Black Woman to Join the United Daughters of the Confederacy
 

RICHMOND — A black woman born and raised in the capital of the Confederacy is joining the United Daughters of the Confederacy because "these people are neighbors and ... family."


Nessa B. Johnson, an author active in black history projects, said Tuesday she learned through genealogical research that she had two great-uncles who were Confederate soldiers.

"My grandmother was the daughter of a white doctor from Lunenburg County" in southern Virginia, she said. "He had two sons who served in the Confederacy."

Johnson is well-known in Richmond as an author, producer of a television documentary and children's storyteller of African tales. She currently appears in a TV spot promoting Richmond as "Easy to Love."

She has worked on such projects as the Richmond Slave Trail and a memorial to slaves in the city. She was part of a group that held ceremonies last April to recall the city's surrender to Union forces in 1865.

Author of three books, she created and narrated a TV documentary in the 1970s called "Black History, It Ain't in the Textbook." Her latest book, "Soul of the Universe," is about a Richmond street festival and will be published soon, she said.

"I am for telling the complete story of all the people," including slaves, she said.

Johnson said Tuesday that shortly before Christmas she received an invitation from Richmond's Stonewall Jackson chapter of the UDC to become a member.

She said she spoke at a black church this past Sunday and heard gasps and snickers when she told the congregation she was going to accept the invitation.

"I told them I didn't ask anybody black for their opinion, nor did I ask anybody white, but I went to my Scripture. It talked of Jesus saying love your neighbors as yourself. And I had to realize that these people are my neighbors and more than being neighbors, they are family."

"For them to offer a gesture, they were reaching out a hand to me. Who was I to say, 'No thank you,"' she said.

Johnson, 61, attended a meeting of Stonewall Jackson chapter Jan. 16 and was welcomed by the 20 white women "just like people receive family."

Johnson said she believes some of her white ancestors arrived in Virginia in 1608, the year after the first English settlers landed at Jamestown.

"If they are my ancestors, I am part of what caused slavery," she said. "What can I do about it now?"

For one thing, she said, she can love all people regardless of race. "Once you love them, they aren't enemies anymore."

Salim Khalfani, state executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Johnson is "a sweet person" but he "can't fathom how anybody in good conscience of African history could join that organization.

"There are some blacks who would join the Ku Klux Klan if they allowed them to," Khalfani said.

UDC President General Suzanne Silek said the organization has members who are descendants of American Indian troops who served in the Confederate army but that she knew of no black members. She said she has never seen a black member at UDC meetings.

The UDC, based in Richmond, said it is difficult to know for certain if there are black members because race is not mentioned in membership records. The UDC describes itself as a historical educational, patriotic and benevolent organization with about 22,000 members nationwide.

Any female at least 16 years old can be a member of UDC if she is a blood descendant of "men and women who served honorably in the Army, Navy or Civil Service of the Confederate States of America, or gave Material Aid to the Cause," according to the group's Web site.

Lynda Moreau, director of marketing and media relations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the SCV has black members because she has met some of them. The race of SCV members is not kept in membership files.

"We have people of all races and ethnicities," she said.

The UDC received attention in January when the Virginia House of Delegates began to recite the Salute to the Virginia Flag to open its daily sessions. The 30-word salute was written by a UDC member in the 1940s.

Some black delegates found the salute offensive because of its connection to Virginia's segregationist past. The House narrowly defeated a proposal to drop the salute.

Just makes you want to beat your- or maybe her- head against a wall, no?

I feel like we should send her a "Congratulations on becoming a token negro" letter.

So now she can make all sorts of white people feel better about themselves and how not racist they are.

:rolleyes:

Puke.

I know this is not a HC thread, but HC WTF about this?:confused: :eek:

Seems utterly weird, but it's Ms. Johnson's life and her conscience.
:rolleyes:

whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?
 

http://www.louisville.edu/~ejbrow01/wtf.gif
I am speechless...........
How on earth would any AA want to join an org than has a history (and I am not talking about things that happened hundreds of years ago....the civil rights movement is really only about 30 years ago and continues to this day, but I digress...) of supporting non-AA friendly legilations, policies, and "ways of life".

I believe that I will be adding Ms. Johnson's name to the "Most embarrassing Black Folks " thread because she is really full ofhttp://www.louisville.edu/~ejbrow01/bsflag.gif She has even beat the "Crematory Man in GA" IMHO.

I forgot, the letter should be sent to the attention of "Boo Boo The Fool"

'Ole Nessa is in for a rude awakening when she wakes up and realizes that her name is NESSA Johnson, and not Suzy White.

Oh, she's going to realize it one night when she spends some night out with her Confederacy "Sisters" and wakes up to see white capes and cone hats over her bed.

HC "Once you love them, they aren't enemies anymore."
:eek:

Playing devil's advocate here...

She seems like someone who is interesting in preserving and fostering some sense of African-American tradition and whatnot. Maybe she is planning to get in there and shake things up a bit. Maybe she is gonna be some radical revolutionary who brings definitive changes to the Daughters of the Confederation...

Or maybe she is just disillusioned...

:confused:

not only is she disillusioned, but i bet she's also related to condoleeza rice.

If I ever meet her..............
 

I'll be sure to pass along the feelings and sentiments of you ladies (who I wholeheartedly agree with).

Hopefully her membership will make her step up to be an advocate for change and social justice within the organization and not just another pawn in the pro- "old south" people's chess game.

You didn't know? Her and Lee-Lee are cousins. :D

Anyways, I found it interesting, I am reading a book that compares and contrasts the efforts of Martin and Malcolm. MLK, Jr. said that the only integration that worked for whites is token integration. Exhibit A...

does this help?
 

http://www.plauder-smilies.de/rough/twak.gif or how about this one?
http://www.plauder-smilies.de/rough/smileydies.gif

Also, I think that the melanin-challenged class (whites aren't a majority any more in California) is much more comfortable with integration in theory, rather than in actual practice.

CTFU CTFU CTFU CTFU CTFU CTFU!!!!!

View from a different angle
 

Maybe this is an opportunity to change things from the inside out. This is obviously a drastic change in this organizations history, but it is the future that we have to look on to. You can't right the past, but you can make the future anything you want. And this changes will not happen overnight, its a constant struggle against adversity in this day and age, and the only way to fight it is drastic change....
thats just my 2 cents
tori

Re: Black Woman to Join the United Daughters of the Confederacy
 

If they were to offer a generous piece of s**t, would she take it??



Is it just me, or is she trying to switch to the other side now?? I am all for someone connecting with their past, and their culture, but what her illegitmate great-great uncles did, does not make her to blame for slavery. What about all the other black folx that got "white" in them from slavery times?? Are we ALL to blame for slavery now?? I just don't get it...

Re: Re: Black Woman to Join the United Daughters of the Confederacy
 

Very insightful comment and the answer is NO insofaras WE are not to blame for slavery. The past's mistakes belong to those who made them.

That's why I hate to hear (or in her case, see) people use the Lord's name inappropriately. She mentions the "love thy neighbor" but she seems to have forgotten that Jesus Christ was a radical, he shaked things up both religiously ands socially. At no point does she mention how effective (as we all know) this type of living was to affecting REAL change.

IMHO, I think she's making "Black" less threatening. Like, she has be the high-holy example that we can be "civilized" and can "belong".

I would have liked for her to have made it clear that she wasn't joining, "just because", but, if she is the first A-A, that she will make a real difference in that org.

Then again, I can't see what a Black person ever gained from the Confederacy before, and I don't know what we could gain now.

But, I guess people just love to be invited to anything....

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Blacks Join Confederate Heritage Group After Learning of Family Link

By Keisha Stewart, BlackNews.com Staff Writer

As some blacks trace their family history, they may find Confederate soldiers related to them. And some of them join a somewhat controversial Southern heritage group for various reasons after learning about their family connection to the Civil War.

Long Beach, CA - The Hollands didn't join the Sons of Confederate Veterans to add their voices in support of Southern heritage or the beloved blazing stars and bars.

They found a family tie to the Confederacy as William Holland mined family history and found that their great grandfather Creed Holland, a Virginia slave, worked as a teamster for the Confederate army until the war's end in 1865.

"Maybe he felt that he deserved something, so here's our chance to do that," said William Holland, a 35-year-old genealogist from the Atlanta suburb, Riverdale.

The Hollands, however, aren't the only ones who have found gray in their blood, as blacks dig into family trees and find, oh, no, Confederate connections.

The Hollands membership to the group may sound like an oxymoron for some: black and Confederate. But historical data shows that blacks served in the Confederate army, whether as cooks or combatants, slaves or freemen.

Historians just aren't sure how many blacks served for the Confederate army or to what extent they saw battle.

"In truth, no one will ever know how many blacks fought for the South as individuals, but it is safe to say that the number was extremely small," said Donald Pfanz, a National Park Service historian.

According to Pfanz, the Confederacy used slaves and free blacks as laborers -- chaplains, cooks, teamsters, blacksmiths, for example -- but it was not until March 1865, that it authorized the enlistment of black soldiers.

Although the South never fielded any black regiments, individual slaves or freemen occasionally fought alongside Confederate units, but their stories are "rare and, for the most part, are not well documented," Pfanz said.

The SCV has hopeful statistics about the role blacks played in the Confederate army, saying on its Web site that "tens of thousands of blacks" served the Confederacy with 25 percent of free blacks and 15 percent of slaves "actively" supporting the South during the war.

The SCV was founded in Richmond, Va., in 1896 with the purpose of honoring its heroes, opening membership to men who find familial bonds to Confederate soldiers.

"The Columbia, Tenn.-based group today has about 35,500 members," said Ben Sewell, SCV executive director.

"SCV has Hispanic and Jewish members, as well as black ones, but the SCV has no figures to say how many," Sewell said.

But there are a few well-known black members throughout the SCV, like H.K. Edgerton whom was quoted in the Southern Poverty Law Center's quarterly magazine, "Intelligence Report," as saying "If every African-American would pick up the Confederate flag, I would say 'Free at last, free at last, God Almighty, I am free at last."

Mark Potok, editor of Intelligence Report, said SCV members revise the Civil War using rhetoric that makes it appear that slaves enjoyed their servitude, slavery wasn't that bad and the war wasn't about slavery but states rights.

"That's just an utter falsehood," Potok said. "In the end, these guys are simply liars."

While the SCV is not listed on the SPLC's list of hate groups, the SPLC spurns the connection that some SCV executives appear to have with neo-Confederate groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South, which are on the SPLC's list.

Black SCV members are "window-dressing" that the SCV uses to say "look, we're the wonderful antebellum South," Potok said.

William Holland thought joining SCV would send him back in time so that he could learn more about Creed Holland's life.

But after the group appeared to give excuses about its slow pace in placing a special Confederate marker at Creed Holland's gravesite, he began to feel slighted by the group.

"I think they're trying to use us as a publicity stunt," said William Holland, who didn't renew his membership with the SCV.

But his brother, John Holland is still a member. And their sister, Wanda Chewning of Penhook, Va., is a member of the women's equivalent, the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Sewell, however, said the SCV does not use blacks as a tool to legitimize their beliefs.

"We're just interested in trying to have the history of the war told accurately," Sewell said.

Stan Armstrong has found truth in the SCV, said the 43-year-old Las Vegas filmmaker and college instructor. Armstrong, who is black, joined a SCV camp in Memphis, Tenn., in 1997 after learning that a white relative served in the Confederate army.

When people tell say he's being used, Armstrong retorts "read your history."

"The Civil War is not as black and white as one may make it," Armstrong said.

Other blacks who have joined the SCV have their own reasons to ally with the group.

John Holland, 49, a Roanoke, Virginia, tire finisher, wanted to learn more about the Civil War, particularly to piece together the kind of life his great grandfather may have lived as he served in the war.

"It's a good education of what happened back then and it's an education of what's going on right now," said Holland, a member of Fincastle Rifles Camp in Virginia.

William Casey, a 42-year-old major in the military, enjoys being a part of living history as he reenacts a black private in the Confederate army, saying it intrigues him to relive the 1860s. Casey, part of a Fredericksburg, Va., camp, said he could just as well be both a SCV member and an NAACP member.

"I don't even see it as a conflict," Casey said.

Nelson Winbush carries show-and-tell Civil War artifacts of his grandfather's, a black man who served in the Confederate army and attended 39 Confederate reunions after the war. The collection includes newspaper articles and his grandfather's reunion cap and jacket.

"It's always been a part of my life," said Winbush, a 74-year-old retired school administrator living in Kissimmee, Fla. "You got all these politically correct folks sweeping it under the rug like it didn't happen."

Armstrong feels a since of pride of belonging to an organization that seeks to tell the truth about the Civil War's often forgotten veteran: the black Confederate soldier.

If more blacks peered into their family histories - whether the "white" side or the black -- they may find that they, too, have rebel blood, he said.

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What do you all think?

WOW:eek: I can't believe the hatred present in this thread for anyone who dares think and act differently than the "average" African American. I will not even address the comments made about THE most powerful woman in the United States..Condoleeza Rice...I guess we only support those African Americans that think EXACTLY like we do. :rolleyes: How is she disillusioned?? Because she's embracing her past and not walking around with a lot of hate in her heart?? Maybe she actually believes in what Jesus Christ talked about when he said love your enemies...and those that persecute you. How will we ever get anywhere together as the HUMAN race if we continually spew hatred and act like the world owes us something because of slavery??

I say kudos to her for probably provoking dialogue that otherwise would not have been in the UDC, and maybe getting some people to see things from another perspective. People also used to say that Blacks were "selling out" or "disillusioned" when they went to predominantly white institutions, or if they attended a predominantly white church...

My question is this...is this thought process a part of the PROBLEM or SOLUTION?

Hmm, I don't know what to think just yet.This is the first time I've heard of the SCV, so I don't know if this is an active organization or if we talking about something as simple as adding a name to a list. I only know the Daughters of The Confederacy are VERY active, so I don't know if both of these orgs are on the same level.

I can understand the need to feel "acknowledged" (and not pushed under the rug as if you never existed), just as the family of Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemmings did. However, at least this gentleman is pursuing this for the sake of historical accuracy (or at least it seems according to the article). I didn't get that same message from Nessa.