I am sixty-six, white and from Mississippi, so I was raised on the myth of the Lost Cause. I accepted it until I was about twelve. Ever since then, it has been clear to me that every single one of the folks I was raised to think of as heroes--beginning with Lee--should have been tried for treason and dealt with accordingly. If that had happened then, it’s a lot less likely we’d be where we are now.
I appreciate that (I have dear friends in Hattiesburg) but I ask you to remember how Lincoln felt it was best to "let 'em up easy" and that "charity for all, malice toward none" was way ahead of its time. Reconciliation. If the US had persecuted all those Confederate officers and soldiers, it could have inspired generational hatred like what had bedeviled Ireland to this day. I hate to think of how much worse it might have been had the Union been vindictive, however flawed Reconstruction policy was.
Another column of distinction. Every black child knows what you’ve laid out here. We need you Lucian, whose family history spans the nation’s, to bring us what should be obvious, but instead, is secret knowledge.
A very long overdue step, but one that still does not dislodge the overriding white supremacy that permeates not only West Point, but it's sister academy, Virginia Military Institute, where I'm pretty sure the symbols are still allowed-because they resisted having black cadets until ordered to do so in 1968, and women were only admitted in 1990.
Male chauvinism and white supremacy do exist in these exclusive and privileged enclaves where one does not rock the boat, lest one does not get accepted into the privileged circles where the ring knocks.
The "Lost Cause" was literally perpetuated by those women in the Daughters of the Confederacy, only because they were trying to regain the honor of enslaving people. We're still removing their misguided zealotry.
They're evil, (yes, they do still exist) and along with the DAR should be disbanded as white supremacist hate groups because that's what they really are-even the SPLC considers them to be a Neo-Confederate movement, with emphasis on white supremacy:
Daughters of the Confederacy perpetuate the line that “it was nevah a Civil War: it was the war of northern aggression?” I think they still believe this.
When I was stationed at the Charleston (SC) Navy Base in the mid-1980's I heard locals refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression, but also as "The Late Unpleasantness", dismissing that conflict as something they were forced to endure by "those yankees". Over 120 years AFTER the war!! Some of them probably still "remember" it that way.
I've heard both of those. I have a book written by a friend of my parents, Maria and the Captain by Isabel Dunn, published in (I believe) the 1951. Maria (pronounced Mariah as in "They call the wind Mariah"). Maria lives in Richmond VA with her unreconstructed grandfather and is constantly horrifying him with her modern ways. Not especially well written but an interesting perspective. https://www.amazon.com/Maria-Captain-Isabel-Dunn/dp/1258182106
One more thing. Never, ever thought of VMI or the Citadel as “sister academies” to USMA. Maybe 3rd cousins, twice removed. (have no idea what that means but that is as close as I’ll admit to a relationship!)
True, they're not the same status, but they are in the same business, and by that token, they're all subscribing to the same mind set and social rules.
That's all I really meant by relating them. In reality, West Point is the public military academy, which has to obey governmental orders, as they do take cadets in from every single state by their own criteria, which are pretty damn high.
VMI and Citadel are private academies, and they're regulated by their states.
MaryPat, many parts of the South are changing, especially as our mobile population moves there. However, there is no question much has not crumbled...sadly. In 2008, if I remember correctly, not a single Southern, former Confederate, state had a majority of whites vote for Obama. With the education system I am familiar with there- it ain't goin change until the schools change since like the song, most of you old timers know, from South Pacific- "you have to be carefully taught."
Christina, most of Pat Conroy's books are very enjoyable. Maybe one of the twentieth century's better American novelists. Santini, Prince of Tides, Lords among his best.
DAR is Daughters of the American Revolution, not Daughters of the Confederacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Daughters_of_the_Confederacy. I qualify for the DAR but chose not to apply though my multi-great-uncle Colonel William Prescott was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill and credited with the exhortation "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes".
That said, it was in fact the DAR that refused to allow Marian Anderson to sing in Constitution Hall because of her skin color.
There seems to be some confusion do to the wording in my comment. Someone wrote explaining the difference between the Daughters of the Revolution and the Daughters of the Confederacy. I am well aware of the difference. I was eligible to join DAR, not DAC. I refused because of the racist history of the DAR.
As it so turns out, I was eligible to join both-my mother's family lived in VA, and members fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side.
When my aunt wanted to join the DAR, she conjured up a fantasy about our common ancestor, who, it turned out, was a soldier in the Hessian Army who deserted the war to found a family in VA using an assumed name of a famous person. (thanks, genealogy!)
My aunt told me that I was eligible to join the DAR and by circumstance the DOC as well.
I declined her offer but never told her why-she was snobbish enough to say that I 'might be allowed in" as seeing my mother married a Northerner.. I'm sure that she'd be rolling over in her grave knowing she lied on her application to the DAR and she was descended from a deserter of the Revolutionary War!
I find it hysterically funny to this day.
BTW, my mother was racist, and I saw the proof of it-although both parents were very careful to not show this to me or my sister.
We should all grow up out of our fixation with skin color...
My "lineage" was on my father's side, and he was a racist, though not especially vocal. I grew up in a small midwestern town where the only Blacks were brothers-in-law and their wives who owned the most popular barbershop in town. I have no idea how they wound up in that lily-white community. They were treated with respect, everyone liked them, but they were never invited to anyone's home. My mother, on the other hand, didn't have a racist bone in her body. Not sure why, but am thankful. I escaped as soon as I graduated, and only went back for short visits. I'g grateful I was like my mother, and didn't inherit my father's racist gene.
Maybe now, but not in the early 70's. They also refused to let Marian Anderson sing in Constitution Hall, leading First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to arrange the concert at the Lincoln Memorial and resigning her membership in the DAR.
