How Southern socialites rewrote Civil War history

The United Daughters of the Confederacy altered the South's memory of the Civil War.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy was a significant leader of the “Lost Cause,” an intellectual movement that revised history to look more favorably on the South after the American Civil War. They were women from elite antebellum families that used their social and political clout to fundraise and pressure local governments to erect monuments that memorialized Confederate heroes. They also formed textbook review committees that monitored what Southern schoolchildren learned about the war. Their influential work with children created a lasting memory of the Confederate cause, and those generations grew up to be the segregationists of the Jim Crow Era in the South.

Note: At 5:05, a previous version of the video mistakenly covered Kentucky as a former Confederate state on the map. The error has been corrected.

[LegoManiac]

Even today I’m still taught in Texas that the war wasn’t about slavery, it was about “states rights”. Yes. The states’ rights to own slaves.

[stevet]

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

[CCJJChannels]

Why is it the people who say Confederate monuments are about remembering history are the same people who are quick to say slavery ended a long time ago and blacks need to get over it?

[pizzalord]

Slaves: *running away from their masters in order to gain freedom*
"They were having a fun, lighthearted game of hide and seek!"

[victoriafhicks]

It baffles me how southerners are so “proud to be American” and accuse others of not loving our country but will also glorify those who seceded from this country and play the victim by calling it “the War of Northern Aggression”…

[emma]

OK SO WHY aren’t there more monuments commemorating >the slaves< who suffered for so long rather than people who fought to commit evil human right abuses? Black history is American history

[henrydrake]

I grew up in Mississippi and went to a private Christian school. This is spot on. I grew up hearing all of this.

[notthis]

They tried so hard to divert attention away from the fact that they just wanted to keep human beings in chains

[mysterioustiings]

I live in Louisiana and I can say that this is extremely true. We’d have ex-confederate generals as our “Person of the day.” And our history teacher taught us that slavery wasn’t the cause of the war. They said that “Political unrest” was. And they barely had a slavery chapter in the textbook. I’m a darkskin African-American myself, so it really bothered me.

[asirf]

I'm from the south, and I have friends who have actually tried to argue that slavery had nothing to do with the civil war. It's ridiculous and honestly sometimes I'm embarrassed to know someone is stupid enough to believe that.

[jaelie]

Texas: "Removing confederate monuments is erasing history!"

Also Texas: *publishes a textbook that calls slaves 'workers'*

[inspectahdex]

"One thing about the men that's controlling the pen to write history they always seem to white out their sins."

- Jermaine Lamarr Cole

[GabrielKnightz]

The more I learn about history and power and the maintenance of it the more I realise PR (and all shades of it) is one of the most powerful tools of control.

[VanlifewithAlan]

I wonder if those who are pro slavery would still be so if they were slaves.

[justmaxproductions]

I'm glad my Texan History teacher told us and I quote "If someone ever tells you the Civil War was about anything other than slavery, that is bull****" it was dope because we were in 6th grade

[IlikepurpleXP]

Just when you didn’t think American history could be more messed up here comes the original Karen squad.

[edawgrules]

I still hear from so many people (even my own family) that slavery wasn't the root cause of the war. Slavery is literally cited as the reason for secession in the declaration of secession of the Confederate States. Even if you claim states rights (to own slaves) or preserving southern economies (which were built on slaves), it all comes back to slavery.

[andrewilliams]

I remember being kicked out of class in the 5th grade in North Carolina because we were leaning about the "War of northern aggression"; i had no idea what the teacher was talking about. I asked if it was before or after the Civil war and she asked me to wait in the hallway. She would come out to tell me that i needed to go to the principals office and wait for my mom.

[barrymccahckiner]

Ironically enough, these are the SAME people that say “we shouldn’t teach critical race theory because people tell lies…”

[demondkemp]

Purposely poisoning the minds of children is one the most despicable acts since slavery itself.