'Waking up to racism': New documentary tells truth about
Confederacy, tracks root of 'Lost Cause' myth
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Liz Vinson, SPLC Staff Writer | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
Living in New Orleans in 2015, CJ Hunt was frustrated that Confederate
symbols still occupied the city's common spaces - or
"neutral grounds" - intended for all citizens, which
he called "absurd." At the time, the nation was reeling
from the deadly attack at the historic Emanuel AME Church in
Charleston, South Carolina, where nine Black people were killed by a
young white supremacist who had posted a picture of himself with a
Confederate flag.
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But when the state of South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from
its capitol, Hunt could tell a powerful movement was brewing to remove
Confederate symbols nationwide. In New Orleans, the organizers of Take
'Em Down NOLA, a grassroots organization that has fought for the
removal of Confederate monuments, were already marching in the
streets, and the mayor took the calls to remove those statues
seriously when he demanded the removal of four monuments. The
backlash, Hunt said, was intense.
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That same year, Hunt - a biracial comedian who now works as a
field producer for The Daily Show - decided to capture why many
of his white Southern neighbors become angry and even violent when
Confederate monuments are taken down.
His debut feature documentary, The Neutral Ground, not only exposes
why Southerners cling to Confederate iconography but also challenges
the "Lost Cause" mythology - a romanticized, and
false, version of Southern history in which the Confederacy and its
leaders were fighting for "states' rights" and
defending their region against Northern aggression.
"While the Confederacy was not successful at winning wars, it
was incredibly successful when it came to creating a myth,"
Hunt, 36, told the Southern Poverty Law Center. "When people
want to say the Confederacy was not about slavery, those claims are
not grounded in facts or supported by the Confederacy's own
founding documents."
For the documentary, which won a Special Jury Mention at the 2021
Tribeca Film Festival, Hunt and his producing partner Darcy McKinnon
teamed up with Courtney Staton, a Black organizer and filmmaker who
co-organized the removal of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill's Confederate monument, Silent Sam. As the film's
impact producer, Staton worked to ensure the film could be a
springboard to transform the way people think about the "Lost
Cause."
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"I wanted to find a way where we can end this conversation about
white violence misinformation and talk about Black history and
resistance," Staton said. "Impact producing takes the
documentary one step farther and asks how a film can change power on
the ground - in this case, piercing the pernicious myth of the
Lost Cause."
Producing the film led Hunt to a better comprehension of the white
resentment and vitriol plaguing the country and how white supremacy
comes at the expense of his Blackness - and that of others.
"The journey of looking at the Confederacy absolutely helped me
understand my Blackness in a different way," he said. "The
journey of the film is the journey of me learning that my own
Blackness must be grounded in something more than a confrontation with
white supremacy, whether you're chasing whiteness to possess it
or expose it. I hope the film gives to all people of color the chance
to ask, 'What does it look like to give up the
chase?'"
READ MORE
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In solidarity,
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