It’s Complicated: How Civil War Education Impacts Support for Confederate Statues

• In Event: 41035 - Section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60min): Roundtable 2: Legacies of Violence and the State

Abstract

Racial justice protests have brought public attention to Confederate statues of prominent generals, but less is known about the public’s understanding of Common Soldier statues. These statues—commonly found on local courthouse lawns—often blend into the landscape. Local residents have begun speaking about how they make sense of and interpret these statues. But how do these interpretations develop over time? Utilizing transcripts from 20 in-depth interviews conducted between August 2018 and February 2019 with residents from local Virginia towns displaying Common soldier statues, we explore how education about and understanding of the primary cause of the Civil War are related to a respondent’s modern meaning of and support for the statue. Using thematic coding, we find patterns demonstrating the relationship between interpretation, childhood interaction/education, and current meaning. Preliminary analyses using factor entropy scores and qualitative case analysis (QCA) reveal that the following factors have predictive power for believing slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War: family narratives about cause, understanding the Civil War to have multiple causes, and reading for leisure and learning about slavery. Additionally, family narratives, as well as only learning about the Civil War through formal education and understanding the war to have multiple causes were significant factors in predicting support for the statue. Such work highlights how modern meaning-making is a product of education and perceived causes of the Civil War, both of which impact current views on race in society, and ongoing understandings about the legacy of slavery in current American society.

Authors

• Heidi Michele Williams, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• Ashley Veronica Reichelmann, Virginia Tech