Читать книгу Becoming a Counselor - Samuel Gladding T., Samuel T. Gladding - Страница 20

The American Civil War had been over physically for almost 100 years when I entered fifth grade. However, it was not over mentally in the minds of some Southerners, even those in education. My fifth-grade teacher and later my sixth-grade teacher had our class participate in the Daughters of the Confederacy essay contest and write about famous Confederates. The first year the essay was on Georgia’s Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy. The second year we wrote about Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Instead of looking these figures up in the library, we were given pamphlets that contained biographical information on each. The handouts were complementary in multiple ways: They portrayed these men as heroes.

The essay experience promoted the Lost Cause myth pervasive in the South in the 20th century. The myth focused on the gallant men who had fought for or served the Confederacy. My take on what I was being taught was that Southerners were good and virtuous, whereas “Yankees”—God bless you if you said that word—were rude, crude, and evil.

I look back on the Confederate essay days with disbelief. If the goal had been to shape young minds prejudicially, the activity would have been helpful. I know in some cases it succeeded. I am glad I was uncomfortable with the process. I realized in some ways then what was happening and that with hate and fear, as the title song from the play South Pacific declares, “you’ve got to be carefully taught.”