slaves for military purposes as a violation of their sovereignty.

From Florida we travel to of all places, “30 Rock.”  That’s right, thanks to one of my readers I learned that there is a reference to black Confederates in the episode “Fireworks” [season 1, episode 18].  The plot, involving Tracy Morgan, runs as follows:

“Tracy is served with paternity papers and insists that the child is not his. After the DNA test, Tracy learns that the child is not his but that he is a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson. The news angers Tracy and he talks to Toofer and Frank about it. Toofer learns that he is a direct descendant of Tobias Spurlock, a black Confederate soldier. Tracy and Toofer are upset about the news until Tracy has a dream in which Thomas Jefferson (portrayed by Jack Donaghy) appears to him on The Maury Povich Show. In the dream, Jefferson takes credit for “inventing” America and tells Tracy to forget his past. Tracy decides that he wants Toofer to write a movie about their experiences and Thomas Jefferson’s life. Tracy intends to play all of the parts in the movie, except he intends for the film to be a drama.”

Toofer is terribly distraught to learn that his ancestor Tobias Spurlock was a Black Confederate officer who is known by Civil War scholars as the “Confederate Monster”, who harbored the fugitive John Wilkes Booth following his assassination of Lincoln, and who personally knew Robert E. Lee, rather than a Union officer who knew Ulysses S. Grant as Toofer had always believed.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a clip of this particular segment.  This is the first reference to black Confederates that I’ve seen in mainstream culture.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Lost Cause, Slavery Tagged With: ,

Summer Camp With the Sons of Confederate Veterans

June 21, 2010 By Kevin Levin 39 Comments

What do you do for your child after a full year of indoctrination in the public school system where they are taught that the Confederacy was evil and the war was about slavery?  You send them to Summer Camp with the SCV for a “true” history of the war.  According to an advertisement:

There is no question that the youth of today must run a terrible gantlet, and that many are struck down along the way by one or more of the politically correct influences which flourish in our schools…. Sometimes these youth are from the best homes with strong families and religious training. With even the most conscientious parenting, though, oftentimes (sic) in high school or college, even these best and brightest finally succumb to the liberal, politically correct view of history. This summer you can help turn the tide.

In addition to learning how to fire a cannon and parade/dance in period dress, campers learn lessons in the “Theology of the South During the War.”  Unfortunately, I don’t think the kids will be reading Eugene Genovese’s The Mind of the Master Class or Michael OBrien’s Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860.  Rather, it looks like much of the time will be spent undoing the damage of being taught that slavery was somehow central to understanding what the war was about.  Perhaps the course will be taught by none other than H.K. Edgerton.

Specifically, the teens are exposed to the group’s contention that the Civil War was not about slavery, James said. Too many people have bought into that notion, he said, and wrongly exalt then-President Abraham Lincoln as wanting to end slavery.  Lincoln was “a bigger racist than I ever knew,” James said.  The truth is that the South was fighting for independence and the North was fighting to preserve the Union, James said. Slavery played into the tensions, he said, calling the practice “morally unacceptable.”  But painting the war as being primarily about slavery falsely gives the North the “moral high ground” and makes it seem as if Confederate soldiers were fighting to maintain slavery, James said. He said slavery eventually would have ended on its own, as it has in other countries.  “To attribute the war to something that wasn’t the cause isn’t right,” James said. “We try to tell it like it is.”

Rather than offer summer camp, I would suggest that the SCV organize their own schools.  This way children will be completely removed from the dangers posed by our public schools.

Let’s see, what would that curriculum look like?  For starters, Biology would be replaced with the course Stonewall Jackson taught at VMI.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Lost Cause, Public History Tagged With:

Waving Goodbye to Earl Ijames

March 4, 2010 By Kevin Levin 4 Comments

I know many of you out there are looking forward to a day/week without a blog post about Earl Ijames.  Many of you are perhaps disappointed with the way I’ve gone about all of this.  There is plenty of room to disagree.  I want to state up front that my goal has never been to attack Mr. Ijames’s personal character.  I have no doubt that Mr. Ijames is fully qualified in his role as an archivist and curator at the North Carolina Museum of History.  In fact, I’ve seen his name mentioned a number of times in the acknowledgments section of books focused on North Carolina history.  I wish Mr. Ijames nothing but continued success in this area of his career and have no doubt that he will continue to aid scholars and the general public in the goal of better understanding various aspects of North Carolina history.

What I have done is expend a great deal of energy and time challenging Mr. Ijames on what I believe to be fundamentally flawed claims concerning the roles of black southerners during the Civil War, particularly in the Confederate armies.  It is not just some of the more outrageous claims made by Mr. Ijames that trouble me, it is the belief that this entire debate is little more than an extension of a deeply-embedded and racist narrative thread that continues to portray slaves as obedient and loyal and works to distance slavery from the Civil War.  This particular issue is complex and we desperately need trained scholars to explore it.  Mr. Ijames is clearly not that individual. On the eve of the Civil War Sesquicentennial this is something that is too important for an educator, historian and blogger to ignore.  I claim no expertise beyond the research that I’ve carried out on a closely related subject as well as my understanding of the relevant historiography.  As I have judged Earl Ijames’s research so must my own arguments be judged.  That is how this process works.  The difference as I see it is that I have taken the extra step to have my research and writing publicly scrutinized while Mr. Ijames has not.

