The New Lost Cause
So up went those monuments to Confederate politicians, generals, and soldiers and the people rallied around their new stone martyrs and wept. The purpose of the hallowed statuary, of course, was never only about commemorating history. The purpose was specific, strategic and contemporary. The goal was to inspire a gut-level, rah-rah blessing for the new crimes of Jim Crow, for the whites-only and exclusionary voting laws that needed to be defended, yet again, against Yankee judgement and possible aggression. That wordless man on the plinth in the square, holding a rifle, standing there through day and night, through summer and winter? He died so that you may live free.