ABSTRACT
For more than a century and a half a variety of social groups in the American South have disputed the commemoration of the American Civil War and slavery in the region. White Southerners took full advantage of their disproportionate power to ensure that the region’s civic traditions and public spaces enshrined their favored version of history. African Americans, nevertheless, continuously contested the glorification of the ‘Old South,’ slavery, the Confederacy, and white supremacy. After the restoration of political and civil rights to African Americans during the 1960s, southern blacks expanded and escalated their campaign to revise the region’s public memory. In recent decades, a coalition of white southerners has mobilized to defend symbols of white memory and southern ‘heritage,’ but they, in turn, have been challenged by a diverse social movement with unprecedented influence intent on transforming the region.
