Monuments Archive
The Confederate monuments in front of courthouses and capitol buildings are physical manifestations of the Lost Cause myth. Formed in the wake of the Civil War, the Lost Cause contends that the South’s secession from the Union and the ensuing bloodshed was not about slavery but rather, was courageously fought to defend states’ rights from a tyrannical federal government in spite of the overwhelming odds against them. Predicated on the fallacy of white supremacy and inferiority of African Americans, this view of the antebellum South, Civil War and Reconstruction calcified in the decades following the war and justified Jim Crow era policies which maintained that Black people were unfit to govern or vote.

































































































































































































































































































































































