REMOVAL OF CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS AS A REFLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN REINTEGRATION

Вестник СПбГУ. История. 2019. Т. 64. Вып. 3

Removal of Confederate Monuments as a Reflection of Contemporary Southern Reintegration

Michael A. Powell

For citation: Powell M. A. Removal of Confederate Monuments as a Reflection of Contemporary Southern Reintegration. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2019, vol. 64, iss. 3, pp. 10451059. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu02.2019.314

This article will examine the role of memory within the context of Confederate monuments commemorating southern soldiers and civilians in the American Civil War, and the impact of those monuments on memory. According to John Shelton Reed, of the Center for Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, after the Civil War and in the interest of reconciliation, the United States entered into an unspoken agreement to allow southerners, and others to celebrate and remember those who sacrificed for the Confederacy. This agreement allowed for the celebration of the symbols of the ante-bellum South and the Confederacy, including the support of the Confederate flag, Confederate songs, and erection of monuments, primarily in the South but also in the northern regions of the country. I will argue that recent events in the United States, such as Dylan Roof&s 2015 massacre of African Americans in a Charlestown, South Carolina church, the "Black Lives" movement, and the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, have contributed to a break-down of this unspoken agreement. Although most Americans support keeping the Confederate monuments in place, there is not enough strong widespread public opposition to their removal. This suggests a disintegration of the unspoken agreement regarding reintegration between the federal government and the southern people, which is primarily due to a more thorough integration of the South into mainstream American economy, culture and politics. Keywords: Confederate States of America, Confederacy, Civil War, memory, monuments.

Снос памятников Конфедерации как отражение современной южной реинтеграции

Майкл А. Пауэлл

Для цитирования: Powell M. A. Removal of Confederate Monuments as a Reflection of Contemporary Southern Reintegration // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. История. 2019. Т. 64. Вып. 3. С. 1045-1059. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu02.2019.314

В этой статье исследована роль памяти в контексте конфедеративных памятников, посвященных южным солдатам и гражданским лицам в американской Гражданской войне, и влияние этих памятников на память. По словам Джона Шелтона Рида из Центра изучения американского юга в Университете Северной Каролины, после Гражданской

Michael A. Powell — PhD, J. D., Professor in History, Frederick Community College, Opossumtown Pike, 7932, Frederick, Maryland, 21702, USA; mpowell@frederick.edu

Майкл А. Пауэлл — PhD, J. D., профессор, Фредерик Коммьюнити Колледж, США, 21702, Мэриленд, Опоссумтаун Пайк, 7932; mpowell@frederick.edu

© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2019

войны и в интересах примирения Соединенные Штаты заключили негласное соглашение, позволяющее южанам и другим праздновать и помнить тех, кто жертвовал ради Конфедерации. Это соглашение позволило чествовать символы антивоенного Юга и Конфедерации, включая поддержку флага, песен Конфедерации и установку памятников, в первую очередь на юге, а также в северных регионах страны. Можно утверждать, что недавние события в Соединенных Штатах, такие как резня Диланом Роуфом в 2015 г. афроамериканцев в Чарльзтауне, церковь в Южной Каролине, движение «Черные жизни» и митинг «Объединим право» в Шарлоттсвилле, Вирджиния, в 2017 г., способствовали нарушению этого негласного соглашения. Хотя большинство американцев поддерживают сохранение памятников Конфедерации на месте, недостаточно широко распространено общественное противодействие их сносу. Это предполагает распад негласного соглашения о реинтеграции между федеральным правительством и южанами, что в первую очередь связано с более тщательной интеграцией Юга в основную американскую экономику, культуру и политику.

Frederick, Maryland, the county seat of Frederick County, has been a quiet town, nestled at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, approximately sixty kilometers west of Baltimore and Washington, D. C. Founded in the mid-18th century, the town has traditionally been a conservative farming community with scattered early manufacturing concerns, including glass, tanning, and iron production, which later gave way to light industry and canning. Nearby Baltimore and Washington, D. C. have always overshadowed Frederick economically, politically, and culturally. However, Frederick has transitioned over the past thirty years into a thriving suburb, with a population of over 70,000 residents. Thousands of newcomers have transformed the city, both in size and character. While Frederick County remains predominately rural and conservative, Frederick City is more progressive. Its city center is economically, politically, and culturally vibrant, with government buildings, specialty shops, restaurants, and an arts district.

