confederate Archives - The Race Card Project

Confederate re-enactor chose intimidation as spoils

January 3, 2019February 14, 2022 bi-racial, Black, College, confederate, dallas, freshman, intimidation, Lillian J. Hall, passing, realized, Texas Day, TX

Lillian J. Hall,
Dallas, TX.

I was a freshman in college. I was sitting in the dining hall with a friend, near a window. It was “Texas Day”. The theme was obvious by the bails of hay, western-wear-clad employes and of course, barbecue on the menu. My friend and I were chatting, when all of a sudden two middle-aged men dressed in Confederate-era uniforms were passing by outside. The one that lagged slightly behind looked at me, looked at my friend, then stopped. He was a big guy. Burly. He backed up, turned his body to face me, propped his foot on the window ledge, and prominently displayed his rifle on his knee. Then came the staring contest. I stared at him. He stared at me. I refused to look away, ignoring my friend’s pleas. The other “soldier’ finally grabbed the burly one by the elbow and dragged him away. The smirk he had seemed like a badge of honor. He was quite amused.

That was when I realized I was black.

Granted, I went to all-black schools from elementary to high school. I chose a predominantly white school in west Texas that had a 1% population of black students. My friend, by the way, was biracial, but could “pass” as white. I went to my dorm and cried and vowed to never be intimidated by a white man again. The hatred that one encounter produced should have ruined me, but it didn’t. My great-grandfather was white. He had five children with my great-grandmother in rural east Texas at the turn of the 20th century. He allowed them all to call him ‘daddy’ in public. He was not ashamed. The society he lived in was and they burned down my great-grandmother’s house to prove it. Enough in my life has happened to cause me to hate one group or another. I made a choice to accept people as I receive them. Have you made that choice?

Must we forget our Confederate ancestors?

December 13, 2017December 13, 2017 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, Ancestors, Charlottesville, Civil War, confederate, Gettysburg, Jesse Dukes, Jim Crow, Morning Edition, NPR, PA, slavery, VA, Virginia Quarterly Review

Jesse Dukes,
Charlottesville, VA.

This question was on my mind recently, when I wrote an article for Virginia Quarterly Review about Confederate reenactors at the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg. I don’t actually have any Confederate ancestors I’m aware of, but most of the reenactors do. All of the reenactors I talked to considered slavery to be an abomination, considered Jim Crow to be evil, and espoused no prejudice against people of color. But, they feel a powerful connection to the Confederacy because of their heritage; because their great-great-great-grandfather marched up a hill in Gettysburg or some other battlefield and watched his friends get shot, or got shot himself. They’re proud of their forebears. They imagine their ancestors as brave and noble people, and say things like “Those boys weren’t fighting for slavery, they were fighting for state’s rights and freedom”. And in certain individual cases, they might be correct, even if the Confederacy collectively fought to preserve slavery.

Historical arguments aside, if white southerners wish to oppose racism today, what responsibilities do they have toward the past? Must they forget or renounce their Confederate ancestors? Is there a way they can honor their memory and the vastness of their sacrifice, while still acknowledging the racism of the 19th century South, and the horrors of slavery?

Listen to Jesse Dukes’ story NPR’s Morning Edition.

Confederates waged bloody war for slavery.

June 20, 2015June 20, 2015 Bell Center, bloody, confederate, Confederate flag, Rick Schuch, slavery, War, WI

Rick Schuch,
Bell Center, WI.

The confederate flag is bad and must be gotten rid of.

“I wish I had my n*****-shooter”

July 9, 2014October 21, 2014 1945, breakfast, confederate, cook, dining room, Durham, grandparents, Julian Riggs Smith, LA, N word, NH, shooter, slave, sling shot, veteran, wish, WWII

Julian Riggs Smith
Durham, NH

Growing up in a little town in Louisiana during the Second Word War, I found nothing strange about the fact that my white grandparents often ate breakfast and lunch at the kitchen table kitchen with ‘Stell, their black cook, and John, her husband–and that John and ‘Stell never ate with us in the dining room.
Nor did I find it strange that I was expected to address respectable older blacks like John and ‘Stell as “Uncle” and “Aunt”.

Uncle John had a mule and a wagon and a regular trash-collection route and sometimes let me ride with along him when he had a full load to haul to dumping ground in a swamp several miles from the center of our little town. I liked going to the dump because Uncle John let me shoot rats with his old .22 rifle.

One day in early 1945, when I was seven, I was sitting on the buckboard beside Uncle John when a dog began snapping at the legs of the mule.

“I wish I had my n*****-shooter”, I said, using the local slang term for a sling shot.

“What’d you say, boy?” asked Uncle John, stopping the wagon.

I repeated my words and pantomimed using a sling shot.

To make a long story short, Uncle John told me to get down, walk home, and tell Miss Rachel, my grandmother, to wash my mouth out with soap.

My grandmother didn’t wash my mouth out with soap, but she did tell me why I must never use that terrible word again–and that Uncle John was my uncle, was my grandfather’s older half-brother, begotten on his cook several years before their father, a Confederate veteran, could afford to marry. And how her father-in-law, my great grandfather, sailed to Baltimore to woo and marry a cousin and brought her back to Louisiana to his fine new house where the kitchen was run by a former slave with a little boy who resembled her new husband and the two boys she eventually bore, a little boy who looked after his too younger half-brothers, took them hunting and fishing.

Although I was seven, had attained the age of reason and made my first communion, I did not know what that terrible word meant. But using it that day on my uncle’s wagon unlocked the door to many mysteries and set me on a path that would one day result in my own mother calling me a n*****-lover.

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