Lee

• 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.