Located in front of City Hall were, until recently, busts of two men from Frederick who sat on the United States Supreme Court: Thomas Johnson and Roger Brooke Taney. Johnson, who favored separation from Great Britain in the 1770s, served as a Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress, a brigadier general in the Maryland militia, and was elected the first governor of Maryland after the state secured its independence. At the age of 59, Johnson was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, but ill-health forced him into retirement in 1793 after a mere 163 days in office. Johnson&s major accomplishment on the Court was his contribution to its first written opinion [Georgia v. Brailsford 1792]. In contrast to Johnson&s brief and relatively undistinguished experience on the high court, Roger Brooke Taney, who served as Chief Justice of the Court from 1836 to 1864 and presided over a Court that played a significant role in transforming the economy of the United States during the market revolution. His Court penned some of the most crucial opinions in the Court&s history: "Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of the Warren Bridge" [1837]1, "New York v. Miln"

Justice Taney, in writing for the majority of the Court, observed that, "The object and end of all government is to promote the happiness and prosperity of the community.... While the rights of private property are

[1837]2, "Cooley v. Board of Wardens of the Port of Philadelphia" [1852]3, and, most famously, "Dred Scott v. Sandford" [1857]. Taney&s appointment to the bench followed his career as a lawyer, state legislator, state attorney general, and Attorney General of the United States in President Andrew Jackson&s administration.

The busts of these two jurists were dedicated in 1932 when the building housed the County&s courthouse, which was deemed an appropriate location given the status and accomplishments of the two men. They remained in that location until the spring of 2018. After a spirited debate involving various factions of the Frederick community, the busts were removed on March 17, primarily because of Taney&s opinion in an 1857 Supreme Court decision, "Dred Scott v. Sandford", one of the Court&s most controversial and poorly reasoned decisions4. In that opinion, the Court held, inter alia, that Africans were not brought to America with the intention of becoming citizens and, therefore, could never become members of the body politic, and that slaves also were a species of property falling under the protection of the Constitution. In addition, the decision overturned the Missouri Compromise, which was an attempt by Congress in 1820 to limit the extension of slavery in the newly-acquired western territories and resolve the ongoing, divisive issue of slavery in America. In recent decades, a number of local African-Americans publicly declared the Taney bust to be offensive and advocated for its removal. In an attempt to defuse the situation, an explanatory plaque was installed in 2009. Nonetheless, this ultimately proved unsatisfactory, and in 2018 both the Johnson and Taney busts were finally relocated to the local cemetery. The reason for the removal of the Thomas Johnson bust is still not clear, but it might have been included as the bust adjacent to Taney&s.

This incident is not isolated to one city in Maryland, but is part of a movement across the America to remove monuments to the Confederacy and Confederate soldiers. This paper will explore why this movement has gained momentum despite the fact that the public, in poll after poll, continues supporting maintenance of the monuments in public spaces, and the events that have occurred recently in America which have contributed to the increased intensity of the removal movement. At issue is the role of memory and memorialization of people and events in public spaces. I propose that the United States no longer needs to compromise with the white South and its Confederate identity because the South, a little more than one hundred and fifty years after the Civil War

sacredly guarded, we must not forget that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and well-being of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation." While engaging in a careful balancing act, the Court&s decision facilitated economic development and the rise of an industrial America.

concluded, has become so sufficiently integrated into the American political, economic, and cultural life that display of Confederate symbols and monuments is not necessary for its loyalty to the Union5.

Historical study of memory has taken place relatively recently, and mostly within the past thirty years. Alfred Young, the noted historian of the American Revolution and author of the path-breaking "The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: The American Revolution and Memory", correctly observed that, for our purposes, there are two kinds of memory: private and public. Private memory is individual memory — what we either recall ourselves, or what we have been taught by our culture, while public memory is what the community remembers, either as events which occurred or as those events which have been reconstructed over time6. An example of an event encompassing both public and private memory is the staggering impact of World War II on contemporary Russian culture. The War&s impact on the then-Soviet Union was unprecedented. Virtually every Russian family was touched by that war, and has personal or family memories of that experience. In addition, school curricula, magazines, newspapers, and the hundreds of monuments which honor both soldiers and citizens have contributed to the public memory. For Russians, then, World War II is expressed in both private and public memory, as is the Civil War for Americans.

