The Man On The Monument: Heritage And Hate In Lexington, North Carolina

Confederate monuments were brought into the national spotlight after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the murder of African Americans worshipping in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The debate over how to define Confederate monuments and what to do with them in the twenty-first century is often boiled down to this: are Confederate monuments vestiges of heritage or hatred? To symbolize heritage would mean that Confederate monuments are merely memorials to the sacrifices and patriotism of southern men who fought for their country. Conversely, to embody hatred signifies that Confederate monuments represent white supremacy and the oppression of African Americans after emancipation. This thesis will address the popular debate between heritage and hate through an historical case study of a Confederate monument in a small North Carolina town called Lexington, which is the governing seat of Davidson County. The monument’s historical context will be analyzed through a breakdown of Lost Cause ideology and its implications for the history of Davidson County. This analysis of local history will attempt to explain how the monument cannot exist outside a history of white supremacy and the Lost Cause, and how turn-of-the-century politics in North Carolina planted seeds for the monument’s development.