Confederates in My Closet featured on History News Network

I am happy to report that Confederates in My Closet is now a featured blog on the History News Network website.  It will continue to have an independent existence here but I will post essays on the History News Network website as well.  HNN has a wide audience of historians and people interested in history; its motto, paraphrasing Eugene O’Neill: “Because the past is the present, and the future, too."  On a more intimate and particular scale, that is also the premise of Confederates in My Closet.  As I wrote in the introduction, “these are stories of a past that is not past.”  

HNN lists among its purposes “To deflate beguiling myths.”  Few myths in our history have been as successful in beguiling the multitudes as the pro-Confederate narrative of the Lost Cause.  This overwhelmingly effective propaganda campaign left the country awash in nostalgia for the Old South. The toxic effects of that mind-set are easy to recognize in the Confederate-flag-wielding marauders in the Capitol.  But I have found many less blatant manifestations in my own closet. 

On this website, I give myself wide latitude to write about the intersection of race, memory, and heritage – everything from the song  “John Brown’s Body” to the correct translation of the Confederate motto, Deo Vindice, from the use of Spanish moss to decorate a plantation-themed sorority party to  engraved silver serving spoons. I welcome the chance to be part of the History New Network conversation.   I hope to do my part in furthering its mission of deflating beguiling myths.