Lost Cause

Arlington Cemetery Will Remove its Racist Confederate Monument, but Some Won't Let it Go

by Erin L. Thompson

The Arlington Confederate Memorial, according to a Defense Department review, mythologizes history so severely that no contextualizing signage could overcome its embodiment of the Lost Cause myths that justified Jim Crow. Some adherents of that myth are mad. 

Engaging Toxic Nostalgia on Confederate Memorial Day

by Richard Brown

"For those of us who have a visceral objection to Confederate Memorial Day—who are appalled at not only commemorating but celebrating an economic and social system that oppressed a race for over two centuries—how should we engage a worldview that doesn’t see the harm of such celebrations, or that embraces the mythology of the Lost Cause?"

It's Up to McCarthy to Remove Statues of Slavers from the Capitol

A third of the artworks in the Capitol depict slaveholders. Whether they're replaced with other works, possibly those celebrating liberators, is largely up to the new House Speaker. 

Florida's AP Fight Latest Battle in a Very Old Education War

by Bethany Bell

The state's rejection of the proposed curriculum as "indoctrination" stands on the foundation laid by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to establish the Lost Cause myth as the center of history education in the South for generations. 

Bemoaning Alabama's King-Lee Holiday Misses a Bigger Point

by Kevin M. Levin

While white Alabama still embraces the "lost cause" mythology embodied by Robert E. Lee, outrage about the holiday he shares with Martin Luther King, Jr. shouldn't blind the public to the ongoing struggle to change the commemorative landscape—in Montgomery and nationwide. 

The Lost Cause is Alive and Well in Textbooks for JROTC Programs

Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps texts offer information on a wide variety of subjects, including military history, without the kind of oversight that mainstream textbooks receive. The result is a curriculum shot through with right-wing ideology and historical myth. 

Ty Seidule: Confederates Were Traitors

The naming of military facilties for Confederates was not a project of post-Civil War reconciliation; it was about valorizing and defending segregation in the 20th century, as with 

Sarah Churchwell on the Lies of "Gone With the Wind"

by Adam Hochshild

Does a 500 page book on the historical distortions of the novel and film seem like beating a dead horse? What if the horse is still alive and threatening to trample people? 

Youngkin's Appointee to VA Board of Historical Resources has Opinions about Robert E. Lee and Confederacy

Ann McLean called secession legally valid and compared the Union army to the Russian forces invading Ukraine, while lamenting that Confederate monuments would no longer "tell the true story of the American South to people 500 years from now." 

Facing the Truth in the Land of Lee

by Laura Brodie

The controversy over removing Robert E. Lee's portrait from diplomas at Washington and Lee University points to an uncomfortable truth: Lee's historical depiction as handsome has been a visual symbol of the Lost Cause that has contributed to acceptance of the pro-Confederate mythology. 

The Religion of the "Lost Cause" Is Back, and It May be Winning

by Bill Leonard

The weaponization of Southern Christianity around perceived threats to cultural integrity today adapts the playbook of the Lost Cause to the present. 

Confronting Confederate Heritage is Necessary to Understand White Supremacy

by David Barber

Everyday social life in the Confederacy required white Southerners to close their eyes and hearts to terrible cruelty. No reconciliation today is possible without acknowledging it. 

Confederate Groups are Keeping the Lost Cause Myth on Life Support

by Erin L. Thompson

"Confederate heritage" groups have used their financial resources to bring lawsuits before sympathetic judges to thwart the public's desire to remove monuments to the white supremacist pro-slavery government in public spaces. 

Alabama's Capitol is a Crime Scene, with a 120 Year Coverup

The Alabama Capitol in Montgomery was the first seat of the Confederate government and the place where white Democrats ratified a Jim Crow constitution in 1901. You'd learn little of this by touring the museum-like building. 

We Must Fight the New Lost Cause Myth Trump has Birthed

by David Blight

"Yes, disinformation has to be fought with good information. But it must also be fought with fierce politics, with organization, and if necessary with bodies, non-violently."

The Right's 1877 Project

Helen Andrews's recent "American Conservative" column revives the myths that Reconstruction was a "tragic era" and that Black disenfranchisement was a force for progress, troubling indicators of the current right's views of democracy. 

The Lost Cause Resonance of Pledging Allegiance to Flag from January 6 Capitol Attack

A rally in support of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin pledged allegiance to a flag carried at the January 6 seige of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Is the day turning into the Lost Cause of the far right?

New Research: More Lynchings in Places with More Confederate Monuments

Empirical research supports what activists have been saying for decades: Confederate memorials encourage violence in the name of white supremacy.

Like the Confederates, it's Dangerous to Let the January 6th Losers Rewrite History

by Shira Lurie

The right's effort to recast the events of January 6 as a peaceful protest is a dangerous attempt at rewriting history. The ongoing mythology of the Confederacy shows it needs to be nipped in the bud. 

Charlottesville's Lee Statue Belongs in a Museum

by John Troast

"Charlottesville’s recently removed statue of Robert E. Lee is not a statue of a man, it is a statue of a myth," and the history of that dangerous myth needs to be preserved.