Ralph Northam and the Myth of the ‘Loyal Slave’ – The Atlantic

The governor’s yearbook picture, like many images before it, reinforces the belief that blacks are content in their oppression.

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The Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery, dedicated in 1914, features a bronze tableau of Confederate soldiers marching off to war, including a young black man wearing a uniform and kepi. Colonel Hilary Herbert, who chaired the executive committee of the association responsible for the monument, described this scene as “illustrating the kindly relations that existed all over the South between the master and slave.”

More recently, the myth of loyalty took on a different form: The camp slaves weren’t camp slaves at all, some claimed, but actual soldiers who took up arms against the Union.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/ralph-northam-and-myth-loyal-slave/582619/