How does a culture or nation collectively remember events or people? Public memories can heavily influence private memories, and the opposite holds true as well. And often public memories are contested by competing groups. With respect to the American Civil War, there are a multiplicity of memories that overlap and are in conflict. While public memory derives from various private memories, it endures long after those involved are gone. Thus, all memory is socially constructed, and is constantly reconfiguring and reconstructing itself, influenced by our environment, ideas, and even other memories. This applies to the memories of individuals, social groups, or societies7.

The Civil War in the United States was a watershed event; its impact is still being felt today. The origins of the war itself is contested. Most professional historians agree that the war began because of slavery in the South and the South&s attempt to extend slavery into the territories. Others, mostly white southerners, have argued that the war was about tyranny and the rights of states within the Constitution. Still, others argue that it was a dispute over the nature of the Union, the kind of republic the United States would become. Likewise, the legacies of the Civil War are also disputed. For some, the legacy of the war involves the relationship of the states to the central government. For others, it is about the millions of freed men and women. Blacks may have been given their liberty through the

Constitution, yet they were suppressed in a multitude of ways in American society after the Civil War. It would take over one hundred years of blacks suffering through segregation, Jim Crow Laws which held blacks in a subservient position, the migration northward where the blacks also found themselves deprived of their civil rights and liberties, and the Civil Rights movement before blacks found themselves beginning to achieve some measure of equal rights.

Studies on Civil War memory have proliferated within the last twenty years or so. David Blight, in his path-breaking "Race and Reunion: the Civil War in American Memory", argues that in the decades following the end of the Civil War in 1865, white northerners and white southerners achieved an interpretation of the war that resulted in reunion and reconciliation, but at the expense of the freedmen and freedwomen&s equality and their inclusion in the Civil War narrative. As a result, the monuments constructed, and the reunions held, during this period (Blight covers the post-war years until 1913) honored the memory of the battle and/or the heroism of the soldiers. They ignored, however, the contributions, goals, and challenges of African-Americans8. Caroline Janney rejects Blight&s argument, asserting that the reunion and reconciliation after the war was not nearly as unifying as Blight presented. Furthermore, the significant disagreements over how to interpret the war were not only North versus South, but black versus white as well. Union veterans, in particular, emphasized the importance of emancipation in their remembrance of the war9.

Other important works on Civil War memory include those of John Neff10, Barbara A. Gannon11, Gary Gallagher12 and Sanford Levinson13. Almost all agree that at least three visions competed for dominance after the war. First, the Reconciliation/Reunion vision in which the need to reunify the country served to minimize the role of slavery and oppose the argument that this was a war between two very different civilizations. The country needed to move forward, readmit, and reintegrate the former Confederate states back into the Union. Secondly, the Lost Cause vision, which represented white southerners& vision of the out-manned and out-resourced South as the liberty-loving David fighting the evil dictatorial Goliath of the North. Missing from this vision is any significant mention of slavery, except as it relates to the South&s constitutional argument. Lastly, the Emancipation vision emphasized the freedom of slaves as correcting a constitutional flaw and ridding the country of a political and social evil. Each of these visions would influence subsequent generations& view of the Civil War and its role in America&s history.

During the last century and a half, one or another of these interpretations has dominated the political and cultural landscape. From the end of the Civil War in 1865 through the 1920s, the Lost Cause and Reconciliation/Reunion visions most influenced how the war was perceived and presented. The Reconciliation/Reunion vision tended to dominate from the 1930s to the 1960s. By the 1970s, the Emancipation perspective emerged as

Fig. 1. Image of Silent Sam (photo by Amanda Myers)

Fig. 2. Slide of the Ole Miss statue (photo by Amy Flucker)

the favored interpretation of the Civil War. These visions were contested, influenced, and contextu-alized by contemporary current events and scholarship.

