Saturday, April 05, 2008

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 5: A neo-Confederate definition of "Southerner"

While poking around in a library that used to have microfilm of newspapers from my home town in Mississippi but doesn't now and swears they never did, I came across the May-June 1991 issue of Confederate Veteran, the magazine of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

In 2001, the national SCV was taken over by hardcore white supremacists. There were members who strongly objected to the new leadership. And I'm not sure what is currently the state of play between SCV factions.

But even in this 1991 publication, there is a striking definition of Southerners from William Hogan, then the SCV "Commander-in-Chief". In an open letter to "My Fellow Compatriots", he wrote:

We are not a minority. We represent the blood lines that made and are still making American great. We, Southerners, are really a very special group of people. In our veins flows the blood of the English, the Scots, the Irish, the French, the Spanish, the Celts, the Germans, the Poles even Chinese that made America a nation.
Gee, there seems to be some "blood lines" missing from this multicultural tableau. Which one is it? What could it be?

This kind of nudge-nudge wink-wink racism was standard fare for the SCV long before the more blatantly ideological white supremacists took over. This particular set of "blood lines" also doesn't seem to fit very well with the fond neo-Confederate pseudohistory of black Confederate soldiers.

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2 comments:

History Buff said...

Interesting perspective on the SCV but if they are so racist, it is difficult to explain stories like these in the media.

Confederate descendants help honor Union soldier
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
By SARA K. TAYLOR

Staff writer





It started less than two years ago when a local priest was able to secure a headstone for a Civil War soldier buried at St. Catherine’s Church in McConchie.

Actually, it started way before that.

The Rev. Edward P. O’Connell, a Bronx native, had been trying to get a grave marker for George Brown – a black farmer who fought for the Union – since the 1950s.

No one was all that interested in helping the history buff priest.

Then, the Sons of Confederate Veterans said they would help.

O’Connell was a guest speaker at a meeting of the Maryland chapters of Confederate Sons when he mentioned Brown’s unmarked grave. Brown, buried beside his second wife, Sarah, in the St. Catherine’s cemetery made sure his wife had a headstone while he was buried in an unmarked grave.

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03262008/indyfea114220_32185.shtml

Bruce Miller said...

Uh, let's see: maybe they couldn't find any actual black Confederate soldier to "honor"?