Maybe the statute of limitations has run out on that one? By that line of reasoning I should not have registered as a Democrat because George Wallace (and worse) were once Democrats in good standing. Fwiw, for decades I voted Democratic without registering as a Dem, but the reasons had nothing to do with Wallace et al. I have no idea what the DAR is up to these days, but last I looked they still owned Constitution Hall in D.C. -- where I attended quite a few concerts when I lived there. Here's an incomplete list of artists who've performed there. I know it's incomplete because it doesn't include two concerts I remember very clearly: Joni Mitchell (with Jackson Browne) ca. 1972 and Cris Williamson in 1980. https://www.dar.org/constitution-hall/constitution-hall-history.
I'm not sure why you are so defensive on this statement. I could have joined in the late 60's/early 70's. I chose not to at that time because of their racist history. I then never gave it another thought, nor have I "investigated" their current policies as I have no interest in the organization. If, as you say, they have changed, good for them.
Defensive, moi? <g> I'm just admiring the way you managed to convey that you have the proper genealogy to qualify for the DAR while distancing yourself from it.
Yes, Mother offered to register me and I declined. However, I enjoy knowing about my forebears. My maternal grandfather Lang's line goes back about 7 or 8 generations, to the mid-1600s when the first of the Lang line was coming to the Isles of Shoals (off Portland ME) seasonally to catch, salt & dry cod to take back to England.
I qualify for the DAR (and for that matter the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic) on both sides of my mother's family. Probably my father's too, but that search died with him. My mother, the one who cared about that stuff, was an active DAR member. With current events more on my mind, I declined. I wouldn't refuse to join on principle. I think the DAR's ongoing efforts to express real remorse for its shameful past deserve encouragement. For me, the statute of limitations ran out on that one. It started so long ago we'd all have been Republicans then.
I'm glad about the remorse, but IMO the deep-down problem with the DAR and similar societies is that they were attempting to create a hereditary non-aristocracy in a country that claims to be democratic. _Pace_ the DAR's willingness to admit some Hemings descendants, that hereditary non-aristocracy is white white white. And yeah, I *am* biting my tongue because I've got some skin -- or rather some genes -- in the game. In 5th grade social studies I learned that some people wanted to make George Washington a king. By then I knew enough about family history to think "Wow, I could have been a princess!"
It gets worse. The possible upside is that if the Custises and Lees are related to the Jeffersons (and I sure as hell wouldn't be surprised), I might be a far-distant cousin of Lucian's -- and that, I have to say, would be cool. ;-)
I realize they have changed, and I applaud their efforts. However, change was not apparent when I refused to join. Then I just forgot about it entirely.
I consider Gen. Michael Flynn a traitor, as was Lee, but I have my own standards. I am disgusted that Generals Flynn, McChrystal, and Petraeus, still get pensions ($200K) after violating their oaths.
A distortion of history is what is taught to our children. They are presented a fable of American exceptionalism coming out of a history of white European Christian ancestry and lies like the lost cause. And some politicians are still perpetuating this by outlawing teaching actual history and banning books. What is not taught are how the Bible was used to support views that enslaved Indigenous and black peoples nor the lies and broken promises and even genocide inflicted on those peoples.
A cogent read on this topic is James W. Loewen's book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong", originally published in 1995. "There are three distinct editions of the book. For the original 1995 edition, Loewen examined twelve textbooks. For the 2007 edition, he revised the text to address five additional textbooks and a new edition of one of the earlier textbooks examined. The 2018 edition retains the same text as the 2007 edition, adding a new preface, "The age of alternative facts"." (Wikipedia)
I had a great high school history teacher. This was the late '60s, and my school offered a two-year world history course that satisfied the state's U.S. history requirement. Not only did she not use a textbook, she told us a few things about how textbooks made it into print and thence into the classroom: the Texas School Board exercised great influence because of its buying power -- if a book didn't pass muster in Texas it might not get published at all. John Birch Society members and other white/right-wingers were enlisted to vet textbooks by studying their indexes: if FDR got more lines in the index than Calvin Coolidge, then surely the book was communist propaganda. I learned a lot more than history in that course. Oh yeah, and in the last class before a vacation, when attention tended to wander, she'd read to us from either _1066 and All That_ or _The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody._ Thus demonstrating that history could be not only fun but funny, and helping explain why to this day I'm still mucking around in the past.
there's a documentary on (I'm pretty sure) Netflix about a guy (I remember him being a dentist) who describes himself as a "young Earth creationist" who runs for a place on a Texas school board. he wins, and the documentary shows him at work on the board, doing so much damage it makes you sick. it also shows a bunch of other equally fanatical flat-earth types who are inspired by his example. what makes it even more horrible is that he seems to be a really nice, affable guy on the surface. I wish to hell I could remember the title but it's been over a year and I watch SO much stuff.
I've been reading recommendations of the "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zin, but have resisted buying it because unfortunately I'm still stuck in my myth of the great American exceptionalism, but as I grow older, it is apparent that American children are taught a bunch of racist propaganda and lies that have kept us back from growing as a country and people.
The perpetrators of these lies also wrote the books and made sure the lies were repeated in schools so we could be indoctrinated into their mindset and be willing to tolerate their version of the Judaeo-Christian narrative they adore.
I tried a couple of times to get through Howard Zinn's book but found it too episodic, too focused on particular incidents and developments and not enough about the currents and cross-currents that produced them. There are lots of good books out there -- if you're interested in the second half of the 19th century, Heather Cox Richardson's are a great place to start. For a recent book that focuses on one important through-thread, I just finished Carol Anderson's excellent THE SECOND, a history of the 2nd Amendment. Among other things, it's a crash course in American racism, starting in the colonial period and coming up to the present.
Jill Lepore's "These Truths" (which is pretty recent--barely a few years old) is a full one-volume US history. I'm a huge fan of her work. I know a few really smart young people who used David Kennedy's US history in their HS AP courses and they say that his writing is brilliant. a while ago, I bought an old copy of Beard's big US history from (I think) the '30s, and it's enlightening on several points. for the best big history of Reconstruction, the monolith is Eric Foner's terrific and justly very famous book.
