I know what you mean breddah...
I think the TV footage that was seen during the Civil Rights Era has more to do with that impression in northern minds.
The causes for The War for Southern Independence were much more complicated and numerous than the official government explanation of "The North wanted to free the South's slaves."
In what government documents is this "official government explanation" to be found?
I think he meant the way the war is portrayed by every govm’t school lessen given about the subject. The war was about states rights. The right to keep & sell slaves was one of them. To make the war out to be about the profound & self sacrificing duty of the north to free all the slaves is a self promoting-PC crock of doodie. The north is/was a racist as some in the south.
Not in any gov't document, but I found it in every South Carolina public school history class from grade 3-12.
I know what you mean breddah...
In reply to Bubby Ho-Tep who asked the origins of this statement - The causes for The War for Southern Independence were much more complicated and numerous than the official government explanation of “The North wanted to free the South’s slaves.”
Since the Clinton administration, and thanks to a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago, the “official” cause of The War was slavery. All national parks associated with The War are now required to tell visitors this story line.
I learned an important lesson, when I was in high school, about how TV coverage can be overblown and hyped to try to fit their agenda. I lived in MS, and attended a high school that, until my 12th grade year, had always been mostly white. There were a few blacks, who had only begun to attend in the previous two years, but not too many were coming, so the school district decided to put ALL 10th graders in the formerly all black school, and all 11th and 12th graders in the formerly white school. This necessitated busing, so each morning, several buses would roll up and the black kids, from the other part of town would attend the school. Neither I, nor most of the folks in school had any problem with them being there. Some of them were really nice kids.
There were a small group of them, however, who, from the time they arrived, did nothing but complain about how they were discriminated against. One complaint was that some of them didn't get the classes they wanted. Another was that there were no black cheerleaders. However, folks typically chose their classes for the following school year, and the new cheerleaders were chosen, in the Spring. Since this decision was made over the summer, some classes had already been filled, and there hadn't been an opportunity to have tryouts for any new members of the squad.
Well, one day, we arrived at school, folks were milling about in the commons area, then when the first bell rang, everyone headed off their first class, except for this vocal group of black kids who had encouraged some other black students to join them. When the final bell rang for everyone to be in class, they marched, as a group, from the commons, down the open hallway, to the front of the school to call for a boycott of classes. And what do you know? TV cameras were waiting to record their 'protest'. Then, all of a sudden, after first period, there were police in RIOT gear walking down the halls of the school! What was funny was that in one of my classes, taught by a black teacher, there were a couple of kids who had not joined the protest. When the teacher asked them why they weren't out there protesting, too, one of the boys said "Stupid n...... don't know what they want." The rest of us, along with the teacher, just howled laughing about that!
There was no violence, nothing happened except for the 'press conference' outside of school, but later that evening my Mama asked what the trouble was at school that day. I told her there wasn't any real trouble, and recounted what the protest group had done. She said that on the national news, they made it sound like there was an all out brawl between the black kids and the white kids, and showed pictures of the 'walkout' and the police in their RIOT gear.
Some kids continued to complain, but the school did hold tryouts for two more slots on the cheerleading squad for any black girls who might like to join. We gained two more awesome cheerleaders out of the situation!
I think he has mind the typical nothern sense of moral superiority. They do, after all, have to justify Sherman’s destruction in Georgia and South Carolina. The aim was break the Will of the people to fight and it probably did. And, of course, to re-elect Lincoln. Sherman’s successes diverted attention from the bloody stalemate around Richmond.
“I think the TV footage that was seen during the Civil Rights Era has more to do with that impression in northern minds.”
And yet, they don’t make the same racist connection about themselves despite seeing similar TV footage from norther cities.