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Friend,
Seven states celebrate Confederate Heritage Month each April. From the first secessionist shots fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, Confederates fought for slavery and white supremacy. That is Confederate heritage. It is not Southern heritage.
Those who glorify the Confederacy as “Southern heritage” obscure a rich Southern history that is not about white supremacy but is something that all Southerners can be proud of. This month, instead of celebrating Confederate heritage, let’s celebrate the anniversaries of these Southern contributions to justice and culture in the U.S.
April 1, 1891 – The Coal Creek War begins in Tennessee
In the 1890s, on the eastern fringe of the Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee, mine owners began to replace wage-earning miners with incarcerated people leased from the state prisons. Wage laborers and the incarcerated workers rebelled against this unjust system. After a year of struggle, which sadly erupted into deadly armed violence, Tennessee became one of the first states to end the leasing of incarcerated people. Folk songs like “Coal Creek March” and “Buddy Won’t You Roll Down the Line?” commemorate the Coal Creek War.
April 3, 1963 – The Birmingham Campaign begins in Alabama
Led by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in Birmingham, Alabama, the Birmingham Campaign used boycotts and sit-ins to demand desegregation. Eugene “Bull” Connor, the public safety commissioner, ordered police to turn fire hoses and dogs on demonstrators. The city arrested activists in droves, including King, whose “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” became an important document for social justice and civil disobedience. As a result of the campaign, President John F. Kennedy declared, “The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.”
April 4, 1913 or 1915 – Blues musician Muddy Waters is born in Mississippi
Born McKinley Morganfield, blues musician Muddy Waters was a child of the Mississippi Delta who became one of the greatest influences in rock and blues history. In 1941, folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Waters at his home in Mississippi for the Library of Congress. In 1943, Waters headed up U.S. Highway 61, “the blues highway,” and moved to Chicago where he helped create the Chicago blues sound. Waters influenced countless rock and blues stars like Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. The Rolling Stones took their name from his song “Rollin’ Stone.”
April 5, 1939 – Civil rights activist Robert Zellner is born in Florida
Bob Zellner was born in the Florida Panhandle town of Jay and grew up in Alabama. Zellner, whose paternal grandfather was a Klansman and whose father eventually left the Klan, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement, becoming the first white Southerner to be a field organizer. Zellner traveled across the South demonstrating against racial injustice and training activists in nonviolent action. He was arrested nearly 20 times and was beaten on several occasions. Zellner helped found Grass Roots Organizing Work, a white antiracist coalition. His memoir, Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, documents his life fighting for racial justice.
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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