"American History for Home Schools," by 16 members of the Society of Independent Southern Historians

I have received my copy of "American History for Home Schools, 1607 to 1885, With a Focus on Our Civil War," by "16 Members of the Society of Independent Southern Historians."

This is the link to the Society of Independent Southern Historians, http://southernhistorians.org/

You can download it for free also according to their page, but archival purposes, I wanted a hard copy.

As you might assume, it is a farrago of Lost Cause talking points. It has been advertised for sale in the Confederate Veteran.

The list of the sixteen contributors contains the usual neo-Confederates: Clyde N. Wilson, Karen Stokes, H.V. Traywick, Joseph Stromberg and others who really have little to lose in terms of credibility with historians.

What was interesting is that one of the contributors is Earl L. Ijames, of NC, who has been noted elsewhere as a purveyor of questionable historical assertions.

It might be asked how useful this book will be to advocating a Lost Cause view of history. The question it potentially could be a lot. The past is always viewed from the present, and thus it is always seen differently.

In rewriting the Lost Cause argument to make it more desireable to people in the present is a necessary and useful task in the advocacy of any view of history.

Whether they have done a good job or not in this book, I don't know and I am not going to read it. It is going on the shelf.

The other question is whether anyone is going to read it. I don't know. However, the question of how many people will read it, needs to be viewed in the framework of how many people do you need to pass down through time a viewpoint of history. Not that many actually. There are still monarchists out there and they have their events.

Mostly this entry is about who Earl L. Ijames is revealed to be.

My speech at the Saturday Rally

This isn't the actual text of my speech. I decided to further simplify it. However, it is what I talked about to a cheering audience. After the monuments there are other things to which we need to attend.

I think with the monuments being down, some of these things will happen without  anyone asking.

I do however, plan a mass mailing to churches where a church has hosted the United Daughters of the Confederacy or the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I do plan to write all the denominations which have lent their facilities to a national neo-Confederate convention. I think it will help that they know that someone is tracking this. The U.S. Military, the National Park Service, and the textbook publishers will be more of a challenge but I have some ideas.

I think after the monuments go down, they will be less willing to retain practices that enable neo-Confederacy and the Lost Cause.

As monuments start coming down, people will expect that their city follow suit. Chamber of Commerce groups will not want their city to have a Confederate monument. It will be a marker of backwardness and make their city an object of ridicule.

I am planning on making a video about what I saw at the Gettysburg National Park.

So with yesterdays speech I launched these topics.

I have been researching and leading a small resistance against the neo-Confederate movement for 25 years.

In 2015 after the Charleston massacre my co-author called and pointed out that not until peopled died did the state of South Carolina do the right thing and take down the Confederate flag.

After Heather Heyer was killed last Saturday the nation is flooded with calls to remove Confederate monuments, plaques, flags across the nation.

This leads me to ask.

How many will have to die before the National Park Service stops accommodating the Confederacy?

How many will have to die before the U.S. Military academies stop letting the United Daughters of the Confederacy give Confederate awards to cadets?

How many will have to die before the U.S. Military High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program stop allowing the Sons of Confederate Veterans to give awards to cadets?

How many will have to die before American History textbooks, particularly in Texas, stop being Lost Causes, stop pandering to pro-Confederates?

How many church massacres will there have to be before American churches, mainstream churches, stop lending their facilities to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy?

People shouldn’t have to die before we do the right thing.

In closing, I ask the United States military, I ask the textbook publishers, I ask the churches, I ask the National Park Service, I ask our city, our state, our nation, let us do the right thing, give up the Confederacy. 

What is next after Confederate monuments come down

As Confederate monuments come tumbling down, the question arises,  "what next?"

I think the situation has changed dramatically in the last month.

One particularly interesting development is that neo-Confederates groups will have no ability to defend Confederate statues in any significant city. The defense of the Confederacy is no defense of Confederate monuments and being associated with a neo-Confederate group instantly destroys credibility.

Instead there are arguments about preserving history or preserving African American history or some other convoluted argument. No one, is going to argue that the monuments should remain because the Confederacy was a great effort or a Confederate leader was some type of hero. The idea that the Confederacy is "Southern heritage" will be meet with derision.

Even some of the simpler arguments in defending Confederate monuments are subject to ridicule. The title of this article is, "Confederate monument supporters say the darnedest things."

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/05/confederate_monument_removal.html

So you have more involved arguments that monuments to white supremacy need to be kept to fight white supremacy. Such as this article in the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/the-meaning-of-our-confederate-monuments.html?_r=0

Even this got ridiculed by Sarah Jones of the New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/minutes/142710/yes-tear-confederate-monuments

So now it is arguments like these:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/24/im-a-progressive-mayor-heres-why-i-voted-no-on-removing-my-citys-confederate-statue/?utm_term=.c6b02b2649d0

or this one.

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2017/05/26/why-wiping-out-monuments-confederacy-may-not-path-more-inclusive-society/ideas/nexus/#.WSieEirn_Ag.facebook

I don't think anyone is agreeing with these arguments unless they are desperately searching for some rationalization to keep Confederate monuments.

I think after a few more cities get rid of their Confederate monuments the number of people who want to have a defense or rationalization for keeping Confederate monuments on their resume' will be very few and confined to cranky right wing magazines.

The removal of the monuments will have a tremendous effect that I don't think people really appreciate.

Every Confederate monument whispers, "Civil rights maybe the slogan of the day, but white supremacy is for the ages."  Monuments speak literally with monumental authority. The persons who put them up had the resources to do so and authority to get them put in prominent municipal spaces and thus securing the endorsement of the municipality whether country or city.

As Confederate monuments and place names disappear, as governmental bodies drop the use of Confederate symbols the Confederacy will be the private passion of individuals which will increasingly be seen as aberrant.

In such an environment the involvement of neo-Confederate groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) will be unacceptable.

Confederate awards at U.S. military academies will be questioned.

American history text books which indulge neo-Confederates and the Lost Cause will be unacceptable.

Donald Trump won't want to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument.

Churches will stop hosting neo-Confederate functions unless they are fringe. Other organizations will distance themselves from neo-Confederates.

And as neo-Confederates are rejected by some, their acceptance by others will seem less acceptable.

I think the textbooks ought to be of concern. When reading "The American Pageant" by Lizabeth Cohen of Harvard Univ. and David M. Kennedy of Stanford Univ. you realize why  it has taken so long to get rid of Confederate monuments. I think history textbooks like these are really  pernicious in their effects.

I think it should be the next area to push after the Confederate monuments come down and I think that when the Confederate monuments come down these textbooks will be much more vulnerable.

I think after the monuments come down it won't take too long to get the U.S. military and the JROTC programs to drop the Confederacy. The churches are already dropping the Confederacy after my letter writing campaign. I have some more letters to write, but I think no neo-Confederate group is going to get a major mainstream denomination to allow them the use of their facilities.

So I think the next front will be American history textbooks which indulge the Confederacy and fans of the Confederacy.