Three Critical Cities and the neo-Confederacy's ultimate redoubt. UPDATE:

There are three cities that are critical as ultimate hold outs for Confederacy monuments and the Lost Cause mentality in general. These are: Richmond, Lexington, and Dallas.

Dallas is on the list since not only does it have a in-depth neo-Confederate and Lost Cause past, it is known as a reactionary city. People say that it is the city that the civil rights movement passed by. It is the city which Martin Luther King said the African American community slammed the door in his face. It has the replica Arlington plantation house. Dallas is notorious for far right groups.

Richmond is on the list since it is the former capital of the Confederacy. It has Monument Avenue full of Confederate monuments. It has the Museum of the Confederacy now part of the American Civil War Museum. It has an elite which identifies with the Confederacy.

Lexington, Virginia is like the holy city of the Confederacy. I visited in July 2017 and did extensive photo documentation and bought a lot, a lot of artifacts. There is Washington & Lee University, named after George Washington and Robert E. Lee. There is the Virginia Military Institute which is self-identified with the Confederacy. It has a church with a picture of Confederate soldiers fighting behind the stage. There is the Robert E. Lee Episcopal Church. VMI manages the Virginia Civil War Museum by Market Place.

I would like to say that when I visited the Lee Chapel and the Washington & Lee Campus, I thought of Kevin Levin's condescending comments to some African American law students who were trying to get the university to lose the Lost Cause. I was disgusted.

The whole town is living in a time warp in the Confederacy. There shouldn't be a university like Washington & Lee or a military institute like the Virginia Military Institute in America.

Lexington, Virginia will be the last redoubt of the Lost Cause, a little white Valhalla of the Confederacy.

It seems to be a small upscale town with the two universities and some tourism as the local industry. It is fairly white as far as I can tell.

I think the pressure points are that a Confederate university or institute may not seem very desirable for an academic career and the university and institute might not be well thought of.

When I was there I visited Stonewall House and they told me that the numbers visiting having been declining each year. I think the tourism component of this Lost Cause city of the Confederacy will be declining. I don't think that Confederate identified institutions of higher education make a local climate for start ups.

I think that students will come to see the university as some antique hold over in a back water and not the place to get an education for the future. The students the university and institute get will be those who don't care or aren't put off by going to a Confederate university or institute, in a such a city. The student body will thus acquire a reputation which will further put off many students and intensify the process of self-selection of students who would want to live in such a Confederate bubble like Lexington.  The process will feed upon itself.


UPDATE:

Stone Mountain is an important point also in the Lost Cause built environment. This article is very interesting both for what it says about the topic, and also that it comes from the Smithsonian, the publisher of Kevin Levin

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-will-happen-stone-mountain-americas-largest-confederate-memorial-180964588/

I wonder if Robert E. Lee Episcopal Church is re-thinking keeping their name.

With current events I have been swamped with keeping track of what is happening. However, I want to share this from my 7/25/2017 trip to Lexington, Virginia where I visited the Robert E. Lee Episcopal Church next to the Washington & Lee University campus.

They have a Confederate Christ. The staffer there was annoyed by people being concerned about it.

Notice that the banner with Robert E. Lee is up on the church stage. I think it is time that the Episcopal Church deal with the Confederacy. I would emphasize that they are not as bad as the United Methodist Church. St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia has dealt with the Confederacy and were really great. However, they are hoping to reach an urban demographic, whereas Lexington, Virginia is very white.

My web page on mainstream denominations and the Confederacy.


http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/churches-of-the-confederacy.html