Creation of history occurs in each generation. Between the 1890s & Roaring 20s Southern America created the myth of the contented slave and the brave men who fought for the worthy “lost cause”. At the same time they were Southern States were legislating Jim Crow, establishing literacy tests and poll taxes to block Negro citizens from voting, imprisoning Negros each year at harvest time to hire them out to work as slave labor, and closing Negro schools to deny Negro children an education.
This was the period when the statues were built to the Confederate leaders and placed in court houses, town squares and parks to declare “This is white man’s country; dont come in here”.
The South created history to conform with its “values” and built statues to declare segregation then, now and forever.
A century later, our generation must create our history to conform with American values.