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/

Washington and Lee University doesn't want New Orleans Confedederate mo

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/confederate_monuments_robert_e_1.html


The above article reports that Washington and Lee University doesn't want the New Orleans Confederate statues.

I suspect that these monuments are politically radioactive. The article says the city of New Orleans has reached out to Washington and Lee University, Beauvoir, and the Smithsonian.

I rather doubt the Smithsonian wants these monuments unless they plan an exhibit that really focuses on their history as icons of white supremacy, which I think would be too hot for the Smithsonian.

I think Beauvoir would be interested, but I don't know if they can afford the transportation, though I suspect the city of New Orleans would be willing to underwrite some of the cost.

Meanwhile in Baltimore the city stalls in removing any Confederate monuments.

Washington and Lee decide to pull Confederate Battle flag. Excuses and rationalizations don't seem to work anymore.

It appears that Washington & Lee University has decided to pull Confederate Battle flags out of the Lee Chapel. Evidently excuses and rationalizations weren't accepted by minority students in The Committee who were fighting Washington and Lee University's long standing plan to be a Confederate shrine. The story is here:

http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/w-l-will-remove-confederate-battle-flags-from-lee-chapel/article_a13cae23-4367-56c5-9861-8ffd90e673e1.html

I don't know if Washington & Lee University tried the rationalization that since African Americans spoke at the Lee Chapel the Battle flags were okay. Perhaps if Kevin Levin had talked to The Committee the flags would still be up, I doubt it though.

This is a significant breakthrough. As each university gives up pandering to the Lost Cause, other universities that continue to pander to the Lost Cause will find their pandering increasingly obvious and unacceptable to the public.

As one institution, place or group gives up the Lost Cause the remaining groups and institutions that still pander to it will increasingly seem unacceptable.

Though this doesn't seem to be a great victory. Mostly the university is shuffling things around.

Kevin LevIn, Washington & Lee University, White Paternalism and Black Confederates

A group of minority students at Washington & Lee have asked the university to stop glorifying Robert E. Lee, ban neo-Confederate groups from campus, and generally stop being a shrine to the Confederacy.

An article on their efforts can be read at this link:

http://www.roanoke.com/news/w-l-students-demand-removal-of-confederate-flags-decry-view/article_45941b3e-c5db-11e3-8e04-001a4bcf6878.html

Kevin Levin has a blog posting at this link. It really is incredible to read this exposition of white paternalism. 

http://cwmemory.com/2014/04/17/does-wls-lee-chapel-contribute-to-the-psychological-shackles-on-campus/ 

Kevin Levin opposes the student's efforts to remove Confederate flags and have the university stop functioning as a shrine to the Confederacy. 

"Instead of calling for the removal of objects from the chapel and barring certain groups from using it, these students ought to take the high road and add to the meaning and legacy of this site. Organize events for the chapel that address issues that are deemed to be important. Leave your own mark that students who follow can build on in a constructive way."

Exactly why being accommodating to neo-Confederates and a Confederate shrine is the "high road" and why minority students should contribute to the meaning and legacy of a Confederate shrine and that should be considered "constructive" escapes me. What Levin is trying to do is stigmatize the student's effort as being the low road and as destructive.  Levin doesn't debate the issues that the student raise, he just stigmatizes the student and denigrates their goals.

What is interesting is that Levin's blog posting starts with pointing out that African American's have spoken at the Lee Chapel so that somehow the chapel is okay. He has links to YouTube videos of African Americans speaking in the Lee Chapel. This is the same strategy of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) in parading around H.K. Edgerton to justify their agenda. It is the strategy of the neo-Confederate movement with their inventions of Confederate soldiers of African ancestry to legitimize the Confederacy.

Levin's book on Black Confederates is likely to be narrowly focused on the historical record and technical details on whether Black Confederate soldiers existed. He is unlikely to have a theoretical analysis in which the promotion of the idea that Black Confederate soldiers is put in a larger historical context of using token African Americans to justify discriminatory white racial attitudes, policies, and institutions. How can he when he engages in these same tactics himself?

On a side note one of the more amusing things is that he has a video of African American Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaking at the Lee Chapel. It doesn't occur to Levin that Thomas is just the type of African American that people would expect to speak at a Confederate shrine. There is this link to an article, "Clarence Thomas is the Last Confederate." http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/justice-clarence-thomas-050714.  Or there is this article: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/19/us/about-that-flag-on-the-judge-s-desk.html.

Another thing is that Levin posts a YouTube video of Gary Gallagher speaking at the Lee Chapel where the speaker introducing him makes it clear that the Lee Chapel is about revering Lee and the chapel is a shrine to Robert E. Lee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCLPb_bUjCE

African Americans who speak at the Lee Chapel or hold events there are enabling the Lost Cause interpretation of history by proving a cover for this shrine.

What is happening is that America is moving into the future where more and more white paternalism won't have a place and won't be credible and where there is an oncoming generation of African Americans who won't be deferential to white paternalists.

I think we can expect that as the Lost Cause, neo-Confederacy, and white racialized landscapes are opposed we will see more of Kevin Levin rationalizing the Lost Cause, neo-Confederates and banal white nationalistic agendas. I think we will find him more and more upset also, such as shown in his response to the head of the Virginia NAACP's comments about the Museum of the Confederacy.

http://cwmemory.com/2012/03/19/king-salim-khalfani-speaks-truth-to-power-without-the-truth/

Levin is upset because King Salim Khalfani doesn't care for the Museum of the Confederacy and Levin is going to put that upstart in his place with his blog posting. (My expose of the Museum of the Confederate is a four part series at Black Commentator. You can find the free guest links at www.templeofdemocracy.com/resume.htm.)