Confronting the Lost Cause Memorialization in South Carolina

Perhaps no state has memorialized the “Lost Cause mythology” more than South Carolina. This chapter analyzes how concerned citizens today are attempting to confront this unhealthy legacy. State universities such as the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and Francis Marion University, as well as private schools such as Furman University, are struggling with this memorialization and its message. This chapter analyzes a number of important examples, from the removal of John C. Calhoun’s statue in Charleston, South Carolina, to a court case challenging the South Carolina Heritage Act so that a memorial plaque to veterans who died serving in foreign wars, on which the names were segregated, was replaced with one that does not segregate the soldiers’ names. The chapter also assesses a new National Park Service Reconstruction Park and how that space deals with the Lost Cause mythology. I examine how the state is now dealing with unpleasant issues such as lynching and riots and how communities are working with Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative.