Lt. Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans recommends neo-Confederate fringe and the Abbeville Institute

The National Lt. Commander-in-Chief is given a regular column in the Confederate Veteran, a publication of the Son of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

In the March-April 2019 Confederate Veteran, the topic of Lt. Commander-in-Chief Larry Allen McCluney Jr. for the "Report of the Lt. Commander-in-Chief," is "Become a 'Fanatic' about the SCV."  ( Vol. 77 No. 2, March/April 2019 pp. 8-9, 49).

Part of the column is a complaint that the public is not taught their neo-Confederate view of history and instead are taught  lies by a "government indoctrinated public education."

To counter this McCluney Jr. recommends some neo-Confederates writers and the Abbeville Institute. To quote this section I am going to use an image capture to show that I am not making this up. All these individuals who are recommended also have essays at the Abbeville Insitute website.

Don Livingston founded the Abbeville Institute.
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/  At one time he was a member of the League of the South.

Tom Woods wrote articles for the Southern Partisan magazine. In the Southern Partisan Woods condemned the 14th Amendment to the American Constitution. He wrote an article saying that the Civil War was really a theological war. In another article, "Sitting Amidst the Ruins: The South Versus the Enlightenment," he condemns the 18th century Enlightenment as destroying civilization. When I say neo-Confederates are reactionary, I mean they are reactionary with a capital Old English Gothic R.

Woods was a member of the League of the South and made contributions to their publication Southern Patriot.

Woods doesn't refer to this neo-Confederate past so I decided to write up his neo-Confederate curriculum vitae and put it online. http://templeofdemocracy.com/thomas-e-woods.html

Woods is a frequnet contributor to the LewRockwell.com site and you can search for his articles via this link. https://www.lewrockwell.com/?s=Woods

Kirkpatrick Sale attends Abbeville Institute functions and has articles contributed to their website. His most notable book in the neo-Confederate movement is, "Emancipation Hell: The Tragedy Wrought by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation," which is supposed to have brought great injury to African Americans according to Sale.

https://www.amazon.com/Emancipation-Hell-Tragedy-Lincolns-Proclamation/dp/0692592113/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Q1KZLBD533TI&keywords=kirkpatrick+sale+books&qid=1553481528&s=gateway&sprefix=kirkpatrick+sale%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-1

In reading the Amazon webpage promotion for the book we learn that Sale asserts that "social statistics of 1900" show that the "material quality of life" for African Americans "was lower for most black Americans than under slavery" which is argued to be due to the Emancipation Proclamation.  The Emancipation Proclamation is also held to have "doomed Americans to a century and a half of racial conflict and disparity that is still with us."

It doesn't seem to occur to Sale that the racial problems in the United States are due to the overthrow of Reconstruction, groups like the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, lack of Civil Rights for African Americans.

Sale is a founder of the pro-secessionist Middlebury Institute. https://kirkpatricksale.wordpress.com/

There is a tendency because his early work to give Sale a free pass regarding his neo-Confederate activities.

Clyde Wilson is a long time neo-Confederate writer. Numerous articles were written for the Southern Partisan, he was a founding board member of the League of the South, he writes for Chronicles Magazine, he makes numerous contributions to the Abbeville Institute website.

M.E. Bradford was known for his strident attacks on Lincoln as the destroyer of the American Republic. He also was a foe of civil rights for African Americans. He led the Dallas area campaign to elect segregationist George Wallace president. He was a racist who attacked James Baldwin. He was a contributor to Southern Partisan magazine. Several of his articles in Southern Partisan are at the Abbeville Institute website. Bradford really had hoped that the election of Ronald Reagan as president would result in the civil rights legislation of the mid-20th century being repealed.

Brian McClanahan is a frequent contributor to the Abbeville Insitute web page and does their pod casting.

Marshall DeRosa is a professor at Florida Atlantic University.   https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/politicalscience/faculty/derosa/  He was active in the League of the South.  He contributed to Southern Partisan magazine.

DeRosa is a fan of the Confederate Constitution. One of the more recent books is "Redeeming American Democracy: Lessons from the Confederate Constitution," published by the neo-Confederate publisher Pelican Publishing of Gretna, Louisiana.

DeRosa sees the Confederate Constitution as having ideas useful to reform and save American democracy.

Some of his views have gotten media attention. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/04/09/florida-atlantic-professor-criticized-after-his-essays-blaming-black-supremacy

Thomas DiLorenzo is a professor at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. He is primarily known for his writings attacking Abraham Lincoln for being a tyrant. He is involved with the Lew Rockwell part of the libertarian movement. You can search for his contributions to the website via this link. https://www.lewrockwell.com/?s=DiLorenzo

The last half of the quote above is a recommendation to attend educational seminars put on by the Stephen D. Lee Institute, run by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the seminars of the Abbeville Institute.

Stephen D. Lee is notable for his lenghty essay in the multivolume set "Confederate Military History," about the contemporary south in which he argues that civil rights for African Americans gave young African American men the idea to rape white women and that lynching is an understandable response. Stephen D. Lee in the early 20th century proclaimed "The Charge" which is held to be the reason for the existence of the SCV.

Scholars from the Abbeville Instiute help put on the Stephen D. Lee Institute and there is a large overlap of people speaking to one group as the other. So to understand what type of education McCluny thinks the SCV membership should receive we can go to the Abbeville Institute website. https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/

I think this article at their website gives a good summary of the mentality of the "scholars" of the Abbeville Institute.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/our-american-cultural-revolution/

In this essay Gottfried tells us such things as:

"Woman students on our campuses are now encouraged by the state to accuse male students of rape"

Generally Gottffried's article is is a lengthy rage against a world where he is not automatically privileged and in charge.

However, generally if you are looking for neo-Nazis or other screamers you will be disappointed. The unfortunate thing is that the public all too often believes that white nationalism or racism fits a certain stereotype.

Here the reactionary agenda is drenched in nostalgia and sentimental pictures of the past. Discontents with the modern world are employed to argue for the neo-Confederate agenda.

Thomas Dixon produced the notorious racist movie, "Birth of a Nation," which glorified the Ku Klux Klan. This is the Abbeville Institute take on Thomas Dixon in a review of the book, "Southern Horizons," Dixon's autobiography.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/southern-horizons/

I think I recognize this article having an earlier version in the Southern Partisan magazine.  In the Fall 1984 (Vol. 4 No. 4) issue of the Southern Partisan on page 54 Stephen Page Smith has a review of the book "Southern Horizons." The idea of African American men being rapists is part of the book review.

A lot of articles at the Abbeville Institute are noted as having been published in the Southern Partisan originally. It seems some might be getting slipped in without  a reference to Southern Partisan.

In this article Kirkpatrick Sale has a rosy view of slavery in the ancient world and in the antebellum south. https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/slavery-and-the-confederacy/

Thomas Fleming, who had led an anti-Muslim campaign for years in the pages of Chronicles Magazine, has this contribution.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/from-under-the-rubble-the-wearin-of-the-cross/

Browsing through the web site a reader will undoubtedly find other articles which will appall. But it will be within a general venue of nostalgia and images of oil paintings. This web site is a good site for people to learn that white supremacy is supported by narratives like this website where the authors work in shades and contextualizations and nostalgia and subtilties and not really by a few losers wearing some costume and screaming at a rally.

Again this is the organization which the Sons of Confederate Veterans recommends its members to be a source of information.

Second installment about neo-Confederate hostility against Muslims

At one point the Sons of Confederate Veterans had a publication put out by their Education PAC titled Southern Mercury.  It was really shrill and screaming.  Not surprisingly one of the issues had an attack on Muslims.

In this issue, with its horribly designed cover, is the lead cover article, "What Thomas Jefferson Learned from the Q'uran." (Southern Mercury, Vol. 5, No. 2, April 2007,  pages 12-13.)

The editor was Ron Wilson who at one time was the Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

It is an article by Ted Samply about the Quran that Thomas Jefferson owned and which Minnosota Democrat Keith Ellison used to take his oath of office in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The article published in the Southern Mercury can be found online in several places.

This is one URL for the article. http://valleypatriot.com/what-thomas-jefferson-learned-from-the-muslim-book-of-jihad/

The Southern Partisan was published starting in 1979 until it faded out after 2005. It was the leading publication of neo-Confederate ideology. It had contributors who were columnists, professors, authors, religious leaders, politicians and others. This is the publication to which U.S. Senator Lindsey Grahmn gave an interview.

With the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 was seized by the Southern Partisan as an opportunity to push an anti-Muslim agenga. The Southern Partisan was usually late to very late in publication and likely the issue came out in 2002.