Examples of monuments erected during the Lost Cause/Reconciliation period illustrate the ideology and emotion embedded in that perspective. "Silent Sam" was a statue on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, dedicated in 1913 to the university students who fought for the Confederacy. According to the University, more than one thousand students left school to fight for the Confederacy14. Erected during the Lost Cause era, the statue was funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy without financial support from the University. Silent Sam stood alert, with one leg forward, and a rifle held diagonally across his body. Like many Confederate monuments erected during this era, his pose was vigilant, but non-threatening. He was named so because he was not carrying a cartridge box, which means that he would remain silent without ammunition. In a larger sense, he could no longer threaten the Union. The former Confederate soldiers from the University who fought for the Confederacy were no longer rebels. Their memory may be idolized, and their battlefield exploits may be honored, but the surrender was firmly in place and recognized.

Silent Sam was typical of many statues constructed in the South during this period. Southern statues were honorific, but pacific, given that the nature of the enterprise celebrated was warfare. The soldiers were vigilant and guarded, but the weaponry was not poised for use. In Oxford, Mississippi, a Confederate statue, located in front of the Lafayette County Courthouse and erected in 1907, represents a soldier at rest, with the butt of his musket on the ground and the barrel stopping just under his chin. Another Confederate statue, this one at the entrance to the Circle at the University of Mississippi and erected in 1906, is of a soldier holding his rifle with the butt on the ground and his left arm raised, his hand shield14 University of North Carolina, The Graduate School. URL: https://gradschool.unc.edu/funding/ gradschool/weiss/interesting_place/landmarks/sam.html (assessed: 07.02.2019).

ing his eyes from the sun. These are non-threatening poses, with the soldiers engaged in non-aggressive actions.

There are far fewer monuments for the Emancipation period. The African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D. C., dedicated in 1997, consists of soldiers and sailors in a defensive stance. Honoring those serving in the United States Colored Troops, the monument includes a wall, listing the over 200,000 African Americans and their 7,000 white officers who served during the Civil War. The Vicksburg (Mississippi) battlefield is home to another monument devoted to honoring the African American experience during the period in question. The monument, notably located on Grant Avenue, depicts a wounded African-American soldier being assisted by a fellow African-American soldier and an African-American field hand and former slave15. While the soldier offering aid is looking straight forward to the future, the field hand is looking backward, signifying a phase of life that is in the past. This monument, dedicated in 2004, is one of only a handful of monuments in National Park Service land dedicated to the African-American experience during the Emancipation Period.

Every era erects monuments to honor the ideals and/or persons whom that society deems worthy of such an honor. There is rarely a consensus on the kind of memorials appropriate for public space. A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee may satisfy the defenders of Reconciliation and/or the Lost Cause perspective, but offend defenders of the Emancipation vision. Likewise, a monument to Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and former slave who spent his life seeking emancipation of the slaves and equality for the black man, would offend the Lost Cause supporters as much as it would find support among those who believe in the Emancipation narrative. The resolution of this contestation is in the hands of the owner of the monument and land upon which it is placed; and that owner, whether the state government, national government, a private entity, or even an individual, selects the narrative. This narrative may be to inspire patriotism, educate, or denounce an opposing opinion. While monuments are historical artifacts themselves, they also provide an interpretation that is reflective more of the period in which they were erected than of the period commemorated. An examination of two plaques on Confederate monuments will illustrate this. The first, erected in 1913 by the United Confederate Veterans, was dedicated to the Arkansas women who contributed to the home front during the Civil War. The second plaque is a part of a monument on the University of Mississippi campus dedicated to those Ole Miss students who fought for the Confederacy. This plaque is a 2017 replacement of the original.

The Arkansas monument clearly embraces the Lost Cause perspective, emphasizing the women&s multiple roles at home while the men were defending the homeland. The women were honored for performing household tasks, including raising children, and also recognized for their contributions as nurses and laborers. Beyond the tangible sacrifices of Confederate women, however, tribute is paid to them for providing faith, fortitude, and a patriotism that "will teach their sons to emulate the deeds of their sires." Two Lost Cause elements are embedded in this: the minimization of slavery as a component of the war, and the engagement by Confederate women in an honorable clash to defend

the southern way of life. Since the monument was constructed at the height of the Lost Cause movement, this is not altogether surprising.

