The present feverish campaign to remove Confederate monuments and other symbols which offend certain loud groups in our society began in earnest back in 2015, after the murder of several black parishioners in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. But that movement dates back much longer. Its real origins go back to the 1960s and early 1970s, and the triumph of a form of what has been called “cultural Marxism” in our universities and colleges, and a resultant and progressive transformation of views of American history in our popular culture.
Recall that even into the late 1950s and certainly up until the “Civil War Centennial” (1960-1965) not only in our popular culture, but in most of the history taught in our schools and colleges, the South, and in particular, the Confederacy, were viewed with some respect, if not sympathy. If slavery was condemned—and not just in the Northern states, but also by the South—still, in particular, the veterans of the tragic Confederate military odyssey, were portrayed by Hollywood in such films as “The Raid” (Van Heflin), “Rocky Mountain” (Errol Flynn) or “Jesse James” (Henry Fonda, Randolph Scott), as noble and heroic figures doing their duty. And who can forget such popular television programs as “The Rebel” (1959-1961, with Nick Adams) or “The Gray Ghost (1957-1958, with Tod Andrews) with their romantic portrayals of those soldiers fighting for the “lost cause”
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