Confederate "Heritage" Month: April 16

Edward Sebesta's daily entry for April 16 deals with a 1905 quotation from the Confederate Veteran. Despite the weird posturing - at least the part meant to sucker the uninitiated - of today's neo-Confederates claiming that they hobby horse has nothing to do race, it's "heritage not hate", one of their favorite bumperstickers says - in fact the celebration of the holy Confederacy has always been bound up with support for Jim Crow laws, racial segregation and ideas of white supremacy.

This is a partial quote from Sebesta's entry from the 1905 article (Sebesta's emphasis in red):

The VETERAN for September has much about the "old-time darkies." " There ought to be a lesson in it for young negroes. Their aspirations for social equality will ever be their calamity. If they will observe the situation as it really exists, they will see that not an old-time negro lives in the South to-day faithful to white people who has not among them sustaining friends. Devotion between them and those whose slaves they were is steadfast. It will continue until the last white-haired "Uncle" or "Auntie" is laid away, often in the family lot, by those they served in their youth.

The younger generation sees this condition and should profit by it. Northern people cannot comprehend it, and they are at grievous fault, maybe unwittingly, for having done so much to cause it. Those who yield graciously to the inevitable --- such, for instance, as specified places in the street cars of Tennessee -- will soon find that the kindliest sentiment of white people will manifest itself.

Successful negroes, however much wealth they may accumulate, will find that most indigent whites, who are fitly mentioned as "poor white trash," will no more defer to them than did white masters to their slaves. This line of demarcation is of healthy moral character. The only solution of this matter is for negroes to accept the situation, treat the whites with deference, and they, will soon realize the best they need ever hope to exist between the races.

This following article provides a little real-time Confederate history, showing how Southerners who are interested in promoting historical interest and legitimate historical celebrations have to be careful to disassociate themselves from the neo-Confederate types. I don't know enough of the details of this celebration to judge if they've been entirely successful in this case.

Confederate sub's crew to be buried 10,000 people expected to make 4.5-mile funeral march USA Today 04/16/04.

Tags: confederate heritage month 2004, neo-confederates, racism