Yet, as times change, so do historical interpretations. The Lost Cause perspective, although still popular among some circles, has been displaced through more recent scholarship with the Emancipation vision. This is represented by the University of Mississippi&s decision in 2017 to contextualize the Confederate memorials on campus, including monuments, names of streets and buildings, and other sites of racial conflict. After a drunk driver destroyed the monument in 2017, the University decided to repair the statue rather than not replace it at all. As part of the reconstruction, the original 1906 plaque located at the base of the monument, and embracing the Lost Cause ideology, was replaced with one which attempted to reconcile the more contemporary Emancipation perspective with the Lost Cause perspective. After identifying and expressing the Lost Cause reasons for dedicating the original monument, the plaque continues,

Although the monument was created to honor the sacrifice of local Confederate soldiers, it must also remind us that the defeat of the Confederacy actually meant freedom for millions of people. On the evening of September 30, 1962, this statue was a rallying point for opponents of integration.... this historic statue is a reminder of the university&s divisive past. Today, the University of Mississippi draws from that past a continuing commitment to open its hallowed halls to all who seek truth, knowledge, and wisdom.

The University clearly sought to recognize the statue&s Lost Cause identity, and by implication, the University&s participation in that perspective. Yet the plaque is careful to assert that the University now embraces the Emancipation perspective. Out of the past is a rebirth into the new, more contemporary, interpretation of Emancipation.

John Shelton Reed, a founder of the University of North Carolina&s Center for the Study of the American South and for over thirty years a professor of sociology as well as keen observer of the South, offered a compelling explanation for these shifting perspectives that today resonates with many. After the Civil War ended with the United States& victory in 1865, the Union needed to bring the rebellious Confederates back into the fold. This period in American history is called Reconstruction. While it may have officially ended in 1876, in fact it continued for many years after. The United States needed to reincorporate the southern states back into the Union, but this presented a host of difficulties. The South was in economic ruins. Its few factories were devastated, fields lay uncultivated and overgrown, and railroads lacked tracks and rolling stock. The primary basis for menial labor, four million enslaved people, had been freed, but had few opportunities to be truly independent economically. Many whites and blacks lacked requisite food and shelter. With the collapse of the Confederate government in March, 1865, the United States& army occupied the former Confederate states and maintained order. Many southerners were shocked and despondent by their loss in the War; they later became hostile and angry. Women, in particular, experienced these feelings, mostly because of the large-scale devastation of their homeland and the loss of a generation of young men16.

By the 1890s, with the Civil War veterans dying in greater numbers, a concerted effort was undertaken by southerners to preserve the memory of the Confederate soldiers and the Lost Cause perspective that white southerners now had created and embraced. The Daughters of the Confederacy, and to a lesser extent, the Sons of the Confederacy, built statues and monuments articulating their romanticized vision of the South before the Civil War, with an emphasis on the honor and bravery of the Confederate soldier and the struggle to preserve southern constitutional rights against the oppressive North. Absent from this perspective is any discussion of the centrality of slavery as a cause of the war.

Preservation of the ideals of the Confederacy went beyond creating artifacts of stone. This period witnessed the re-emergence of the Confederate flag, songs of the Confederacy, and the celebration of Confederate holidays. Confederate Memorial Day and birthdays of Confederate heroes were officially recognized by states throughout the South. A number of state flags (including those of Alabama and Florida) incorporated the Cross of St. Andrew, which is featured so prominently in the Confederate battle flag. Georgia&s state flag included the red and white bars of the first national flag (popularly known as the "Stars and Bars" flag). According to Reed, this public display of the Lost Cause vision of the Civil War was permitted by the United States government as a means to reconcile and reincorporate the South back into the Union. If the Daughters of the Confederacy, or a state, wanted to construct a statue to a Confederate hero or it the Confederacy itself, there would be no objection. This was the price of gaining southern loyalty to the Union17.

Another component of this unwritten, but understood, agreement was, Reed argues, to minimize the role of slavery in the war fought a generation earlier. As one Confederate of the period wrote forty years after the war "... the cause we fought for and our brothers died for was the cause of civil liberty and not the cause of human slavery.."18. Many southerners were content to omit slavery as a primary cause of the Civil War. Rejection of slavery as a cause of the war was not, however, a rejection of white supremacy, which was imbedded in southern culture, if not in all of American society. The most glaring example of this perspective is the D. W. Griffith movie Birth of a Nation, released in 1915. This film follows the tribulations of two families, one northern and the other southern, during the Civil War and the immediate post-war period of Reconstruction. While the film is notable for its cinematographic innovations, it embodies the Lost Cause values, representing the terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan (K. K. K.) as the savior of white civilization in the aftermath of the Civil War and perpetuating racism through its portrayal of African Americans as vulgar, unintelligent, highly sexualized19.

This unofficial agreement between the United States and the South held for several generations, from roughly the end of the 19th century until the mid-1950s. Initially, African Americans were limited to silence or occasional objections by civil rights organizations, which fell mostly upon deaf ears. However, the rise of the modern civil rights movement in the 1950s, and its subsequent political and cultural successes, slowly led to the public shifting of the Reconciliation and Lost Cause visions to the Emancipation per17 Reed J. S. Minding the South. Columbia, 2003. P. 210-213.

spective. While this shift was halting, a number of dramatic events occurred which caused the public&s attention to embrace Emancipation&s emergence.

After a 1997 tour of some National Park Service Civil War battlefields, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. expressed concern that the representation of the war at these battlefield sites avoided any mention of slavery, and essentially addressed only the military aspect of the battle and the war 20. Therefore, he introduced "report language into the National Park Service appropriation budget that encouraged National Park Service Civil War park superintendents to expand the scope of their interpretation to include the discussion of such topics as slavery"21. The importance of Jackson&s exhortation cannot be overemphasized. National Park Service battlefields now emphasize the centrality of slavery to the Civil War. The hundreds of thousands visitors who now visit the National Park Service battlefields are exposed to the Emancipation narrative and interpretation rather than a military explanation of the battles without other context.

Even more dramatic has been the violence directed toward innocent people by individuals who were white supremacists and who identified with the Confederacy. On June15, 2015, after spending forty minutes in an evening prayer service at the Emanuel African Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Dylan Roof shot and killed nine people, all African Americans, including a senior pastor and state senator, and injured one person.

Afterwards, photographs appeared with Roof holding a Confederate flag and a manifesto in which he excoriates blacks. Roof never denied his atrocity, admitting, in fact, that his attack was in retribution for African Americans attacking whites and expressed his hope that his exploit would bring about a race war in America. As soon as Roof&s connections to the Confederate flag were exposed, there were immediate calls for elimination of Confederate flags on public property, as well as the removal of Confederate monuments. In the state capitols in Alabama and South Carolina, Confederate flags came down. A number of universities in Mississippi refused to fly the state flag, which incorporates the Confederate battle flag and is the sole remaining state flag which includes this symbol of the Confederacy. In addition, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified forty-seven monuments which have been removed since Roof&s heinous crime. Removing the most Confederate monuments were Texas (31), Virginia (14), Florida (9), Tennessee (8), Georgia (6), and Maryland (6)22.

Roof&s attack appeared the year after the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The death of this young black man by a white police officer initiated a round of national protests. Riots immediately ensued in the Ferguson community and continued for several weeks, and then intermittently thereafter. The Ferguson incident focused attention on the deaths of other young black men at the hands of the police and unleashed riots around the country. Perhaps the most visible of these riots occurred in Baltimore, Maryland after the death of Freddy Gray on April 13,

More recently, at a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August of 2017, various factions of the far right gathered to protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park23. A riot ensued between the protestors, carrying flags, including the Confederate battle flag, shouting incendiary chants, and some carrying semi-automatic rifles, and their opponents, culminating in several assaults by the demonstrators and the death of a counter protestor. Much of America was stunned by the violence and the level of hatred and intolerance exhibited by the protestors, and Americans were clearly aware that the focal point for this violence was the preservation of a statue of a Confederate general24.

