Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism

by Seyward Darby

In the context of white nationalism, the work of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) shows how repetition can displace truth. At the turn of the twentieth century, the UDC presented a false version of the causes and consequences of the Civil War as often as it could, to any audience available. Cofounder Caroline Meriwether Goodlett once wrote in a letter, “It is my earnest prayer that it may continue to be the crowning glory of Southern womanhood to revere the memory of those heroes in gray and to honor that unswerving devotion to principle which has made the Confederate Soldier the most majestic figure in the pages of history.” Those pages bore the UDC’s influence: The organization lobbied for the creation of state commissions to determine which textbooks schools could distribute, then ensured that the selections were “fair and impartial” to the Confederacy. The UDC’s historian general warned against any volume that “calls a Confederate soldier a traitor, a rebel and the war a rebellion; that says the South fought to hold her slaves; that speaks of the slaveholder as cruel or unjust to his slaves; that glorifies Lincoln and vilifies Jefferson Davis.”17 Meanwhile, the UDC’s youth arm held ritualized chapter meetings. Members saluted the Confederate flag and recited catechisms, each one like a hammer on the nail of false historical memory—for instance, “Q: How were the slaves treated? A: With great kindness and care in nearly all cases.”18