Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 6: The neo-Confederate/Lost Cause historical fraud

Kevin Levin is a historian and teacher who has put a lot of time, effort, and thought into interpreting Confederate monuments. He is the author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth (2019), in which he investigates and debunks one of the favorite tropes of advocates of the neo-Confederate Lost Cause narrative.

In his Substack column, The Lost Cause Narrative is a Discredited View. We Should Treat It as Such. Civil War Memory 04/05/2022, he writes:

There are plenty of ways to introduce students to the Lost Cause/neo-Confederate narrative of the Civil War and Reconstruction that don’t involve a personal conversation or interview.

Let’s also acknowledge that many of these people who embrace a Lost Cause narrative have problematic views on a wide range of contemporary issues related to race. If an interview is to take place at all, it should only happen after the individual in question has been properly vetted. ...

For well over 100 years the Lost Cause functioned as something close to the official narrative of the Civil War in many parts of the country. You could find it in school textbooks, on street signs, the names of buildings, and, of course, in the hundreds of Confederate monuments and flags featured prominently in public spaces around the country.

It has never suffered for a lack of exposure. [my emphasis]

We can talk about what historical narrative inform and influence people's views. But there is no need to pretend that lies and racist ideology should be treated on an equal basis as honest history, solid research, and views that recognize the humanity of people who were and often still are despised.