Coupled with these often extreme and violent expressions of discontent, attacks on Confederate monuments and statues accelerated. Some of these attacks were physical, others were petitions to remove these monuments through the courts and/or state and city legislatures. In Durham, North Carolina, however, protestors pulled down a monument of a Confederate soldier in front of the County courthouse on August 14, 2017. Protected by state law, the monument had stood since 1924. Although criminal charges had been filed for destruction of the statue, the state subsequently dropped them. In a related action, Duke University, also located in Durham, removed a statue of Robert E. Lee from the front of its chapel on August 19, 2017 after it had been vandalized. Protestors in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, feeling the frustration of years of inaction on removal of Silent Sam, took matters into their own hands by pulling down this monument in August, 2018. More common, though, were removal of the Confederate statues and monuments through legislative and executive authority. From Boston, Massachusetts to St. Petersburg, Florida, and from New Orleans, Louisiana to St. Louis, Missouri, monuments were removed, many in the middle of the night. Even in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, discussions have been underway to move the Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue, a tree-lined street in a wealthy area of the city which hosts five monuments to Confederate generals and the Confederacy&s president.

Yet poll after poll on the topic of Confederate monument removal reflects overwhelming opposition to removal of these monuments from public lands. According to a Reuters/ Ipsos opinion poll administered during the week of August 18-21, 2017, 54 percent of adults said Confederate monuments "should remain in all public spaces", while 27 percent said they "should be removed from all public spaces." Another 19 percent said they "don&t know." As would be expected, the figures were markedly divided along racial and party lines, with white Republicans more supportive of keeping the monuments in place as op23 In June 2016, the Charlottesville City Council changed the name of the park from Lee Park to Emancipation Park. This was in keeping with many other southern municipalities which were changing the names of parks, schools, and streets named after Confederate military and civil leaders.

posed to African-American Democrats, who favored removal of the monuments25. While the figures may vary, depending upon the poll, Americans still seem overwhelmingly opposed to removing the Confederate monuments in public spaces26. For many Americans, the monuments represent recognition of the country&s history and the most dramatic confrontation in American history.

Within the context of recent events, particularly Dylan Roof&s murders, it appears that the opposition to removing the monuments is insufficient to stem the forces which want the monuments removed. And while the far right has been publicly demonstrating to keep the monuments in place, the more moderate voices have been silent. There can be many reasons for the lack of public input, including the fear of being labeled a racist, the social risks involved in making a public defense against the removal, and a lack of interest. Another reason should be added to this list: the South has now become so integrated with the rest of the country that the unwritten agreement between the South and the American government as articulated by John Shelton Reed is no longer necessary. Removal of the statues and monuments is acceptable precisely because the need for such a compromise does not exist.

In 1938, after reading a report prepared by the National Emergency Council investigating the "Economic Conditions of the South," President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared the South to be "the nation&s number one economic problem"27. By the 21st century this is no longer the case. The South, contrary to being in a state of economic stagnation, is now fully integrated into the American economy and experiencing dramatic, sustained growth. In fact, by the 1970s and 1980s, it was the North that was experiencing significant economic decline, with factories closing, an exorbitant cost of labor, and few outside corporations willing to invest in the region. Businesses looked for new locations, and one such location was the South where the cost of living, and labor, was cheaper. Many southern states and communities offered significant incentives to lure businesses, such as tax abatements and infrastructure. While tobacco, cotton, coal mining, steel, and textiles dominated the southern economy in the first two thirds of the 20th century, they gave way as other industries moved in, notably automobile manufacturing, agribusiness, technology, and defense industries. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nissan, Honda, and BMW opened factories in the South, followed by Toyota, Mercedes Bent, and Isuzu. In addition to factories engaged in assembly, support facilities also opened to provide auto parts, batteries, and tires. Today the South supplies twenty-eight per cent of the automotive and parts manufacturing and thirty-one per cent of the country&s automotive assembly28. In addition to the automobile industry, research and technology parks, such as the Research Triangle in North Carolina and Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama, can boast being

among the best in the country. Each has access to a large, highly educated population and competitive institutions of higher learning. Both are among the world&s leaders in business and technology. The Research Triangle takes pride in its quality of life, and notes that over 250 companies are located within its confines, with over fifty thousand employees, and over three thousand patents29. Since the early 1990s, Charlotte, North Carolina has been one of the leading banking centers of the country. It recently relinquished its number two ranking (behind only New York) to San Francisco, but with 2.6 trillion dollars in assets and employing tens of thousands of workers, Charlotte still plays an impressive role in America&s financial sector. Among the financial institutions that count Charlotte as home are Bank of America and New Dominion Bank30.

