Reminder: April is Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi
The heritage of the Confederacy is white supremacy, racism, and hate. So why celebrate it?
I had a fun weekend. I researched Confederate Heritage Month. Ick! But I do it to raise awareness. If you think this kind of info is helpful, would you consider becoming a paid subscriber today?
Before April is over I wanted to remind everyone that it is Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi.
The folks at the Mississippi Free Press (MFP) remind us of this each year as a public service announcement when Governor Tate Reeves, quietly and for the fourth consecutive year, signs an official proclamation.
“Whereas, as we honor all who lost their lives in this war, it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation’s past…and earnestly strive to appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us.”
Led in part by Black people, the federal government established Memorial Day to honor people who fought and died in wars—at least the ones where people defended the United States instead of ripping it apart from the inside in order to protect the inhuman institution of race-based chattel slavery.
Designating an entire month to commemorate a rebellion assembled in service of slavery is simply a way to reiterate the Lost Cause myth of a noble and orderly South, harassed by Northern liberals and radical Black people.
The word “heritage” in Confederate Heritage Month is a word freighted with white supremacist connotations.
What and whose heritage?
Surely not the enslaved Black people whose exploited labor resided at the heart of the Confederacy and the “Southern way of life.”
In the context of the Confederacy and Southern memories of the Civil War, “heritage” nearly always means recalling and celebrating a society built on white supremacy, racism, and the subjugation of Black people.
Confederate sympathizers marshal all kinds of excuses to deflect the reality that their heritage is one of hate.
The Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans posted the following message on their Facebook page regarding the governor’s proclamation.
“WBTS” stands for “War Between The States”—an alternate name for the Civil War that is commonly used by Confederate sympathizers.
Confederate Heritage Month was proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). As the MFP reports, after Kirk Fordice became governor he, “issued the inaugural Confederate Heritage Month proclamation at the request of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 1993.”
The Mississippi SCV claims Confederate Heritage Month “has NOTHING to do with the Confederate government or any ‘cause.’” If that were true, then they wouldn’t have to offer that disclaimer.
If Confederate Heritage Month honored everyone who fought then why not call it call it Civil War Memorial Month?
Racism impedes imagination. In the case of Confederate sympathizers, their beliefs blind them to the possibilities for a truly inclusive remembrance that could help us learn from the past and forge a better future.
Instead, Confederate Heritage Month should be called Confederate Hate Month. It represents repression. It replaces memory with mythology. It commemorates the commodification of Black bodies.
Confederate Heritage Month inculcates people with a fantastical version of the past that whitewashes the brutality of slavery, downplays the authoritarian tactics used to maintain a racial and gender hierarchy, and muddles the clear reason why the Confederacy existed—to keep Black people in bondage.
The Confederates may have lost the military conflict during the Civil War, but as long as people still celebrate Confederate Heritage Month—and political leaders literally co-sign it—the Confederacy lives on.
I think it’s right and good that things like this “heritage” month are brought to attention and discussed. The fact that states and individuals are STILL honoring their part and their ancestors’ part in this treasonous desire to separate from the United States is just mind boggling. They are not publicly acknowledging and mourning the actions of the past, like Germany does, they are celebrating them. They are not mourning the fact that the war ever took place, or the reason the war was fought (the true reason) or mourning the loss of life of all who fought on both sides. They are only mourning the loss of life on their side, celebrating their state’s role in treason, and by extension their state’s participation in the subjugation and ownership of other human beings and the war to allow that horrific practice to continue.
I wonder why the Sons of Confederate veterans say they are honoring Native American, Hispanic, Jewish soldiers...not aware of those groups fighting on the side of the Confederacy...