a horrific scene in charlottesville, virginia. a white mob descended into deadly violence and chaos. since the city voted to remove the robert e. lee statue, there have been protests. and now, violence. tell me, who are you? i am stephanie roth, and i am an assistant professor of history at a college in jackson, mississippi. the images that we are seeing on our computers and our own phones and television, you can t divorce this from the need to return to some sort of innocent pass. what like the old south? yes. what is the old south? after the civil war, the old south myth is this mythologized place of big plantations, houses with currently and and modulus and hoopskirts, and southern gentlemen and happy slaves.
The major challenges for you as the history teacher would be teaching in a way that connects with such a diversified body. yes, it is. it s kind of like a nation in miniature. because they did start as a segregated all male institution. yeah, it s the oldest school in the country. it was founded in 16 35 by a portion of the population of boston, england. it was all male, it was all white. it was all people of privilege. you know, have really come to believe that part of the purpose of history to tell the story that makes us.
Fear. we like to go to bed at night, believing our society is in social order. i don t have to worry about my child tomorrow being confronted by totally unusual and repugnant ideas, or totally unusual and repugnant people. i am safe by the history i know. so, the lost cause tradition that southerners developed this story for their explanation of their defeat. it came ultimately a victory narrative. victory over reconstruction. and they crushed the very idea of slavery as the central cause, and the very idea of emancipation of 4 million slaves as the central result of the civil war. they began to see white scale, even official efforts, to crush what we might call black memory. if we throw away our confederate flag, we throw away the history of south carolina
this is an abandoned cemetery. this is where most african americans and the city were buried. it was in operation from 1891 through 1970. one day, i saw in the paper an article about an abandoned cemetery, i thought i can t believe that there is a place where that s so rich in history, and i did know about it. and so, i use the map on one of the newspaper, and drove over to the cemetery. and found this beautiful place. and immediately felt the need to organize some community cleanups to bring attention to it. many african americans that were buried here were not slaves. and so, they could be buried and recognized in different ways. but there s a very interesting cemetery called beck knobs
why? because they were acquiring people the other night. sounds harmless, but who s to say that they don t try something more. all these people from out of town. these are visitors from out of town, who are confederate supporters. and they come here to occupy a city for a couple of weeks and stand their ground. and all that good stuff. but isn t the goal to have more people feel represented? i mean, don t you need to listen to each other? they say that statues is a southern pride. fuck white pride! the source of all this tension and anger comes from the african americans history, bloodlines cost families for hundreds of years. the way they re upholding, okay?