Nov 3 · 1 min read
I grew up in Northern Virginia in the early 1960’s and a component of my education was music. In classrooms we sang recycled Civil War songs that as an adult I have come to realize had not only racist themes, but were designed to perpetuate beliefs about the war as a highly successful outreach program of the Lost Cause Movement (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Confederate#Origins_and_doctrines_of_%22Lost_Cause%22_Civil_War_history). In my view it isn’t “whitewashing” to move the use and study of these historical songs to a time in a student’s career where their critical thinking has matured and the themes can be contextualized. Thanks for the article and the references!
