Standing With Robert E. Lee in the Defense of White Supremacy in 1987

One of the books that I am currently reading is Patrick Phillips’s Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America. The book tells the story of the 1912 unsolved murder of a young white woman, followed by the lynching, the execution of two innocent teenage black teenagers, and the forcible removal of Forsyth County, Georgia’s entire black population.

The county remained all white throughout much of the twentieth century. In 1987 a civil rights march of white and black Georgians clashed with local KKK members and other residents. I perused the book when it was first published and came across this stunning photograph of counter-protesters waving the Confederate battle flag.

On the face of it, there is nothing remarkable about the way the flag was appropriated in 1987. Its use falls within a long history of resistance to racial integration and the maintenance of white supremacy. In fact, I have maintained all along that the meaning of the flag has remained consistent going all the way back to the very beginning of the war in 1861.

That conviction was reinforced after perusing additional photographs of the 1987 march.

(Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

What I find so interesting about this photograph is the way the memory of Robert E. Lee was invoked in Forsyth County alongside the Confederate battle flag. It’s not the memory of the Confederate general who was conflicted over the morality of slavery that is seen here. It’s not the memory of a West Point graduate forced to make a choice between loyalty to the United States or Virginia in 1861 or the postwar college president in Lexington, Virginia that these people embraced.

No, the memory of Lee that is being invoked above is that of a Confederate general, who was willing to give his life in the defense of a nation, whose single goal was the creation of a slave-owing republic built on white supremacy.

Lee and his men failed to achieve that goal by 1865, but in 1912 the children and grandchildren of these men managed to achieve the latter through brutal violence. For the white supremacists who met civil rights protesters in Georgia in 1987 it was the same fight that their ancestors had fought in the 1860s, the early twentieth century, and right through the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s.

The memory of the Confederacy was never far removed.

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8 comments… add one
  • Connie Chastain Sep 21, 2018 @ 19:13

    Why is this event so special it deserved a book? I mean, isn’t it your constant claim that the whole flippin’ South was and is the same? That Southern whites were and are the scourge of the earth? And that blacks are total innocence and righteousness continuously persecuted?

    By making a post about this book, singling it out, you are undermining you own position on Southern whites. Curious….

    • Kevin Levin Sep 22, 2018 @ 0:14

      Had to let this one through.

      Wow. Your insecurity truly knows no bounds. So revealing.

      • Jimmy Dick Sep 22, 2018 @ 8:05

        Yes, her comments are always revealing. She supports white supremacy and is not afraid to let everyone know about it in her rants.

    • Burnished Rows Sep 24, 2018 @ 5:22

      I hope you aren’t under the impression that historians choose their topics based on “specialness,” Connie. And I can’t believe that you don’t see as a worthy topic of study “the 1912 unsolved murder of a young white woman, followed by the lynching, the execution of two innocent teenage black teenagers, and the forcible removal of Forsyth County, Georgia’s entire black population.” Is it because so few people died? How many people, in your mind, have to have been killed or displaced for an event to be worthy of study? And in the end, what reason does Patrick Phillips or anyone else have to abide by your idiosyncratic standards? Just wondering.

  • Rob baker Sep 21, 2018 @ 8:13

    I know this story well, I teach two counties above it.

    The book tells the story of the 1912 unsolved murder of a young white woman, followed by the lynching, the execution of two innocent teenage black teenagers, and the forcible removal of Forsyth County, Georgia’s entire black population.

    Does the book make this assertion? The reason I ask is because it is a bit oversimplified in the prelude to the “Night Riders” and the expulsion of black citizens. I don’t have the book yet, just curious.

    In regards to the Robert E. Lee sing, I’m curious what’s on the other side of the sign – if it’s the same, if add something, takes away something. I’m not down the rabbit hole that is Google images…

    • Kevin Levin Sep 21, 2018 @ 12:12

      Yes, the author makes a convincing argument between the lynching and executions and the subsequent forced removal of African Americans from the county. Can’t recommend it enough.

  • frasersherman Sep 21, 2018 @ 2:36

    It’s an excellent, though very horrifying book.

  • Matt McKeon Sep 16, 2018 @ 11:35

    I know a couple of people who were on that march.

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