Looks like the Associated Press has picked up another story about the myth of black Confederates out of North Carolina. It includes what has become the standard fair: Black man struggles to come to terms with what he believes is the military service of one of his ancestors: “Gregory Perry of Monroe, N.C., who learned [...]
Weary Clyburn
Thanks once again to Andy Hall at Dead Confederates for once again taking the time to expose the house of cards that is the myth of the black Confederate soldier. This is another example of a website that purports to be educational, but is really nothing more than a list of names by state, most [...]
I noticed that Ann DeWitt has taken the time to respond to one of my recent posts about Entangled in Freedom [and here]. I will leave it to you to decipher her post. In addition, yesterday Hampton historian, Veronica Davis filed a lawsuit to halt the deletion of the controversial passage about black Confederates in [...]
A group of historians and other concerned citizens recently lobbied the commissioners of Union County to “recogniz[e] the contributions of 10 black Confederate pensioners, known as colored troops during the Civil War.” We’ve seen all this before and it doesn’t look like anything will steer certain folks away from making this all too common mistake [...]
We haven’t heard from our favorite “colored Confederate” researcher in quite some time, but it looks like Earl Ijames will be taking part in an upcoming conference on United States Colored Troops in New Bern, North Carolina. The conference is being sponsored by the New Bern Historical Society and runs from May 6-9. The conference [...]
Update: Thanks to TF Smith for the following comment, which I decided to add to the post. He offers some very interesting observations about this image that are worth serious consideration. Your thoughts are much appreciated. Actually, this was obviously a posed studio portrait, and there’s probably a case to be made the weapons – [...]
One of the most disturbing aspects of so called accounts of “black Confederates” is the almost complete absence of the voice of the individuals themselves. All too often these men are treated as a means to an end. Accounts all too often reduce complex questions of motivation to one of loyalty to master, army, and [...]
That includes the North Carolina Museum of History and the Office of Archives and History. Earl Ijames on Weary Clyburn: Weary Clyburn was one of thousands of slaves who served in the Confederate Army, Ijames said. There’s no way to quantify the number of slaves who served. “But it’s in the thousands, easy.” People today [...]