Clearly Charlotte is an integral component of the nation&s financial network. The South is also growing at such a rapid rate that one journal has concluded that it was the focal point for growth in the United States31. By the end of 2013, the South accounted for thirty-five percent of the national economy, fifty percent of all housing starts, and the South&s population was growing at a faster rate than any other region in the United States. The job market, housing costs, and retirement opportunities are attracting many Americans to the South, which has led some commentators worry that it is losing its distinctiveness because of the outside influences32.

What has occurred over the past thirty years or so is what one historian has characterized as southern economic absorption into the national economy. Many factors have contributed to this dynamic, including the imposition of national labor standards, individual and corporate mobility, and ease of communications and transportation33. Recent studies on the South and its economic contributions focus on the South&s role within the context of globalization, both as a contributor and recipient34.

Beyond economic absorption, there has been an equivalent political incorporation. Many of the country&s influential politicians are from the South, including Mitch McCo-nnell from Kentucky (Senate Majority Leader), Rand Paul from Kentucky (Senator), Ted Cruz of Texas (Senator), Lindsay Graham of South Carolina (Senator) and the two Bushes from Texas (Presidents George H. W., George W. and former Governor Jeb). While the country remains deeply divided politically, with the South traditionally the more conservative region, a number of southern politicians have contributed toward breaking the consistent deadlocks between the parties. Senator Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, Sen29 The Research Triangle Park. URL: https://www.rtp.org/ (assessed: 07.02.2019). As noted on the Cummings Research Park webpage: CRP is the home of nearly 300 companies, more than 26,000 employees and 12,500 students // Cummings Research Park. URL: https://www.google.com/search?source=h-pei=GU7rW7BGhpnmApGvvJgIq=cummins+research+parkoq=cummings_l=psyab.1.0.35i39j0l-2j0i131j0l3j0i131j0l2.841.2170..4241...0.0..0.130.671.6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i10.p3RVCtiFSTo (assessed: 07.02.2019).

ator Lindsay Graham, Senator Mark Warner (Virginia), and Senator Saxby Chambliss (Georgia) have dedicated themselves to building consensus on several controversial issues, including reducing the federal government&s deficit, health care reform, immigration reform, and overcoming procedural roadblocks in the Senate. Despite experiencing varying degrees of success, these politicians found themselves overshadowed by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. His "Make America Great Again" resonated with many southerners, who provided Trump with overwhelming support in the South.

There are, however, cracks to the conservative dominance of the South. In the 2016 presidential election, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia voted for the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. In the 2012 election, Florida joined them in voting for President Barack Obama. Along with these states, North Carolina also voted for Obama in 2008. The South is undergoing a seismic shift, if ever so slowly. If this trend continues, the economic absorption as well as the changing demographics would suggest a South that is much less regional and much more national.

These political and economic changes represent the robust incorporation of the southern region into American culture. While other avenues could be explored, such as the rise of patriotism in America after 9/11, the cultural importance and impact of the diversity and inclusion practiced in the schools and society, and impact of such technology as the television and internet, the fact remains that the South is being absorbed into American culture so that the North no longer needs to recognize symbols of the South to maintain the loyalty of southerners to the Union.

In closing, one would often see an automobile in the South with one bumper sticker that supported the Confederacy, and another on the same bumper that supported the United States. Or, one would see a flag that had the Confederate battle flag on one half which would meld into an American flag on the other half. The inherent contradiction presented is undeniable. Yet it served the purpose of reconciliation and reunion. And, just like the removal of Confederate monuments, it also represents now the disintegration of the unwritten contract between the post-Civil War North and South, which are melding into one. John Shelton Reed is correct that the South was permitted to recognize its heritage beginning in the 1890s, through the celebration of the Confederate flag and the construction of monuments and statues while articulating the Reconciliation/Lost Cause vision in an effort to keep southerners loyal to the Union. However, with the passage of time, the rise of the Emancipation vision, and the integration of the South politically, culturally, and economically into mainstream America, public memory regarding who and what should be memorialized has changed. Removal of statues associated with the Confederacy, such as Roger Brooke Taney in Frederick, Maryland, will continue at an ever increasing pace.

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Статья поступила в редакцию 17 ноября 2018 г.

Рекомендована в печать 10 июня 2019 г.

Received: November 17, 2018 Accepted: June 10, 2019