While focused on Memphis primarily, this article from MLK50* has ramifications for the entire south and, upon a bit of extrapolation, implications about the future of the University.The following excerpt frames the article nicely.
Compare a map of the slave states of the Old South at the time of the Civil War to present-day maps that show America’s most entrenched poverty, low educational attainment, poorest health outcomes and sputtering economies. The maps are almost identical.
From the article
The article, as stated, then recounts Memphis focused history and how it has has interacted, counteracted, or embraced, alternatively, the lost cause over the years, which makes for fascinating reading. But crucially, it ends up with something much more universal. A point that our University should well remember as it is now actively taking a hand in doing things that explicitly counter to its missions and motto:
The Sons of Confederate Veterans often repeat their talking point that we should not rewrite history by removing the monuments, but that begs the question as to why the history wasn’t written right in the first place.
…
It just proves how alive and well the myth of the Lost Cause remains in our region, where its chief victims today continue to be history itself..
From the article
Read the whole damn thing, as the saying goes.
*MLK50: Justice Through Journalism is a nonprofit Memphis newsroom focused on poverty, power and public policy — issues about which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. cared deeply.
Image © 2021 MLK50