I shall-I'll be buying both of them in the near future. Thank you for the recommendation. It's about time I grew up knowing the actual truth and not the white propaganda only.
“ Lee’s portrait and its depiction of one of his slaves will be put in storage somewhere.” Maybe it can go on display at the Trump Presidential Library. Along with Trump’s collection of Batman comics and Hitler’s speeches.
Lucian and I are West Point classmates. We entered the Academy in June of 1965, 100 years after the end of the Civil War. Our class graduated 800 cadets in 1969. To illustrate how slow progress has been, only six, or less than 1%, of those graduates were Black. Thankfully, these metrics have changed, yet still do not sufficiently represent the countries’ demographic. Today 7.6% of the students are Black where 13.6% of Americans are Black. Still, a long way to go. As cadets, we studied the strategy and tactics of both Union and Confederate Generals as leaders with little thought or discussion given to the idea that the Confederates were traitors.
All true, except Doug left out the salient fact that Doug was the cadet equivalent of a colonel and I was a cadet private. WP and I, shall we say, had our differences.
This is pretty shocking-and depressing. What to say? Good to know, though.
In the future, perhaps you could look into how fundamentalist Christian nationalism is now having influence on the military. The Air Force Academy is in Colorado Springs, an extremist evangelical center.
does anybody know what the percentages of Black students are in the other military academies?
I know that ( and this may be completely irrelevant) when my father and a bunch of Bronx friends went to enlist in the Navy, they had to fill out a questionnaire with more than several questions they all considered "dog whistles" indicating antisemitism. he said they all looked at each other, shook their heads and split. they then enlisted in the Army and opted for the Air Corps, which was probably a better choice because their main interest was in beating Germany, for obvious reasons.
I recently read "The Myth of the Lost Cause," by Edward Bonekemper, which also explores how far and deeply into our society that poisoned view has traveled. It's like removing layers of an onion, or a tumor, only to find more.
I've read most of the essays in Gary Gallagher's "The Myth of the Lost Cause in Civil War History," which includes nine essays by different historians. I find reading this stuff a real chore. actually, it's more of an ordeal.
Yes, it’s about time, but it isn’t surprising at all that a lot of the officers and servicemen in the U.S. armed forces identify with the GOP and are very conservative in their politics. When trump got elected, they really came out of the woodwork, and some, like Michael Flynn, went full MAGA. Many of the rioters at the January 6th insurrection were active, former, or Reserve/Guard military people. I doubt very much that renaming posts, removing statues and portraits, and educating new soldiers is going to change those peoples’ mindsets very much, but it’s an overdue step. Just remember that it took Harry Truman, a one time Democrat Senator from Missouri, to sign an executive order to desegregate the military, starting a messy, necessary process that is still going on today. There’s a long way to go still…
Example, my high school, Baker High, filled partially with dependents from Ft. Benning, GA, integrated for the 1964-1965 school year.
School districts got so called impact funds to cover the lack of property tax funds all over the country.
LBJ said no segregated schools would get those funds. In the deep South, where ancient Senators made sure there were lots of military bases, had to kow tow to Washington.
Federal funding coercion like that, when possible, does seem to be the fastest, most effective means of persuasion to do the right thing. Of course the reverse, like refusing federal funds for abortion, achieves its dark goal.
As I read the sentence about the bronze triptych, I hoped you would say that it would be melted down. I did not know all of this about West Point and the overtly racist messages that have been portrayed there. Very sad and it makes me wonder how these things have influenced the minds of the cadets who have attended West Point.
I have a feeling that by the time they reach West Point most cadets hold firm beliefs on race relations. I first heard that slavery was incidental to the civil war—the issues were really economic—in a U.S. history 101 survey course at a state university. That wasn't what I'd been taught at home or my public high school, but I wasn't qualified to debate the point so I just filed it as weird propaganda. I've learned only fairly recently what it was about. It was such shocking bullshit that's the only thing I remember about that course.
I had not heard about the Civil War being about economics until after the orange one’s presidency. My first thought was “Complete Bull!” Interesting how his sickness (and the worship of it) brought many fabrications to light.
Actually, I remember one other thing about that class, where my seat was in that small-auditorium sized room—the way I remember exactly where I was the moment I learned of other attacks on reality like 9/11; the Kennedy, MLK, and Malcolm X assassinations; and Reagan's reelection. We certainly have been fated to live in "interesting" times.Trump, then covid! I mean really!? What next?
Reagan’s re-election! I was a freshman in college - barely a zygote - I had no idea the damage that was being inflicted. 9/11 I was a property manager at a 35 story office building in downtown Chicago. I had to go to each of my tenants and tell them to leave because we were closing the building. I remember standing in one tenant’s office and we had a clear view of The Merchandise Mart across the river. We looked at each other in terror. A plane would have no problem flying through that window - something we wouldn’t have thought possible the day before. A premium office turned into a death trap.
I was with my parents, Dad a retired 2 star, Mom a SGT in the Women Marines. We were buying shrimp in Calabash north of Myrtle Beach when we heard that news.
We skedaddled to their condo in North Myrtle Beach to see the buildings fall!
In a 10th grade history class in the 1960’s, we were taught the same thing. It was an economic struggle between the industrial North and the agrarian South. The South needed labor to grow and harvest crops. By the way, that labor happened to be slaves. Human beings can rationalize and justify almost anything, then AND now.
in my tenth grade AP class in the mid-'60s we used "The Growth of the American Republic," which was a weighty two-volume thing by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager (bother very eminent). it became very (in)famous because of its take on slavery, which our teachers all warned us against at the time. the relevant passages said crazy shit about how slavery was probably worse for the slaveholders than for the slaves. I even remember a casual reference to "Sambo." it was embarrassing to us even then. most studies of American history textbooks and their baneful influence on generations of students give this book pride of place (at least we didn't have to pay for it). Commager later recanted. Morison never did. I know he's considered an important naval historian but I once heard a story about him shooting a neighbor's dog for barking when he was writing. I hope it's apocryphal, but I'd actually prefer to believe it after I've spent all these years loathing him.
for sure it was. a funny thing is that I adopted my eldest dog after he was rejected by his first owners. they lived in Virginia and had named him Jubal, after Jubal Early, who was a prominent creator of the whole "lost cause" mythology. he even refused to take a loyalty oath to the Union and fled to Canada at the end of the war, only returning when it was no longer required. whenever I tell anyone Jubal's name, I feel sorta compelled (god knows why) to explain--and apologize for--his name, as if anyone would have questioned me about it.
