Historian Describes How She Will Join Civil War Day of Action

The Journal of the Civil War Era is organizing a national day of action  for historians at historic sites around the country on September 26 observing the anniversary of the issuance of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

Hilary Green of the University of Alabama wrote a description of how she will mark the day on the Journal’s blog. Here is how she begins:

I am planning to join my former colleagues and community members in Elizabeth City, NC. Together, we are shedding light on the silenced diverse Civil War experiences, specifically freedpeople, USCT veterans and Grand Army of the Republic comrades.

The Civil War Era history of northeastern North Carolina is rich but sorely absent from the commemorative landscape.  When I joined the faculty at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU), I was struck by the absence of public presentation of diverse Civil War experiences. African Americans served in the USCT regiments, Quakers abstained from the struggle, white men served in the Federal Army and Navy, and some white people engaged in guerrilla violence following the fall of Elizabeth City, but the only story told was of Confederates. The silenced African American experience was especially noticeable.

This diversity of experience informed Civil War memory and shaped the uses of the downtown area from the time of the war to the 1911 placement of a Confederate Monument by the D. H. Hill chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. African Americans regularly held emancipation day parades through the downtown streets and heard celebratory speeches from the Courthouse lawn.

Follow the link to read her full essay.

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Author: Patrick Young

2 thoughts on “Historian Describes How She Will Join Civil War Day of Action

  1. Many in the south, fight to keep fake confederate history alive, and its not only members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. But major southern newspapers, such as the Atlanta Journal Constitution. They may not print the fake history, but they remain silent that it is fake. I guess in the era of low subscribers, they can not afford to loose anyone.

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