Slavery and The University

Andrews was a professor at the Citadel during the time he was preparing Long Gray Lines. This monograph is an analysis of the ways that military academies in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, including that of the Citadel and Virginia Military Institute, promoted a sense of civic virtue and patriotism among its cadets. The third chapter in particular, ‘Soldiers, Christians, and Patriots’, dissects the ways that these military schools also proliferate the Lost Cause Narrative in the culture and education of the schools themselves.

The False Cause, by Adam Domby is a monograph that brings to light the Lost
Cause narrative that portrays “white supremacy, fraud, and fabricated memories” that
have shaped Americans’ views of the past. The primary focus of the book is North Carolina and how politicians “needed” the Lost Cause narrative, Domby claims, more than any other state. Several anecdotes and small “yarns” are presented to analyze the formation of our memory as a country, ultimately examining the biggest lie of all: “the whites were a superior race.” Domby’s monograph will help researchers to position correctly the Lost Cause narrative in connection to their project. Understanding memory and how it has and is still affecting our country today can transcend many research projects.

He Shall Go out Free by Douglas Egerton is a biographical monograph that discusses the life of Denmark Vesey. Beginning by explaining the lack of information providing Vesey’s actually birthname and birthplace and ending with death of Denmark
Vesey and a discussion surrounding the court cases of the Conspiracy. Important to note also is Egerton’s “Appendix II: Denmark Vesey and the Historians,” which provides a detailed historiography of Vesey and the historians that discuss slave rebellions and insurrections. This biography is the starting place for further research regarding Vesey
specifically, but slave uprisings and court cases involving slaves, generally.

This documentary collection pools together primary sources dealing with Denmark Vesey and the planned slave insurrection in 1822. Egerton and Paquette have carefully edited one of the most useful resources for studying slavery in Antebellum Charleston. They argue that “the plot was one of the most sophisticated acts of collective slave resistance in the history of the United States.” The documents also illustrate the complex tensions in Southern society during a pivotal period in U.S. history.

This book traces the memory of slavery and the origins of its polarizing narratives that are debated today. The authors zoom in on Charleston, the cradle of the Confederacy, to recount and evaluate how both narratives developed and spread from after the Civil War to the 2015 Charleston Church shooting. In doing so they examine the city’s physical echos of slavery, including institutions like the Old Slave Mart Museum and the Citadel. Kytle and Roberts are both professors of history at California State University, Fresno.