A Civil War Remembrance Month is such a good idea. I am presently rereading David Blight’s Race & Reunion: The Civil War In American Memory. He does an excellent job of discussing the process that led to and the nature of the reunion of the North and South after the Civil War. He writes extensively about the development of the Lost Cause Narrative and how that won out over the Emancipatory Narrative that Freedman and more Radical Republicans used to explain the meaning of the war. Reunion was accomplished at the cost of abandoning free and newly freed Black people to a South that surrendered (barely) militarily, but did not surrender in any other way. Memorializing the Confederate loss as an honorable defeat and clinging to a heritage that continued to inflict horrific terror and violent brutality on Black people long after Emancipation is to intentionally cloak the reality of grave injustice with an edifice of sentimentality. Sentimentality has the power to capture imaginations and stir up emotions, inculcating a loyalty to fabrications that are incredibly self-promoting, even self-idolizing. Which white supremacy is.
I would be interested in the governor letting us how African Americans can best take part in this celebration along side our white confederate brothers and sisters. Dress up as happy slaves maybe?
I am just shaking my head wondering when we (Americans at large) will come to our senses and see what the past did (and to a degree still does) to people of color. Thank you for describing this piece of history for your readers.
"Heritage not hate" But you just can't spell one without the other can you? When you remove those 4 letters, the remaining ones spell erie and I had to look that one up. Erie-"A member of a Native American family living south lake Erie. Not a scholarly point, yet it makes their version of heritage even darker.
It's needed especially for the context & cause, Our hiSTORY. Wow, the article on Gov. Bryant's Unity month with our continued hypocrisy even with a different name. "The Civil War as a Theological Crisis," The National Museum of American Religion, https://youtu.be/mvdze6-A5hc
How about a kind of Civil War cause & context month pre-Juneteenth If any re-enactments, how about abolitionists, music, & speeches (ie: Frederick Douglass). January includes Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday & introduced with Watch Night, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-watch-night
The Josiah Henson Museum held a Juneteenth celebration, which included a film, an actor in costume as Rev Josiah Henson & a docent discussing historical exhibits. Chalk was provided to write/draw on a wall with a prompt for one's intention in response. It was impactful. https://montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/josiah-henson-museum-and-park/
A Civil War Remembrance Month is such a good idea. I am presently rereading David Blight’s Race & Reunion: The Civil War In American Memory. He does an excellent job of discussing the process that led to and the nature of the reunion of the North and South after the Civil War. He writes extensively about the development of the Lost Cause Narrative and how that won out over the Emancipatory Narrative that Freedman and more Radical Republicans used to explain the meaning of the war. Reunion was accomplished at the cost of abandoning free and newly freed Black people to a South that surrendered (barely) militarily, but did not surrender in any other way. Memorializing the Confederate loss as an honorable defeat and clinging to a heritage that continued to inflict horrific terror and violent brutality on Black people long after Emancipation is to intentionally cloak the reality of grave injustice with an edifice of sentimentality. Sentimentality has the power to capture imaginations and stir up emotions, inculcating a loyalty to fabrications that are incredibly self-promoting, even self-idolizing. Which white supremacy is.
I would be interested in the governor letting us how African Americans can best take part in this celebration along side our white confederate brothers and sisters. Dress up as happy slaves maybe?
I am just shaking my head wondering when we (Americans at large) will come to our senses and see what the past did (and to a degree still does) to people of color. Thank you for describing this piece of history for your readers.
"Heritage not hate" But you just can't spell one without the other can you? When you remove those 4 letters, the remaining ones spell erie and I had to look that one up. Erie-"A member of a Native American family living south lake Erie. Not a scholarly point, yet it makes their version of heritage even darker.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
It's needed especially for the context & cause, Our hiSTORY. Wow, the article on Gov. Bryant's Unity month with our continued hypocrisy even with a different name. "The Civil War as a Theological Crisis," The National Museum of American Religion, https://youtu.be/mvdze6-A5hc
How about a kind of Civil War cause & context month pre-Juneteenth If any re-enactments, how about abolitionists, music, & speeches (ie: Frederick Douglass). January includes Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday & introduced with Watch Night, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-watch-night
https://www.northwestern.edu/diversity/support-community/heritage-months-and-identity-recognitions/ (What is the process to get a month??
The Josiah Henson Museum held a Juneteenth celebration, which included a film, an actor in costume as Rev Josiah Henson & a docent discussing historical exhibits. Chalk was provided to write/draw on a wall with a prompt for one's intention in response. It was impactful. https://montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/josiah-henson-museum-and-park/