While modern day Lost Cause advocates of the black Confederate myth overwhelmingly refer to these men as soldiers, their preferred narrative falls right out of a late nineteenth-century fascination with the loyal camp or body servant. As I’ve said before there are almost no references to loyal black Confederate soldiers before the 1970s. What you [...]
black Confederates
Here is a very, very rough excerpt from the introduction to Searching for Black Confederates in History and Memory: At one level the fight over the black Confederate narrative is about whether slavery deserves a central place in our nation’s collective memory of the Civil War’s causes, its progress, and consequences. Indeed, the timing of [...]
Why African Americans will never accept the black Confederate myth: “If, for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you’d be liberating white people who know nothing about their own [...]
Over the weekend I was informed of an editorial on black Confederates that appeared in The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia by Calvin Crollier and Kevin Crowder. I have no idea who these individuals are or why they felt a need to wade into this discussion. In fact, I probably would not have taken the [...]
Edward Sebesta seems to think that there is a Neo-Confederate boogeyman lurking around every corner. His reading of a post by Ta Nehisi-Coates on my recent visit to Harvard to listen to a talk on black Confederates by John Stauffer led him to post the following at H-Afro-American: Henry Louis Gates is promoting the neo-Confederate [...]
It’s a beautiful morning here in Boston. I do most of my work in a local cafe within walking distance of my home. In the morning it’s filled with a vibrant group of older Albanians, which often makes me feel like I am overseas. I absolutely love it. Back to the Civil War. I am [...]
Correction: One of my readers noticed some very sloppy writing in this post that I wish to acknowledge and correct. I wrote that the SCV did not reference Clyburn as a slave, which is untrue. Interviews with members do include such a reference. What I should have said was that there was no clear reference [...]
I had a great time in Cambridge earlier today where I took in a talk by John Stauffer on the subject of black Confederates. The talk was held at the Harvard Faculty Club, which was quite impressive. They served a really nice lunch before the talk and the room was packed with about seventy people. [...]
