The interview is less than four minutes, but you will be amazed by how many factual and interpretive mistakes are made by Philip Way, who is the commander of a Sons of Confederate Veterans camp in Harrisonburg, Virginia. How many can you find? Continue reading
The group of students known as “The Committee” which recently published a list of demands regarding the place of Confederate flags and Confederate heritage generally on campus has met with school administrators. While I shared some thoughts about the scope of their demands I believe these students have every right to express their concerns about the state of their school.
Prattville Dragoons Confederate Memorial Day 2014
The leadership of the Prattville Dragoon Camp of Sons of Confederate Veterans, located just north of Montgomery, Alabama, had a less than successful Confederate Memorial Day commemoration this year. “I think we’re headed for extinction, judging by the crowd,” was the way group chaplain Tom Snowden summed it up. He went on to suggest that, “a degree of political correctness is being thrown into our brains, and it’s affecting us.” Continue reading
This short address by self-proclaimed Southern Nationalist and League of the South member, Harold Crews, came across my YouTube feed this morning. It’s actually quite interesting. Crews’s argument is straightforward: As a member of the SCV he fully supports the goal of the Confederacy in its bid for independence as a slave-holding nation with white supremacy at its center. Crews wants others within the SCV and those who are active in Southern Heritage communities to acknowledge the impossibility of maintaining a “dual identity” as both Southerners and Americans. Continue reading
Update: Thanks to Stuart W. Sanders, who at one time worked as a docent at the Lee Chapel, for providing some context to this discussion. Update #2: Here is W&L president’s response to “The Committee.”
Statement by “The Committee”
I first heard about this story on one of the Southern Heritage Facebook pages, but now a group of black law students at Washington & Lee University, who are demanding that their university distance itself from its Confederate past is gaining some traction [and here]. This push comes on the heels of the steps taken by the city of Lexington to limit the display of the Confederate flag on public property.
The group of students, who call themselves “The Committee” have published a list of demands that includes a formal recognition of MLK Day and an apology from the university for its participation in slavery. They are on shakier ground, in my opinion, with the following two demands. Continue reading