Abstract

Letter From South Carolina

The author claims that plans for two new historical museums near Charleston, South Carolina are indicative of the deepening divisions in the southern United States between blacks and whites; traditionalists and progressives. On one side is the version of history promoted by conservative whites, who venerate the brave Confederate soldiers and their gallant generals. On the other side are blacks and the beleaguered, shrinking ranks of liberal whites, who prefer to speak about slavery as the horror it was. Now, a pair of major museum projects-one an unvarnished memorial to the realities of slavery, the other a celebration of the Confederacy--are about to make permanent the segregation of the region's history. The first project, a museum of African-American history, is being spearheaded by Charleston's popular long-term Democratic mayor, Joe Riley, a white progressive who has built his career on racial reconciliation. The second project, a museum for the Hunley, a Confederate submarine recovered off Charleston's coast, is championed by Confederacy-obsessed Republican State Senator Glenn McConnell, playing to the same impulses that fuel the pro-flag movement. Nearly 140 years after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the Civil War, according to Emory University political scientist Merle Black, "remains the most traumatic, most significant episode in Southern history." And the battle over the war's meaning--the "two histories" state Senator Jackson referred to continues to dominate Southern politics.".