Neo-Confederates and others love to trot out the Black Confederate myth during Black History Month as a means to promote their twisted idea of diversity. Of course, it has nothing to do with diversity or history and everything to do with the continued attempt to drive a wedge between the Confederacy and slavery and protect Read more
black Confederates
Last week I had the pleasure of once again assisting the research staff at PBS’s Finding Your Roots with interpreting a document that relates to my scholarship on the Black Confederate myth and the history of Confederate body servants or camp slaves. The document in question is one that I know very well. In the Read more
Today is the official publication day for the paperback edition of Searching for Black Confederates from the University of North Carolina Press. The decision to wait over two years to issue a paperback edition reflects, in part, the strong sales of the hardback edition. I have all of you to thank for that. For those Read more
Last week the Montgomery Advertiser published an article about a ceremony in Gadsden intended to honor two supposed Black Confederate soldiers. Hadley Hitson did an excellent job researching and writing about this event and I am pleased that she contacted me for comment. We’ve seen this story before. Local African-American woman hopes to identify ancestors Read more
A couple weeks ago I sat down to do an interview with Nick Barksdale, who runs a popular video blog that focuses on history. He invited me to talk about misunderstandings and myths about the Civil War, which I was happy to do. You can watch the full interview. Nick also went ahead and cobbled Read more
Last year I was contacted by researchers at PBS’s Finding Your Roots to help out with interpreting a document for a future episode. I was unaware of who the subject was until last night. Turned out the subject was filmmaker Kasi Lemmons. The episode centered largely around a post-Civil War newspaper article about a Confederate Read more
Below is the latest video from Atun-Shei Films. It is a highly entertaining video that thoroughly dismantles the Black Confederate myth. Those of you who have read Searching for Black Confederates will notice that a large chunk of the content comes from the book. I very much appreciate that the the book is referenced in Read more
On this day in 2015 the Confederate battle flag was permanently removed from the capitol grounds in Columbia, South Carolina. It touched off a wave of flag and monument removals across the South. Not everyone was happy about the decision, especially the Sons of Confederate Veterans. In Charleston they attempted to sway public opinion against Read more
I got a real kick out of this short video featuring Virginia Flagger Barry Isenhour and Teresa Roane, who used to work as an archivist at the Museum of the Confederacy and now with the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The video posted just yesterday focuses on black Confederates. I am singled out, along with Read more
I’ve written a number of posts on this blog as well as in my new book about Dr. Henry Louis Gates’s confusion about the black Confederate myth. In this webinar sponsored by PBS Education he managed to confuse it even further. Dr. Gates is still referencing his colleague John Stauffer’s piece in The Root Read more