I didn't change his name because he was already two and it just seemed wrong to confuse him like that. he has a very strong personality and is very sensitive to bullshit, especially mine.
I remember reading a piece by a historian (it might well have been Foner) who addressed the issue of "states' rights" being the "real" cause of the Civil War by asking "right to do WHAT exactly?" it struck me as very economical. and as for the economic question, one could also ask simply what kinds of work and workers fueled that Southern agrarian economy.
I had only heard that slavery was not the cause but when you think about it, slavery *was* an economic issue for southern slave holders, perhaps less so for those owning slaves in the north.
Most New England states no longer had actual slaves even though slavery was made illegal in the northern states in 1804. However, ownership of slaves continued for decades thereafter, or slaves were 'converted' to indentured servants (same difference in my opinion).
Many thanks for the enlightening info, Judith, especially the Civil Discourse blog. interesting, those lone two slaves in all that time in Maine. Guess the stats excluded indentured servants, ancestors of many white present-day USians [thanks, Susanna]. T L Mills has commented (maybe a different Substack?) that some of her Maine forebears arrived that way. If slaves were scarce, the slave trade was central to New York City's prosperity, so emancipation was far from universally welcome here (cf the draft riots).
Lucian, I do so admire your linguistic intelligence. You frequently send me to the dictionary. Therefore, today you mentioned northern carpetbaggers who came south “to help enforce the new laws that banned slavery and discrimination against Black Americans.” As I grew up in East Tennessee, I was taught that after the civil war, carpetbaggers came south to profit from southern reconstruction. Carpetbaggers were “unscrupulous opportunists.” So now I am confused. I’ll deal with that later.
You just continue doing what you do best, Lucian. Writing with knowledge and experience. I am glad I found your Substack Newsletter.
As powerful sentences go, this one is right up there: "It should be noted that we know the name of Lee’s celebrated horse but not the name of his slave." I do not understand why West Point, with which Mr. T. has more than a passing acquaintance, would accept black cadets to isolate them and treat them like dirt. Maybe it's because the Point is a public institution?
Margo, that particular sentence came directly from my wife, Tracy, who upon reading the previous sentence out loud, said what I wrote. She contributes to my columns when she's reading them out loud for editing purposes, for which I am eternally grateful.
Though an artist, Tracey has a keen understanding of writing. An ink-stained wretch since the age of 28 (a mere 54 years ago), I have found hearing the words more productive than looking at them. This is a distant cousin of what the Irish call "having music in the ear."
Thank You Tracy. When I read it, I immediately copied it to post on fb when I share this column today: "It should be noted that we know the name of Lee’s celebrated horse but not the name of his slave."
Regarding Virginia Military Institute, my mother, a Massachusetts Democrat, attended Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. That was a cardinal sin I learned later.
When I was in elementary school, I recall her referring to a VMI grad thusly:
Pay no attention to him, he's one of Virginia's Marching Idiots!
She joined the Women Marines after her sophomore year, worked at Henderson Hall.
Both my parents WWII vets now resting in Arlington National Cemetery.
Yes, agreed. The one great service that this waste of human flesh has provided us:
Now we see clearly the forces racism and retrograde society in this country. All the people who joined him in trying to reverse the outcome of the election have been targeted as criminals. The attempts to institutionalize voter suppression are now all highlighted in the press, and it’s always the progressive voters and non-white voters being targeted for marginalization.
Nowadays the Republican Party has become the umbrella for the socially regressive, the whites-first adherents, and this guy made shining the spotlight on these people a monumental success. This generation will never forget George Floyd and Donald Trump. Police departments, politics, and elections will never be the same again. They’ll be studying this loser and his failures forever, including all the failures of his administration.
I am sixty-six, white and from Mississippi, so I was raised on the myth of the Lost Cause. I accepted it until I was about twelve. Ever since then, it has been clear to me that every single one of the folks I was raised to think of as heroes--beginning with Lee--should have been tried for treason and dealt with accordingly. If that had happened then, it’s a lot less likely we’d be where we are now.
I appreciate that (I have dear friends in Hattiesburg) but I ask you to remember how Lincoln felt it was best to "let 'em up easy" and that "charity for all, malice toward none" was way ahead of its time. Reconciliation. If the US had persecuted all those Confederate officers and soldiers, it could have inspired generational hatred like what had bedeviled Ireland to this day. I hate to think of how much worse it might have been had the Union been vindictive, however flawed Reconstruction policy was.
Another column of distinction. Every black child knows what you’ve laid out here. We need you Lucian, whose family history spans the nation’s, to bring us what should be obvious, but instead, is secret knowledge.
A very long overdue step, but one that still does not dislodge the overriding white supremacy that permeates not only West Point, but it's sister academy, Virginia Military Institute, where I'm pretty sure the symbols are still allowed-because they resisted having black cadets until ordered to do so in 1968, and women were only admitted in 1990.
Male chauvinism and white supremacy do exist in these exclusive and privileged enclaves where one does not rock the boat, lest one does not get accepted into the privileged circles where the ring knocks.
The "Lost Cause" was literally perpetuated by those women in the Daughters of the Confederacy, only because they were trying to regain the honor of enslaving people. We're still removing their misguided zealotry.
They're evil, (yes, they do still exist) and along with the DAR should be disbanded as white supremacist hate groups because that's what they really are-even the SPLC considers them to be a Neo-Confederate movement, with emphasis on white supremacy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Daughters_of_the_Confederacy
(full disclosure-I was offered the chance to join the DAR but refused to because of their racist mindset.)
Daughters of the Confederacy perpetuate the line that “it was nevah a Civil War: it was the war of northern aggression?” I think they still believe this.
When I was stationed at the Charleston (SC) Navy Base in the mid-1980's I heard locals refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression, but also as "The Late Unpleasantness", dismissing that conflict as something they were forced to endure by "those yankees". Over 120 years AFTER the war!! Some of them probably still "remember" it that way.
I've heard both of those. I have a book written by a friend of my parents, Maria and the Captain by Isabel Dunn, published in (I believe) the 1951. Maria (pronounced Mariah as in "They call the wind Mariah"). Maria lives in Richmond VA with her unreconstructed grandfather and is constantly horrifying him with her modern ways. Not especially well written but an interesting perspective. https://www.amazon.com/Maria-Captain-Isabel-Dunn/dp/1258182106
One more thing. Never, ever thought of VMI or the Citadel as “sister academies” to USMA. Maybe 3rd cousins, twice removed. (have no idea what that means but that is as close as I’ll admit to a relationship!)
True, they're not the same status, but they are in the same business, and by that token, they're all subscribing to the same mind set and social rules.
That's all I really meant by relating them. In reality, West Point is the public military academy, which has to obey governmental orders, as they do take cadets in from every single state by their own criteria, which are pretty damn high.
VMI and Citadel are private academies, and they're regulated by their states.
"Lord's of Discipline" is a worthwhile read on the inane culture of the Citadel. Walt
Pat Conroy was how I knew the south, until my son moved there. So it is, still.
MaryPat, many parts of the South are changing, especially as our mobile population moves there. However, there is no question much has not crumbled...sadly. In 2008, if I remember correctly, not a single Southern, former Confederate, state had a majority of whites vote for Obama. With the education system I am familiar with there- it ain't goin change until the schools change since like the song, most of you old timers know, from South Pacific- "you have to be carefully taught."
It is definitely an entrance into the Twilight Zone!
It certainly is!
Christina, most of Pat Conroy's books are very enjoyable. Maybe one of the twentieth century's better American novelists. Santini, Prince of Tides, Lords among his best.
Thank you.
DAR is Daughters of the American Revolution, not Daughters of the Confederacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Daughters_of_the_Confederacy. I qualify for the DAR but chose not to apply though my multi-great-uncle Colonel William Prescott was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill and credited with the exhortation "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes".
That said, it was in fact the DAR that refused to allow Marian Anderson to sing in Constitution Hall because of her skin color.
I specifically stated DAR as that was the organization I had the lineage to join, but refused. I did not confuse the two organizations.
I was writing about both organizations.
They both promoted the idea of whites only.
That's why I refused to join the DAR even when I was 'eligible.'
And I could have joined the DOC as well.
But I chose not to..for the same reason.
Racism has no place in this society for civilized people.
I could have joined the DAR, but, like you, refused because of their racist history.
There seems to be some confusion do to the wording in my comment. Someone wrote explaining the difference between the Daughters of the Revolution and the Daughters of the Confederacy. I am well aware of the difference. I was eligible to join DAR, not DAC. I refused because of the racist history of the DAR.
As it so turns out, I was eligible to join both-my mother's family lived in VA, and members fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side.
When my aunt wanted to join the DAR, she conjured up a fantasy about our common ancestor, who, it turned out, was a soldier in the Hessian Army who deserted the war to found a family in VA using an assumed name of a famous person. (thanks, genealogy!)
My aunt told me that I was eligible to join the DAR and by circumstance the DOC as well.
I declined her offer but never told her why-she was snobbish enough to say that I 'might be allowed in" as seeing my mother married a Northerner.. I'm sure that she'd be rolling over in her grave knowing she lied on her application to the DAR and she was descended from a deserter of the Revolutionary War!
I find it hysterically funny to this day.
BTW, my mother was racist, and I saw the proof of it-although both parents were very careful to not show this to me or my sister.
We should all grow up out of our fixation with skin color...
My "lineage" was on my father's side, and he was a racist, though not especially vocal. I grew up in a small midwestern town where the only Blacks were brothers-in-law and their wives who owned the most popular barbershop in town. I have no idea how they wound up in that lily-white community. They were treated with respect, everyone liked them, but they were never invited to anyone's home. My mother, on the other hand, didn't have a racist bone in her body. Not sure why, but am thankful. I escaped as soon as I graduated, and only went back for short visits. I'g grateful I was like my mother, and didn't inherit my father's racist gene.
The DAR has black members.
Maybe now, but not in the early 70's. They also refused to let Marian Anderson sing in Constitution Hall, leading First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to arrange the concert at the Lincoln Memorial and resigning her membership in the DAR.
Maybe the statute of limitations has run out on that one? By that line of reasoning I should not have registered as a Democrat because George Wallace (and worse) were once Democrats in good standing. Fwiw, for decades I voted Democratic without registering as a Dem, but the reasons had nothing to do with Wallace et al. I have no idea what the DAR is up to these days, but last I looked they still owned Constitution Hall in D.C. -- where I attended quite a few concerts when I lived there. Here's an incomplete list of artists who've performed there. I know it's incomplete because it doesn't include two concerts I remember very clearly: Joni Mitchell (with Jackson Browne) ca. 1972 and Cris Williamson in 1980. https://www.dar.org/constitution-hall/constitution-hall-history.
I'm not sure why you are so defensive on this statement. I could have joined in the late 60's/early 70's. I chose not to at that time because of their racist history. I then never gave it another thought, nor have I "investigated" their current policies as I have no interest in the organization. If, as you say, they have changed, good for them.
Defensive, moi? <g> I'm just admiring the way you managed to convey that you have the proper genealogy to qualify for the DAR while distancing yourself from it.
