Confederacy

• PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 06, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The McWhorter Foundation, played a pivotal role in the recent removal of a controversial painting “The Last Civil War Veteran.” from a gallery On Palm Beach island at Royal Poinciana Plaza.
• By advocating for the artwork's removal, the McWhorter Foundation and Mr. C.K.
• On Sunday February 04, 2024 a local Palm Beach island shopping and cultural hub ( Royal Poinciana Plaza) recently made the decision to remove the controversial artwork “Last Civil War Veteran” by Larry Rivers.
• McWhorter Foundation has not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and may operate under exemptions.

• Since then, two more major Confederate monuments have been removed: the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy in Jacksonville, Florida.
• Defenders of Confederate monuments have argued that the statues should be left standing to educate future generations.
• Despite meager financing and constant threats, these newspapers represented the views of Black Americans and documented the nation’s shortcomings in achieving racial equality.

‘Lost Cause’ propaganda

• My research students and I have also reviewed countless reactions to the monuments published in real time in Black newspapers.
• What is clear is that from the late nineteenth century until today, Confederate monuments were part of a relentless propaganda campaign to restore the South’s reputation at dedication ceremonies, parades, reunions and Memorial Day events.

• The master of ceremonies of that unveiling was R.T.W.
• Duke, Jr., the son of a Confederate colonel who was a popular orator at events like these.
• A few years earlier, Duke made his own views of the Civil War plain.

A critical Black press

• Contrary to the claims of today’s defenders of Confederate monuments, a review of Black newspapers going back to the 1870s conducted by my research team shows that Black journalists’ criticism of these memorials had already begun by the late nineteenth century.
• The first truly national Confederate monument was the statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond.
• It was unveiled before an audience of as many as 150,000 attendees on May 29, 1890, and provoked sharp alarm among Black commentators across the country.

• Mitchell further detailed the enthusiasm of the crowd assembled in Richmond.
• “Cheer after cheer rang out upon the air as fair women waved handkerchiefs and screamed to do honor,” Mitchell wrote.

• An article republished from the National Home Protector, a Baltimore-based Black newspaper, also took aim at the statue.
• The editors of the newspaper accused white Southerners of trying to use the glorification of Lee to resurrect the “corpse of rebellion.”

Writing truth to power

• No one knows what the Black-owned Charlottesville Messenger said about the unveiling of the Lee monument in its city in 1924.
• For many Black editors, the monuments had become symbols of the violent backlash against Black citizenship by white Southerners.
• Telling the truth about American history requires transforming these memorials into true reflections of the seemingly never-ending battles initially fought during the the Civil War.

Donovan Schaefer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• In 2022, Black workers held only 7% of all AEC job s even though they represented 13% of all workers.
• As a nonprofit membership organization, AEC Unites seeks to increase intentional opportunities for Black talent and Black-owned businesses in all facets of the AEC industry.
• Moved to action, she enlisted industry leaders as her co-founders and is serving as AEC Unites board chair and president.
• Building a more inclusive and just AEC industry for Black businesses, professionals and talent is a long-term endeavor.

• The shooter intended to start a race war and had posed with Confederate imagery in photos posted online.
• Monument removal efforts grew in 2017 after a counterprotester was killed at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist groups defended the preservation of Confederate monuments.
• Further research I conducted shows that these political effects disproportionately occurred in areas with a larger share of Black residents.
• These findings demonstrate that a connection existed between racism and these monuments from their inception – and provide context for modern monument debates.

Monumental history

• These monuments largely honored the dead and were placed in cemeteries and spaces distant from daily life.
• They compartmentalized the trauma of the war, commemorating lives but not placing the Confederacy at the center of Southern identity.
• As Reconstruction neared its end in 1875, a Stonewall Jackson monument erected in Richmond, Virginia, foreshadowed the different monuments to come.
• Additional Confederate monuments have been dedicated since that period, but those numbers pale in comparison to the monument-building spree of 1878 to 1912.

Monumental effects

• My research investigates the political effects of Confederate monuments in the Reconstruction and early post-Reconstruction – 1877-1912 – eras, namely their effects on Democratic Party vote share and voter turnout.
• I expected monuments’ potential effects to be directly related to their centrality to everyday life and glorification of the Confederacy.
• I expected to find little political effect from soldier-memorializing Reconstruction monuments, but some pro-Jim Crow effects from Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments.
• I conducted further exploration and found that these political effects disproportionately occurred in counties with larger Black populations.