Confederate Memorialization and the Old South's Reckoning with Modernity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
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W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2021 "Epic Poems in Bronze": Confederate Memorialization and the Old South's Reckoning with Modernity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Grace Ford-Dirks Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the African American Studies Commons, American Art and Architecture Commons, American Studies Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, Public History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Ford-Dirks, Grace, ""Epic Poems in Bronze": Confederate Memorialization and the Old South's Reckoning with Modernity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" (2021). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1697. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1697 This Honors Thesis -- Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@wm.edu. Ford-Dirks 1 “Epic Poems in Bronze:” Confederate Memorialization and the Old South’s Reckoning with Modernity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Department of History from William & Mary by Grace M. Ford-Dirks Accepted for Highest Honors Molly Swetnam-Burland _______________________ Dr. Molly Swetnam-Burland Frederick Corney ___________________________ Dr. Frederick Corney Williamsburg, VA May 12, 2021 Ford-Dirks 2 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction ………………………………………………………………….. 3 Chapter Two: Mourning Memorialization (1865 - 1880) …………………………………. 14 Chapter Three: Vindication In Urban Spaces (1881 - 1918) ……………………………… 57 Chapter Four: Commercialized Memorialization and Historic Preservation (1919 - 1940) …………………………………… 113 Chapter Five: Conclusion …………………………………………………………………… 164 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………….. 172 Ford-Dirks 3 Chapter One: Introduction On a suffocatingly hot night in June 2015, a white man named Dylann Roof joined a small bible study group gathered at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof found a seat in the back of the hall and sat quietly for the duration of the meeting. When those assembled closed their eyes and lowered their heads in prayer, Roof pulled out a gun and opened fire. As he fled, he left behind nine dead, including a South Carolina state senator, and three survivors. Roof was apprehended in North Carolina the next day. In the weeks following the shooting, legal experts and the general public alike dug through Roof’s past searching for a motive to explain his horrific actions. It didn’t take long for photos of the avowed white supremacist holding a Confederate battle flag and a gun to emerge, accompanied by reports that Roof had taken a “tour of American slavery” in the months prior to the Emanuel AME murders. He visited plantation sites, small Confederate museums, and paused at cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are buried.1 More than 150 years beyond the end of the Civil war, Roof’s diaries and curated photos demonstrate that the memory of the Civil War continues to hold a prominent place in the collective memory of the American South. In the weeks and months after the shooting, Charlestonians struggled to come to terms with their grief. The tragedy prompted nationwide conversations about white supremacy and the legacy of slavery in American culture, but it also raised questions closer to home. Why were so many symbols of Confederate culture still visible in South Carolina and in Charleston? Had Charleston ever come to terms with its central role in the perpetuation of the institution of 1 Neely Tucker and Peter Holley, “Dylann Roof’s Eerie Tour of American Slavery at Its Beginning, Middle and End,” Washington Post, July 1, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/07/01/dylann-roofs- eerie-tour-of-american-slavery-at-its-beginning-middle-and-end/. Ford-Dirks 4 slavery? Why did so many people harbor a strong affinity with a failed slaveholders’ republic that was defeated almost two centuries ago? Roof’s actions prompted a reckoning about local collective memory and lingering Confederate symbols. At the same time as South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made national headlines for removing the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol grounds, local organizations like the Historic Charleston Foundation (HCF) began to fundamentally reconsider their role as historical institutions and repositories of memory.2 In 2015 and 2017, HCF launched major archaeological investigations looking for new evidence from the enslaved quarters at two house museums, the Aiken-Rhett House and the Nathaniel Russell House.3 These projects forced staff, locals, and visitors alike to re-consider whose narratives were being told at popular tourist sites and whose had been consciously suppressed. They prompted important questions about historical organizations’ institutional histories, and Charleston’s historical tourism industry at large. Five years to the day after Roof opened fire in the basement of Mother Emanuel, Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg announced the city’s intention to remove the monument to John C. Calhoun, South Carolina politician and pro-slavery ideologue.4 One week later, on June 2 Ben Schreckinger, “Nikki Haley’s Star Rises as Rebel Flag Comes Down,” Politico, July 10, 2015, https:// www.politico.com/story/2015/07/nikki-haleys-star-rises-as-confederate-flag-comes-down-119940. and George W. McDaniel, “Drayton Hall A New and Different Kind of Historical Preservation: Preserving Tangible Expressions of Public Sympathy for Emanuel AME Church,” Accessed April 7, 2021. https://www.draytonhall.org/expressions-of- sympathy-for-emanual-ame-church-by-george-w-mcdaniel/. 3 Historic Charleston Foundation, “Insight into Lives of the Enslaved at ARH,” August 25, 2017, https:// www.historiccharleston.org/blog/aiken-rhett-house-archaeology/. 4 Rick Rojas and Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, “5 Years After Church Massacre, Charleston to Remove Symbol of Slavery,” The New York Times, June 17, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/charleston-sc-shooting- calhoun-statue.html Ford-Dirks 5 23, the Charleston City Council voted unanimously to remove the Calhoun Monument.5 Work began almost immediately later that night, and the statue of Calhoun atop the monument was finally removed on the afternoon of the 24th after nearly eighteen hours of work. Citizens had begun raising objections to the 115-foot-tall monument, which overlooks the Emanuel AME Church, almost immediately after the shooting. Many viewed the presence of Calhoun, a famously aggressive defender of slavery, as an insult to the memory of the nine dead and their families. Others requested that Calhoun Street, one of the city’s main boulevards, be renamed in honor of the Emanuel Nine. The city of Charleston took no major action in 2015, but calls for the removal of monuments across the city resumed in August 2017 after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent. In the interim three years between Charlottesville rally and the highly publicized death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, protests had largely dissipated. However, Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers sparked massive national protests, including several in Charleston. Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters congregated around recognizable Confederate sites of memory like the Defenders of Charleston Monument on the Charleston Battery, and they returned to the pro-slavery Calhoun Monument.6 Both were painted with BLM messages, effectively re-contextualizing the monuments by physically drawing attention to their controversial status through the application of bright red paint. 5Fleming Smith, “‘Take It down’: Calhoun Monument Will Be Moved from Marion Square, Charleston Mayor Says,” Post and Courier, June 17, 2020. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/take-it-down-calhoun-monument-will-be- moved-from-marion-square-charleston-mayor-says/article_e091943a-afdc-11ea-9ff0-a7abea2a3199.html. 6 Patrick Simmons and Alexis Phillips, “Groups Call for Removal of Calhoun Statue, Repeal of Heritage Act,” Live 5 News, June 16, 2020. https://www.live5news.com/2020/06/16/live-groups-call-repeal-heritage-act-removal-calhoun- statue/. Ford-Dirks 6 However, one of the largest demonstrations was held not at a monument, but at the Market Building in the heart of the city’s historic district. The upper floor of the building hosts the United Daughters of the Confederacy museum, but the lower floor and rear wings are one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city. Tourists flock to buy sweetgrass baskets, Geechee Boy rice, Benne Wafers, and other Charleston staples with roots in African American cultural traditions.7 Many visitors also confuse these buildings, known as the City Market, with a market where enslaved people were once bought and sold. The perceived ambiguity enhances the historicity of the attraction. By rallying at the Market Building, the protestors drew attention to the fact that the memorial controversy pervaded nearly every aspect of the modern city, including its core industry of historical tourism. By offering a critical re-consideration of Charleston’s sites of Civil War memory, this thesis makes connections between traditional Confederate