Yes, Mother offered to register me and I declined. However, I enjoy knowing about my forebears. My maternal grandfather Lang's line goes back about 7 or 8 generations, to the mid-1600s when the first of the Lang line was coming to the Isles of Shoals (off Portland ME) seasonally to catch, salt & dry cod to take back to England.
I qualify for the DAR (and for that matter the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic) on both sides of my mother's family. Probably my father's too, but that search died with him. My mother, the one who cared about that stuff, was an active DAR member. With current events more on my mind, I declined. I wouldn't refuse to join on principle. I think the DAR's ongoing efforts to express real remorse for its shameful past deserve encouragement. For me, the statute of limitations ran out on that one. It started so long ago we'd all have been Republicans then.
I'm glad about the remorse, but IMO the deep-down problem with the DAR and similar societies is that they were attempting to create a hereditary non-aristocracy in a country that claims to be democratic. _Pace_ the DAR's willingness to admit some Hemings descendants, that hereditary non-aristocracy is white white white. And yeah, I *am* biting my tongue because I've got some skin -- or rather some genes -- in the game. In 5th grade social studies I learned that some people wanted to make George Washington a king. By then I knew enough about family history to think "Wow, I could have been a princess!"
It gets worse. The possible upside is that if the Custises and Lees are related to the Jeffersons (and I sure as hell wouldn't be surprised), I might be a far-distant cousin of Lucian's -- and that, I have to say, would be cool. ;-)
I realize they have changed, and I applaud their efforts. However, change was not apparent when I refused to join. Then I just forgot about it entirely.
Why the DAR?
I consider Gen. Michael Flynn a traitor, as was Lee, but I have my own standards. I am disgusted that Generals Flynn, McChrystal, and Petraeus, still get pensions ($200K) after violating their oaths.
History is still taught in this country to help keep the racist feeling comfortable.
A distortion of history is what is taught to our children. They are presented a fable of American exceptionalism coming out of a history of white European Christian ancestry and lies like the lost cause. And some politicians are still perpetuating this by outlawing teaching actual history and banning books. What is not taught are how the Bible was used to support views that enslaved Indigenous and black peoples nor the lies and broken promises and even genocide inflicted on those peoples.
A cogent read on this topic is James W. Loewen's book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong", originally published in 1995. "There are three distinct editions of the book. For the original 1995 edition, Loewen examined twelve textbooks. For the 2007 edition, he revised the text to address five additional textbooks and a new edition of one of the earlier textbooks examined. The 2018 edition retains the same text as the 2007 edition, adding a new preface, "The age of alternative facts"." (Wikipedia)
I had a great high school history teacher. This was the late '60s, and my school offered a two-year world history course that satisfied the state's U.S. history requirement. Not only did she not use a textbook, she told us a few things about how textbooks made it into print and thence into the classroom: the Texas School Board exercised great influence because of its buying power -- if a book didn't pass muster in Texas it might not get published at all. John Birch Society members and other white/right-wingers were enlisted to vet textbooks by studying their indexes: if FDR got more lines in the index than Calvin Coolidge, then surely the book was communist propaganda. I learned a lot more than history in that course. Oh yeah, and in the last class before a vacation, when attention tended to wander, she'd read to us from either _1066 and All That_ or _The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody._ Thus demonstrating that history could be not only fun but funny, and helping explain why to this day I'm still mucking around in the past.
I remember hearing about Texas years ago...what a travesty!
there's a documentary on (I'm pretty sure) Netflix about a guy (I remember him being a dentist) who describes himself as a "young Earth creationist" who runs for a place on a Texas school board. he wins, and the documentary shows him at work on the board, doing so much damage it makes you sick. it also shows a bunch of other equally fanatical flat-earth types who are inspired by his example. what makes it even more horrible is that he seems to be a really nice, affable guy on the surface. I wish to hell I could remember the title but it's been over a year and I watch SO much stuff.
This Texas textbook tyranny has gone on for decades. Not that it helps in Confederate states, but didn't some counterforce develop?
Reading online. Books don’t need to be printed, thereby weakening Texas’ hold.
I've been reading recommendations of the "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zin, but have resisted buying it because unfortunately I'm still stuck in my myth of the great American exceptionalism, but as I grow older, it is apparent that American children are taught a bunch of racist propaganda and lies that have kept us back from growing as a country and people.
The perpetrators of these lies also wrote the books and made sure the lies were repeated in schools so we could be indoctrinated into their mindset and be willing to tolerate their version of the Judaeo-Christian narrative they adore.
I tried a couple of times to get through Howard Zinn's book but found it too episodic, too focused on particular incidents and developments and not enough about the currents and cross-currents that produced them. There are lots of good books out there -- if you're interested in the second half of the 19th century, Heather Cox Richardson's are a great place to start. For a recent book that focuses on one important through-thread, I just finished Carol Anderson's excellent THE SECOND, a history of the 2nd Amendment. Among other things, it's a crash course in American racism, starting in the colonial period and coming up to the present.
Jill Lepore's "These Truths" (which is pretty recent--barely a few years old) is a full one-volume US history. I'm a huge fan of her work. I know a few really smart young people who used David Kennedy's US history in their HS AP courses and they say that his writing is brilliant. a while ago, I bought an old copy of Beard's big US history from (I think) the '30s, and it's enlightening on several points. for the best big history of Reconstruction, the monolith is Eric Foner's terrific and justly very famous book.
You really should read Loewen's book.
I have...it IS excellent!
me too.
I shall-I'll be buying both of them in the near future. Thank you for the recommendation. It's about time I grew up knowing the actual truth and not the white propaganda only.
“ Lee’s portrait and its depiction of one of his slaves will be put in storage somewhere.” Maybe it can go on display at the Trump Presidential Library. Along with Trump’s collection of Batman comics and Hitler’s speeches.
Trump's Presidential Library:
An empty 3 x 5 card.
I sincerely hope there will not be a T.... Presidential Library.
He will get one...will be a wonderful target!
I was under the impression that he said he didn't want one. it's one of the few things he's ever said that I find in any way praiseworthy.
You believe a liar? The horror.
point well taken.
Don't forget a white Izod and khaki slacks!
Lucian and I are West Point classmates. We entered the Academy in June of 1965, 100 years after the end of the Civil War. Our class graduated 800 cadets in 1969. To illustrate how slow progress has been, only six, or less than 1%, of those graduates were Black. Thankfully, these metrics have changed, yet still do not sufficiently represent the countries’ demographic. Today 7.6% of the students are Black where 13.6% of Americans are Black. Still, a long way to go. As cadets, we studied the strategy and tactics of both Union and Confederate Generals as leaders with little thought or discussion given to the idea that the Confederates were traitors.
All true, except Doug left out the salient fact that Doug was the cadet equivalent of a colonel and I was a cadet private. WP and I, shall we say, had our differences.
Abby. Hoffman in Dress Gray perhaps?
Ya think???
This is pretty shocking-and depressing. What to say? Good to know, though.
In the future, perhaps you could look into how fundamentalist Christian nationalism is now having influence on the military. The Air Force Academy is in Colorado Springs, an extremist evangelical center.
Well reported, but, not enough.
OH! Suddenly I understand a relative. A graduate, An...
does anybody know what the percentages of Black students are in the other military academies?
I know that ( and this may be completely irrelevant) when my father and a bunch of Bronx friends went to enlist in the Navy, they had to fill out a questionnaire with more than several questions they all considered "dog whistles" indicating antisemitism. he said they all looked at each other, shook their heads and split. they then enlisted in the Army and opted for the Air Corps, which was probably a better choice because their main interest was in beating Germany, for obvious reasons.
I recently read "The Myth of the Lost Cause," by Edward Bonekemper, which also explores how far and deeply into our society that poisoned view has traveled. It's like removing layers of an onion, or a tumor, only to find more.
I've read most of the essays in Gary Gallagher's "The Myth of the Lost Cause in Civil War History," which includes nine essays by different historians. I find reading this stuff a real chore. actually, it's more of an ordeal.
Yes, it’s about time, but it isn’t surprising at all that a lot of the officers and servicemen in the U.S. armed forces identify with the GOP and are very conservative in their politics. When trump got elected, they really came out of the woodwork, and some, like Michael Flynn, went full MAGA. Many of the rioters at the January 6th insurrection were active, former, or Reserve/Guard military people. I doubt very much that renaming posts, removing statues and portraits, and educating new soldiers is going to change those peoples’ mindsets very much, but it’s an overdue step. Just remember that it took Harry Truman, a one time Democrat Senator from Missouri, to sign an executive order to desegregate the military, starting a messy, necessary process that is still going on today. There’s a long way to go still…
Example, my high school, Baker High, filled partially with dependents from Ft. Benning, GA, integrated for the 1964-1965 school year.
School districts got so called impact funds to cover the lack of property tax funds all over the country.
LBJ said no segregated schools would get those funds. In the deep South, where ancient Senators made sure there were lots of military bases, had to kow tow to Washington.
Federal funding coercion like that, when possible, does seem to be the fastest, most effective means of persuasion to do the right thing. Of course the reverse, like refusing federal funds for abortion, achieves its dark goal.
As I read the sentence about the bronze triptych, I hoped you would say that it would be melted down. I did not know all of this about West Point and the overtly racist messages that have been portrayed there. Very sad and it makes me wonder how these things have influenced the minds of the cadets who have attended West Point.
I have a feeling that by the time they reach West Point most cadets hold firm beliefs on race relations. I first heard that slavery was incidental to the civil war—the issues were really economic—in a U.S. history 101 survey course at a state university. That wasn't what I'd been taught at home or my public high school, but I wasn't qualified to debate the point so I just filed it as weird propaganda. I've learned only fairly recently what it was about. It was such shocking bullshit that's the only thing I remember about that course.
I had not heard about the Civil War being about economics until after the orange one’s presidency. My first thought was “Complete Bull!” Interesting how his sickness (and the worship of it) brought many fabrications to light.
It’s about time to remove the oath breakers from their places and banish them.
Just out of curiosity, which is worse: a traitor or an oath breaker? I have an opinion, and am wondering what other folks think.
We have traitors who are oath breakers, ex-military who swore to defend the Constitution, then went over to Putin's butt boy.
As in TFG?
And Michael Moore's list of 147 Congress critters.
My Congressman is one of those Bozos, he also is one of 11 who refused to honor the Capitol Police.
Name is Greg Steube, FL-17.
Good point, TC.
I know my oath meant something to me.
Actually, I remember one other thing about that class, where my seat was in that small-auditorium sized room—the way I remember exactly where I was the moment I learned of other attacks on reality like 9/11; the Kennedy, MLK, and Malcolm X assassinations; and Reagan's reelection. We certainly have been fated to live in "interesting" times.Trump, then covid! I mean really!? What next?
Reagan’s re-election! I was a freshman in college - barely a zygote - I had no idea the damage that was being inflicted. 9/11 I was a property manager at a 35 story office building in downtown Chicago. I had to go to each of my tenants and tell them to leave because we were closing the building. I remember standing in one tenant’s office and we had a clear view of The Merchandise Mart across the river. We looked at each other in terror. A plane would have no problem flying through that window - something we wouldn’t have thought possible the day before. A premium office turned into a death trap.
I was with my parents, Dad a retired 2 star, Mom a SGT in the Women Marines. We were buying shrimp in Calabash north of Myrtle Beach when we heard that news.
We skedaddled to their condo in North Myrtle Beach to see the buildings fall!
Egypt had 12 plagues, keep your powder dry!
In a 10th grade history class in the 1960’s, we were taught the same thing. It was an economic struggle between the industrial North and the agrarian South. The South needed labor to grow and harvest crops. By the way, that labor happened to be slaves. Human beings can rationalize and justify almost anything, then AND now.
in my tenth grade AP class in the mid-'60s we used "The Growth of the American Republic," which was a weighty two-volume thing by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager (bother very eminent). it became very (in)famous because of its take on slavery, which our teachers all warned us against at the time. the relevant passages said crazy shit about how slavery was probably worse for the slaveholders than for the slaves. I even remember a casual reference to "Sambo." it was embarrassing to us even then. most studies of American history textbooks and their baneful influence on generations of students give this book pride of place (at least we didn't have to pay for it). Commager later recanted. Morison never did. I know he's considered an important naval historian but I once heard a story about him shooting a neighbor's dog for barking when he was writing. I hope it's apocryphal, but I'd actually prefer to believe it after I've spent all these years loathing him.
That shameful whitewashing of history must have been sweeping academia then, Doug.
for sure it was. a funny thing is that I adopted my eldest dog after he was rejected by his first owners. they lived in Virginia and had named him Jubal, after Jubal Early, who was a prominent creator of the whole "lost cause" mythology. he even refused to take a loyalty oath to the Union and fled to Canada at the end of the war, only returning when it was no longer required. whenever I tell anyone Jubal's name, I feel sorta compelled (god knows why) to explain--and apologize for--his name, as if anyone would have questioned me about it.
I didn't change his name because he was already two and it just seemed wrong to confuse him like that. he has a very strong personality and is very sensitive to bullshit, especially mine.
I remember reading a piece by a historian (it might well have been Foner) who addressed the issue of "states' rights" being the "real" cause of the Civil War by asking "right to do WHAT exactly?" it struck me as very economical. and as for the economic question, one could also ask simply what kinds of work and workers fueled that Southern agrarian economy.
I had only heard that slavery was not the cause but when you think about it, slavery *was* an economic issue for southern slave holders, perhaps less so for those owning slaves in the north.
In what northern states was slavery legal by the time of the lead-up to the civil war?
Most New England states no longer had actual slaves even though slavery was made illegal in the northern states in 1804. However, ownership of slaves continued for decades thereafter, or slaves were 'converted' to indentured servants (same difference in my opinion).
https://sage-advices.com/what-was-the-northern-states-view-on-slavery/#When_did_northern_states_outlaw_slavery
This link shows that many northern states continued to allow slavery until 1850-1860. Interesting table showing each state's slave holdings.
http://civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2017/1/3/when-did-slavery-really-end-in-the-north
Many thanks for the enlightening info, Judith, especially the Civil Discourse blog. interesting, those lone two slaves in all that time in Maine. Guess the stats excluded indentured servants, ancestors of many white present-day USians [thanks, Susanna]. T L Mills has commented (maybe a different Substack?) that some of her Maine forebears arrived that way. If slaves were scarce, the slave trade was central to New York City's prosperity, so emancipation was far from universally welcome here (cf the draft riots).
Lucian, I do so admire your linguistic intelligence. You frequently send me to the dictionary. Therefore, today you mentioned northern carpetbaggers who came south “to help enforce the new laws that banned slavery and discrimination against Black Americans.” As I grew up in East Tennessee, I was taught that after the civil war, carpetbaggers came south to profit from southern reconstruction. Carpetbaggers were “unscrupulous opportunists.” So now I am confused. I’ll deal with that later.
You just continue doing what you do best, Lucian. Writing with knowledge and experience. I am glad I found your Substack Newsletter.
As powerful sentences go, this one is right up there: "It should be noted that we know the name of Lee’s celebrated horse but not the name of his slave." I do not understand why West Point, with which Mr. T. has more than a passing acquaintance, would accept black cadets to isolate them and treat them like dirt. Maybe it's because the Point is a public institution?
Margo, that particular sentence came directly from my wife, Tracy, who upon reading the previous sentence out loud, said what I wrote. She contributes to my columns when she's reading them out loud for editing purposes, for which I am eternally grateful.
Though an artist, Tracey has a keen understanding of writing. An ink-stained wretch since the age of 28 (a mere 54 years ago), I have found hearing the words more productive than looking at them. This is a distant cousin of what the Irish call "having music in the ear."
I hear music in my Irish feet.
Time for Riverdance on You Tube.
Thank You Tracy. When I read it, I immediately copied it to post on fb when I share this column today: "It should be noted that we know the name of Lee’s celebrated horse but not the name of his slave."
HOly shit. I am speechless. And sad that I had no idea of any of this. Jeebus.
Stay tuned...
Regarding Virginia Military Institute, my mother, a Massachusetts Democrat, attended Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. That was a cardinal sin I learned later.
When I was in elementary school, I recall her referring to a VMI grad thusly:
Pay no attention to him, he's one of Virginia's Marching Idiots!
She joined the Women Marines after her sophomore year, worked at Henderson Hall.
Both my parents WWII vets now resting in Arlington National Cemetery.
“General” Bone Spurs?
I’m sure you mean Corporal Bone Spurs. This guy is as much an officer as Captain Kangaroo is.
Personally, I prefer Cadet Bone Spurs. Assigning him a military rank implies that he actually served.
Yes, agreed. The one great service that this waste of human flesh has provided us:
Now we see clearly the forces racism and retrograde society in this country. All the people who joined him in trying to reverse the outcome of the election have been targeted as criminals. The attempts to institutionalize voter suppression are now all highlighted in the press, and it’s always the progressive voters and non-white voters being targeted for marginalization.
Nowadays the Republican Party has become the umbrella for the socially regressive, the whites-first adherents, and this guy made shining the spotlight on these people a monumental success. This generation will never forget George Floyd and Donald Trump. Police departments, politics, and elections will never be the same again. They’ll be studying this loser and his failures forever, including all the failures of his administration.
TFG is a draft dodging traitor who should receive The Silence.
Remember TFG attending the Bastille Day parade in Paris? He had a woody of biblical proportions!
Ew, ew, ew!!!! I just threw up in my mouth! Where’s the eye bleach?????