As to why I’ve singled out Mr. Ijames it should be crystal clear.  I expect this kind of behavior from the likes of H.K. Edgerton or the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy.  Both groups have a long history and vested interest in manipulating the past in a way that fits with their preferred view of the antebellum South, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.  Yes, I comment on them from time to time, but I honestly do not get worked up about it.  On the other hand Mr. Ijames works for a state agency whose stated goal is to preserve and interpret the history of North Carolina for the public.  It’s a worthy goal and one that they clearly take seriously.  For that reason alone Mr. Ijames must be held to the highest standards of scholarship.  I am not a public historian so I am unfamiliar with the protocol for handling these types of cases in institutions such as museums and archives.  I would hope that like colleges and universities they are organized in a way that allows for the widest latitude in critical thinking and intellectual creativity.  As I stated above Mr. Ijames is no doubt a valuable employee within the Office of Archives and History, but his public presentations, regardless of whether they are sanctioned by his employer deserve to be challenged.  The only thing that I expect from his employer is the acknowledgment that his response to my initial request for his presentation was inappropriate.  I still find it curious that I have not been contacted.  [On the question of institutional responsibility and academic freedom I highly recommend Brooks Simpson's recent post over at Civil Warriors.]

So, what should the consequences be for Mr. Ijames’s claims of expertise in this particular field?  That’s not up to me to decide, but for the broader public.  I would hope that such behavior prevents Mr. Ijames from being considered for certain promotions within the museum and broader institutional system.  As I said before I find it hard to believe that I am the first person to raise these concerns.  Clearly, a seasoned scholar like Dr. Jeffrey J. Crow must be aware of the shortcomings of Mr. Ijames’s research in this area.  In addition, I would hope that respectable institutions decide not to invite Mr. Ijames to speak on this particular issue, especially as we approach the sesquicentennial.

Finally, I hope I’ve done my part in all of this.  I make no apologies for utilizing this format to raise questions and to try to promote the kind of discourse, and hopefully the further research, that this subject so dearly deserves and desperately needs.  Yes, certain individuals and groups will ignore my commentary regarding Mr. Ijames, but that pales in comparison with the number of people who will be introduced to him through this site.  I’ve done everything I can to raise specific questions about statements made on this blog and in his public presentations.  Now we have his own words in a complete presentation on the subject for all interested parties to consider. [see here and here for audio]  I have to say that given Mr. Ijames’s challenge/invitation to meet him in a public setting to discuss this issue I am incredibly disappointed by the quality of his presentation.  What else can I say other than that I truly expected more than the same tired stories and almost complete lack of analysis that can be found on most websites.  But that is neither here nor there, it is up to you to decide.  If this is your idea of good history than so be it.  It’s not mine.

No doubt, you will see Mr. Ijames mentioned in a future posts, but for now I think we’ve all had enough.

Filed Under: Lost Cause, Public History, Slavery, Southern History Tagged With: ,

H.K. Edgerton Makes the Funnies

January 12, 2010 By Kevin Levin 13 Comments

Some of you are, no doubt, familiar with the story out of North Carolina involving H.K. Edgerton and Councilman Cecil Bothwell, who refused to cite God in his oath of office.  Apparently, the good state of North Carolina has a provision that outlaws atheists from public office.  Please correct me if I have the details wrong.  To be completely honest I don’t really care about the details.  What I find hilarious is that H.K. and others have decided to make this an issue.  Of course any provision along these lines violates the U.S. Constitution which explicitly rejects any religious test for public office.  That seems reasonable enough to me.  Anyway, I didn’t think much of it at the time until I came across this wonderful cartoon that appeared in one of the local newspapers in Asheville, North Carolina.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Current Affairs Tagged With: ,

Black Confederates Defined on Facebook

January 1, 2010 By Kevin Levin 39 Comments

One of my FB friends invited me to join a group dedicated to black Confederates. There are just under 200 members.  No surprise that just about all of them are white, including Rickey Pittman.  There is nothing serious about the site.  Essentially, it serves as a dumping ground for the same tired stories that populate the Web.  To get a sense of how ridiculous this is consider the fact that they use an image of Jim Limber as their profile picture.  One of the more aspects of the site is the attempt to define who constitutes a black Confederate.  Check it out:

BLACK CONFEDERATE DEFINED: 1. Any Black person, slave or free, a subject of a seceded Southern state, who faithfully performed his/her duties during the existence of the Confederate States of America. There were 3.5 million blacks in 1860 census residing in Southern states so the number of Black Confederates numbers in millions, not thousands.

Black Confederate Definition 2: Post War 1865-1940. Blacks of any age and gender and including veterans who identified with and defended the Confederate Cause, its symbols and veterans.

Black Confederate Definition 3: Modern. Blacks of any age and gender who identify with and defend the Confederate Cause, its symbols and heroes; and who belong to the Confederate Community and/or consider themselves Confederate Southern Americans.

So, I guess the tens of thousands of free blacks and fugitive slaves who served in the U.S. Army betrayed a cause that they morally ought to have supported in some way.  Notice also that the term has been completely watered down beyond any kind of presence with the Confederate army.  I guess “faithfully performed his/her duties” simply means that they maintained their roles as slaves.  As for Definition #2 I would love to know who they have in mind.  Is there a Preferred Membership option for those who maintained their loyalty even as Jim Crow hardened race relations at the turn of the twentieth century?  Finally, I guess they have the likes of H.K. Edgerton in mind for their Modern category.

There is something quite disturbing about a bunch of white people recruiting blacks to buttress their silly beliefs about the loyalty of tens of thousands of slaves.

Filed Under: Lost Cause, Slavery Tagged With: