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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?
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I am a woman, I make mistakes. I make them often. God has given me a talent and that's it. ~ Jill Scott
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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. 
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?? 
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