History 105 Discussion Board 1

Lost Cause” Please respond to the following: (Note: Please respond to one [1] of the following two [2] bulleted items in a primary posting of at least 125 words. In addition, please make a substantive comment to one [1] of your classmates.)   Citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format.

• From the e-Activity about the Lost Cause, compare the two (2) different narratives about the causes and results of the Civil War that Americans developed in both Union states and Confederate states. Describe the key reasons why these narratives are an important part of understanding differences between the North and South in the present-day of United States. Provide a rationale for your response.
• From the e-Activity about the Lost Cause, identify at least two (2) reasons for these narratives’ importance in regard to race relations in today’s society. Provide a rationale and real-world example for each reason

 

Respond to this post:

One of the articles that I read is something that I witness in my life every day. It reads, “During the civil rights revolt of the l950s and l960s, many white Southerners did revive the use of Confederate symbols, especially the Confederate flag and “Dixie,” in behalf of segregation and white supremacy. They thereby did much to reverse what the turn-of-the-century Confederate celebration had done to render them symbols of honor and loyalty to country.” Foster, G. (n.d.). The Lost Cause – American Civil War Home. Retrieved from http://www.civilwarhome.com/lostcause.html. I have lived in Virginia my entire life and this is very common, from bumper stickers, to belt buckles, and even flying from front porches. From personal experiences, I know that some people just use the Confederate Flag as southern pride thing while others are actually using it in the sense of white supremacy. Many African Americans take offense to the confederate flag because of the hate that it was used to symbolize.  This article is so important because it goes on to say that surveys were taken from white southerners and many didn’t know the history behind the confederate symbols. Which again from personal experiences doesn’t surprise me.

The other article I read had this passage in it: â€œWhen describing the Lost Cause, historians have employed the terms “myth,” “cult,” “civil religion,” “Confederate tradition,” and “celebration” to explain this southern phenomenon. Many of these terms are used interchangeably, but they all refer to a conservative movement in the postwar South that was steeped in the agrarian traditions of the Old South and that complicated efforts to create a “New South.” For diehard believers in the Lost Cause, the term New South was repugnant and implied that there was something wrong with the values and traditions of the antebellum past. For individuals devoted to the idea of the Lost Cause, the Old South still served as a model for race relations (blacks should be deferential to whites as under slavery), gender roles (women should be deferential to their fathers, brothers, and husbands), and class interactions (poor whites should defer to wealthier whites).” Lost Cause Ideology. (2008, August 16). Retrieved from http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1643. I feel that this goes hand and hand with my other article because they both are basically saying that people only want to do what they are used to doing. The fact that a war was fought didn’t change the mindset of most southerners they wanted things to keep going as they were prior to the war. Such as the roles of women only tending to the families and the African Americans still being under the rules of Caucasians. This article too is very important even in today’s society especially in the South. There are many “Mom and Pop” stores in my area in V.A., and I have witnessed it many times where there would be an African American who comes into the store and you can barely hear the cashier greet them and not even a minute later a Caucasian enters and the cashier seems to have a certain burst of energy. This way of thinking and acting goes right back to the Lost Cause era.