Putting Memory in its Place: The Politics of Commemoration in the American South

Abstract

The past remains a passionately contested terrain in the American South. On the one hand, the memory of the Civil War is of vital importance in the region. Many white Southerners identify with romanticized images of the Confederacy (Hoelscher 2003). Alternately, a new historical vision of the region’s past has emerged, one that challenges the centrality of the Confederacy. Propelled largely by African Americans, this challenge is embodied in the public commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement (Alderman 2000; Dwyer 2000). The intersection of these two competing memorial narratives has made collective memory a highly charged issue in the South, one whose emotional gravity comes from the interweaving of place and history (Figure 10.1) (Lowenthal 1975; Hayden 1995; Leib 2002). There is a need to make sense of the problematic nature of southern commemoration, particularly since these debates affect the prospects of building an inclusive culture in the region (Brundage 2000).