The editor of this issue was Christopher M. Sullivan who later was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Besides the cover article, there were of course a couple of anti-Muslim articles such as "The Dark Side of Islam," by P.J. Byrnes and "Does the Future Belong to Islam?" by Joe Sobran.

However, several articles, though anti-Muslim in perspective were focused pushing some pet reactionary viewpoint.

For example, Christopher M. Sullivan, one time editor of Southern Partisan, and also who served once as the Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had an article, "Whose Fault?" (Southern Partisan, 2001 4th Quarter, page 16.)

Sullivan sees the fault in too much religious tolerance, a need for a close alliance with Israel, but contradictorily an avoidance of involvement in foreign matters.

The avoidance of using 9/11 for anti-Muslim animus seemed to irritate them.  Sullivan writes:

The United States is an open society even to it's own detriment. You can be anything from an Episcopalian to a witch without so much as a cross word from authorities. In Muslim countries the opposite is true. Just being a Christian is enough to make you the object of government scrutiny, while sharing your faith can be a capital offense. [Boldface added.] 

And:

While their Eastern brothers speak the name of Jesus in fear of torture and martyrdom, most Western Christians are terrified of doing or saying anything that might be construed as the least bit offensive. To say that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven is tantamount to racism in America today.  

The most outrageous example comes from the prayer service held at the National Cathedral. 

He then refers to Rev. Dixon's invocation at the Cathedral.

Rev. Dixon stood in the pulpit of the National Cathedral and prayed, "In the nae of the God of Abraham, Muhammad, and the Father of Jesus Christ ..." When a minister of a Christian faith cannot stand in the pulpit of a Christian church and pray to an exclusively Christian God, it is impossible for that nation to engage in holy war.

Which was rather the point of Rev. Dixon invocation, and it was a great frustration for Sullivan that 9/11 was not going to be used by the George W. Bush administration to persecute Muslims.

Rev. Father Alister Anderson, who has been a Chaplain-in-Chief for the Sons of Confederate Veterans argued that 9/11 was a diaster allowed by good to punish the US for being ungodly. Anderson writes:

My Christian faith in a good righteous, just, merciful and loving God convinces me that there must be reasons why this holocaust occured. They are enumerated again and again in the Holy Bible. God withdraws for a time His safeguarding cover over mankind when he sees us deliberately withdrawning ourselves from His righteous Law which is our cover. God's judgment of mankind's wickedness embraces each personal and deliberate decision to ignore Him as well as the more obvious and collective world-wide rejection of His will for us. (pp. 14)

 About two to three years later the Southern Partisan had its anti-Islam issue. The editor of this issue was Christopher M. Sullivan who later was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The articles by Ben Hart and Richard Spencer argue that Islam is murderous and in particular murderous of Christians. There is imagery from the crusades. 

Richard Spencer is mentioned as the director of Jihad Watch at the end of the article. Ben Hart is likely Benjamin Hart, and the the author of "Radical Islam vs. America." 

It is not know whether Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis had anything to say about Muslims if anything at all, but the modern neo-Confederate movement has a position on Islam and Muslims.

Christopher M. Sullivan is listed as Lt. Commander-in-Chief in the May-June 2005 issue of the Confederate Veteran and was listed as Commander-in-Chief in the Confederate Veteran Sept.-Oct. 2006 issue. 

The neo-Confederate movement is hostile to Muslims and sees them as deadly enemies.

I will be updating this page as I get the information together. I would ask that the mosques in Mobile, Alabama take care. Especially in light of recent events in New Zealand.

I didn't get any replies to my letters to Mobile, Alabama churches. These mass shootings always seem to be implausible until they happen. I hope they reconsider and take my letters to them seriously.

I am planning on writing letters to the mosques in Mobile, AL and it seems that I need to get a move on now. I need to assemble materials together.

As background information are these blogs postings and articles about the anti-Muslim animus of the neo-Confederates.

One of my articles was originally published in The Touchstone and was later taken up by a Muslim group iin Texas.

http://hispanicmuslims.com/articles/alamokosovo.html

I was a major source for information for this article.

http://balkanwitness.glypx.com/sells2.htm


This is a section of a chapter in a book I wrote about the neo-Confederates hostility towards Muslims.

Muslims

The Chaplains’ Corps Chronicle of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Nov. 2006, has a short section, “Confederate view of Islam,” to assert to the readers that there is, in fact, a Confederate view of Islam.  The introduction to the section states, “Our Confederate compatriots saw the immense paganism and evil in false religions, and Islam was one of those that they viewed in such a way.” The article then includes a set of quotes from pro-slavery theologians, with a note stating how each supported or fought for the Confederacy. R.L. Dabney states, “Mohammed extends the same hope to all his sinful follows.” Girardeau is quoted, “Mohammedanism is the great apostasy of the East.” Thornwell has a more lengthy attack, characterizing Islam as being swindle or racket, “Where it could not extort a blind credulity, it made the passions the vehicles of its doctrines; the timid it frightened to submission, the profligate it allured to acquiescence, and the heretic and skeptic it wheedled and cajoled by a partial patronage of their errors,” and “its strongest attraction the license which it gave to voluptuous indulgences.”

Someone might be critical of one religion or another. People make choices as to what religion they believe in and have opinions about others all the time. What is of interest here, however, is that condemnation of Islam is held to be a part of Confederate heritage.

In response to Minnesota Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison, an African American, taking his oath of office with a Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson, the Southern Mercury in 2007 ran an article by Ted Sampley titled “What Thomas Jefferson Learned From the Q’uran.” The article is about the American war and victory over the Barbary Pirates in the early 19^th century. Jefferson is supposed to have learned from his Koran that Islam is a danger, concluding, “Jefferson had been right. The ‘medium of war’ was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a ‘visionary’ wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim Holy Book.”[i]

The current SCV Chaplain-in-Chief Ray Parker, Dean of the Master’s Theological Research Institute of the MASTER’S International University of Divinity (The name of the university has “MASTER’S” in capitols.), has an editorial in the Feb. 2016 Chaplain’s Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans condemning “the culture of tolerance,” asserting that those who are tolerant will get killed by Muslims as part of God’s wrath against the tolerant.

The great weakness of this culture of tolerance is that it denies the God of the Bible and falls under His wrath. Actually, Jesus Christ said, ―He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth or remains on them. This culture has set itself up as judge and jury, but it will be destroyed by enemies from within. What enemies? Enemies they tolerate in their culture such as Islam! Why? … They will be overwhelmed when they are lined up as cattle to be beheaded by their enemy for their moral decadence. When their protests cannot deter their enemy they will not know how to act. Why? They believe Islam is a peaceful religion…

Parker then discusses an act of terrorism in France. He criticizes the French who honored the dead with candles and flowers, rather than expressing hatred against Muslims. Parker rejects this stating, “Will flowers and candles protect you? Such reactions are the norm of a culture of tolerance. When such a radical Islamist goes to shoot you, just lift a flower in one hand and a candle in the other and all your problems are solved!”[ii]

Parker revisits the topic of Muslims again in a June 2016 editorial Chaplain’s Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans discussing a defense of the Confederacy by Confederate Gen. D.H. Hill in the 19^th century. Hill asserts that abolitionists were hypocrites.  Then in reference to what I think is the massacre of church goers in Charleston by Dylann Roof Parker writes:

But such hypocrisy has not ceased. For example, we are not supposed to judge Muslims by the myriads of atrocious acts (murders, beheadings, burnings, crucifixions, etc.) that they perform worldwide, but Confederate history, with its symbols, is supposed to be obliterated from history because of the action of one murderer who had a Confederate flag in his possession, but not a Confederate heart in his body.[iii]

The Abbeville Institute also has articles which perceive Muslims as a menace. One example is Thomas Fleming who as former editor of Chronicles magazine ran a campaign of hysteria about Muslims in Chronicles for decades. His 2015 article at the Abbeville Institute, “From Under the Rubble: The Wearin’ of the Cross,” is a tirade against Muslims.

Fleming’s article starts with a brief mention of “A Palestinian Muslim named – what else? – Muhammad kills five military men,” and is upset that television ABC News focused on Muhammad’s use of drugs. Fleming asserts that the murder was motivated by the Koran’s teaching. Fleming writes:

As Srdja Trifkovic and others have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt, Islam is a religion of war, violence, and oppression. The only function of non-Muslims in their world is to pay taxes and endure oppression.

Srdja Trifkovic is a Chronicles writer and writes anti-Muslim books.

President Obama is portrayed as knowingly allowing Muslim immigration to make the United States an Islamic nation.

Even the President of the United States, as ignorant and clueless as he seems to be, must have run into an advisor who has given him a few hints. What does it tell us, when we learn that under the Obama administration 400 thousand other potential Muhammads are arriving legally into the United States every year? Will this news cause the President suddenly to sober up? Not hardly. He is getting the country he wants, a place where his Islamic friends and relations can be considered typical.

Muslim immigrants to the United States are held to be a scheme of a ruling elite to oppress Americans.

Importing militant Islam into the United States is not an end in itself but a means to subjugate the American people by creating chaos and instilling fear … Terror has been, historically, an instrument of ruling regimes. The French and Russian Revolutions, Nazi Germany and Maoist China all used terrorism to intimidate their subjects. Our own regime has refined on their methods: Import dangerous people from Latin America and the Islamic world, fill their heads with nonsense about rights, and convince Americans that chaos and fear are normal, and they will surrender all that is left of their liberties to this new KKK–the KuKoranKlan.

And so on the article goes. The title is in reference to “Wearing of the Green” a poem by Dion Boucicault in reference to British oppression of the Irish. The implication is that Christians will be similarly oppressed. Fleming informs us that Dion Boucicault left Ireland to the United States. Fleming concludes the article with the question, “Where, now, would anyone go to escape cultural genocide?”[iv]

In 2016 in a nation with anti-Muslim hysteria raging, these writers in SCV publications are just a few voices among many in a shrill cacophony. However, when presenting itself to the media, the SCV is usually perceived as a group with a sentimental interest in history that referenced as “heritage.” The Abbeville Institute wishes to promote the romantic image of Southern cultural roots. These articles should raise the question as to what the real agenda of the neo-Confederate organizations is.

NOTE: The two issues of Chaplain's Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans have been recently pulled offline. Google still shows it, but the link is no longer valid. I am noticing that the usual places I might find it have vanished also.

I found the issues online elsewhere on the Internet Archive, an institution which archives the Internet.

This is the Feb 2016 attack on Muslims. They are protrayed as murderous.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160209114814/http://chaplain-in-chief.com/custom3_1.html

This is the June 2016 attack on Muslims.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170226173757/http://chaplain-in-chief.com/custom3_1.html

---

[i] Sampley, Ted, “What Thomas Jefferson Learned From The Q’uran,” pages 12-13, Southern Mercury, Vol. 5 No. 2, April 2007. The article can be found online. I have never found this online. 

[ii] Parker, Ray, “Editorial,” Chaplain’s Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Feb. 2016, http://www.scv.org/pdf/chaplains/2016_Feb.pdf, printed out 7/3/2016.  SEE ABOVE NOTE. 

[iii] Parker, Ray, “Editorial,” Chaplain’s Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, June. 2016, http://www.scv.org/pdf/chaplains/2016_Jun.pdf, printed out 7/3/2016. SEE ABOVE NOTE

[iv] Fleming, Thomas, “From Under the Rubble: The Wearin’ of the Cross,” Abbeville Institute, http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/from-under-the-rubble-the-wearin-of-the-cross/, printed out 7/3/2016.

Special letter to the Unitarians

There is a series of posts about violence and neo-Confederacy. Look for the label ID violence.

I have had the Internet Archive archive many of the neo-Confederate web pages if they delete them.

This is the letter I sent.

February 26, 2019

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

                                                                                   

                                                                                    edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Dixie Pomerat

President UUFM

XXXXXXXX

Mobile, AL 36608

Dear Dixie Pomerat:

I wish to add a note about the neo-Confederate movement’s special hostility against the Unitarians. They view the Civil War as a theological conflict and the Unitarians and Transcendentalists as agents who led the nation into civil war and a campaign to destroy  antebellum society.  Dr. Euan Hague and I had an article published at the Canadian Review of American Studies, Univ. of Toronto Press, in 2002. The article is available online https://muse.jhu.edu/article/680125/summary. I can get you a pdf if you have issues with that site.

Though the article limited to 7,000 words focuses on Transcendentalists, neo-Confederate writing considers Unitarianism to be largely the same.

In this issue of their magazine, http://www.scv.org/new/confederate-veteran-magazine-jan-feb-2016/, (Starts on page 55), you will see a review of a book, “Cultures in Conflict: The Union Desecration of Southern Churches and Cemeteries,” by Charles A. Jennings. The review is by Dr. Boyd D. Cathey. Unitarianism is specifically mentioned in the review. In a more recent issue is an article complaining that a conservative philosopher should have attacked Unitarians rather than Puritans. http://www.scv.org/new/confederate-veteran-magazine-may-june/. (Starts on page 18.)

I hope you take seriously security during the SCV reunion in Mobile, Alabama. Please contact me if you wish to see additional documentation of their hostility.

                                                            Sincerely Yours,

                                                            Edward H. Sebesta

Special letter to synagogue in Mobile, Alabama

There is a series of these posts related to violence and they will have the label violence so you can find them.

I have had special concerns that a synagogue would be a target of violence and so I did a few blog warnings on a blog I do about historical memory, nationalism, and the neo-Confederates. The links to these postings are:

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-attack-on-synagogue-next-literature.html#.XILAAIg2qiM

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2017/02/benjamin-mcdowell-threatened-to-do.html#.XILALog2qiM

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2017/05/warning-to-synagogues-part-2.html#.XILAyYg2qiM

I strongly urge that these blog postings be read if there is doubt that there is a risk.

THE LETTER

This is a letter I sent with the general letter to the synagogue in Mobile, Alabama.

                                                                                    February 26, 2019

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

                                                                                    

                                                                                    edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Rabbi Howard A. Kosovske

Springhill Avenue Temple

XXXXX

Mobile, AL 36607

Dear Rabbie Kosovske:

Please find enclosed a commentary about violence and the neo-Confederate movement publish by the Dallas Morning News (DMN) in 2017. It is also online https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/17/confederate-heritage-root-recent-tragedies-troubles.

I am writing you out of concern for the safety of your church members. I am sure you are aware of the massacre in Charleston in 2015. I am a researcher of the neo-Confederate movement. I have been published by two university presses and peer-reviewed academic journals, the last one at Cambridge Univ. I was also awarded the Spirit of Freedom medal by the African American Civil War Museum in D.C. I have reason to be concerned.

I am bringing this to your attention since the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is having their national convention in Mobile, Alabama July 10-13, 2019. The webpage for the reunion is:  https://www.scvsemmes.org/2019-scv-reunion.html.

In Charleston Dylann Roof wasn’t a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), but it was the inflammatory material put out by the CCC that led to his committing the massacre. Similarly, I don’t think it is likely that a member of the SCV is going to commit a massacre, the SCV has not called for violence against any group. However, I think that material, that I think are angry or inflammatory materials, which the SCV has had a hand in making more available could possible led someone to commit a violent act.

Additionally, as Confederate monuments come down across the nation I sense that the neo-Confederates are becoming more enraged as their world is crumbling. I also see increasing radicalization of the SCV year after year.  Black Commentator published in an article by myself, “The Racism and Extremism” of the SCV in 2013. Yet, as extremist  as they were then, I think they have become more extreme.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html

The most recent development is the appointment of Walter Donald Kennedy to head of the national “Heritage” defense for the SCV. He, along with his brother, have a web page http://www.kennedytwins.com/ where you can purchase books, such as “Rekilling Lincoln.” He is a former board member of the League of the South.

It could be asked why this particular time period of the reunion should be of concern more than any other time. I think it is a concern because the SCV reunion in Mobile, AL will bring a lot of focus to controversy over the Confederacy to the Mobile area. Further, if some prominent monument goes down, the SCV leadership will be speaking from Mobile, Alabama. If Alabama changes its laws on monuments, the SCV leadership will be speaking from Mobile, Alabama.

In particular I wish to especially alert certain religious groups. African American churches because it was an African American church where a massacre occurred in Charleston. Other groups are Unitarians, Muslims, and Jewish people. The Unitarians have been denounced in neo-Confederate writing for some time. I don’t suppose it should be surprising that Islam has been an object of hostile writing.  I will provide information about their special animosity against these groups online at https://mobileanticonfederate.blogspot.com/.

For Jewish people, the SCV offering for sale the book, “The South Under Siege,” is of special concern. The civil rights movement is held to be a Jewish conspiracy in and Northern Jews are called the South’s “deadliest enemy” in this book. The Black Commentator article details some of this.

I don’t want to create the impression because I mention some religious groups, others are safe. Walter Donald Kennedy and other neo-Confederate groups feel betrayed by the Southern Baptist Conference and have expressed anger in their writings. I think it would be wrong to think that those who commit these massacres are predictable.

Now there hasn’t been a massacre at any SCV reunion ever, but there hadn’t been any massacres from people reading the CCC online material until 2015. As to what should be done, I am not a security expert. I strongly suggest that churches contact those who have expertise in this field.  Feel free to contact me by email for more information about the SCV and the neo-Confederate movement. I will be putting information online at https://mobileanticonfederate.blogspot.com/.

Additionally, I will be sending out two more mailings of matters I think are of concern to Mobile churches shortly, but I thought I should start out with the issue of security first.

                                                                                    Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

P.S. Please share this information with other religious institutions. I compiled my list of places of worship to write to from Google maps and I am sure I must have missed some.

Special letter to LGBT church alerting them to danger.

The Metropolitan Community Churches will always correct you and tell you that they are a church with LGBT members but not a LGBT church.

I wrote them a special letter since the neo-Confederates have a real hostility towards LGBT. I think they are at special risk. I made sure that the Internet Archive has archived the SCV material.

February 26, 2019

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

                                                                                   

                                                                                    edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Rev. Sara Sills

Cornerstone Metropolitan Community

XXXXXX

Mobile, AL 36604

Dear Rev. Sara Sills:

I wish to send this additional letter concerning the neo-Confederate movement and their blistering hostility against LGBT.  

As an example of their homophobia I direct you to this issue of Chaplain’s Corps Chronicles of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, July 2013, No. 91. http://www.scv.org/new/chaplains-corp/chaplains-corp-chronicle-july-2013/. The editorial explodes with anger against LGBT.

I could supply other examples, I think though this one source is quite enough. The Sons of Confederate Veterans take care to claim they aren’t racist, but they are quite openly hostile toward LGBT and willing to make it known.

I think public accommodations that serve LGBT should be careful also. In the commentary published in the Dallas Morning News I point out that Eric Rudolph bombed an LGBT establishment.

My investigative research, activism, and being a source for journalists has aroused the ire of the neo-Confederates against me, an ire which has included focusing on me being a gay person.

So please take care.

                                                                        Sincerely Yours,

                                                                        Edward H. Sebesta

Letter written to the Mobile, Alabama churches

Picture of gun and bullets from Dylann Roof's website.

Please see earlier posts with the label "violence". There is agoing to be a series of posts.

I wrote a letter to a great many churches in Mobile, Alabama. This is the general letter which I sent to all the churches. I did additional letters to the LGBT, Unitarians, and synagogues.

If the links suddenly vanish because the Sons of Confederate Veterans have pulled things, I had the Internet Archive archive them.

                                                                                    February 26, 2019

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

                                                                                   

                                                                                    edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Address of church here. 

Dear XXXXX l:

Please find enclosed a commentary about violence and the neo-Confederate movement publish by the Dallas Morning News (DMN) in 2017. It is also online https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/17/confederate-heritage-root-recent-tragedies-troubles.

I am writing you out of concern for the safety of your church members. I am sure you are aware of the massacre in Charleston in 2015. I am a researcher of the neo-Confederate movement. I have been published by two university presses and peer-reviewed academic journals, the last one at Cambridge Univ. I was also awarded the Spirit of Freedom medal by the African American Civil War Museum in D.C. I have reason to be concerned.

I am bringing this to your attention since the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is having their national convention in Mobile, Alabama July 10-13, 2019. The webpage for the reunion is:  https://www.scvsemmes.org/2019-scv-reunion.html.

In Charleston Dylann Roof wasn’t a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), but it was the inflammatory material put out by the CCC that led to his committing the massacre. Similarly, I don’t think it is likely that a member of the SCV is going to commit a massacre, the SCV has not called for violence against any group. However, I think that material, that I think are angry or inflammatory materials, which the SCV has had a hand in making more available could possible led someone to commit a violent act.

Additionally, as Confederate monuments come down across the nation I sense that the neo-Confederates are becoming more enraged as their world is crumbling. I also see increasing radicalization of the SCV year after year.  Black Commentator published in an article by myself, “The Racism and Extremism” of the SCV in 2013. Yet, as extremist  as they were then, I think they have become more extreme.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html

The most recent development is the appointment of Walter Donald Kennedy to head of the national “Heritage” defense for the SCV. He, along with his brother, have a web page http://www.kennedytwins.com/ where you can purchase books, such as “Rekilling Lincoln.” He is a former board member of the League of the South.

It could be asked why this particular time period of the reunion should be of concern more than any other time. I think it is a concern because the SCV reunion in Mobile, AL will bring a lot of focus to controversy over the Confederacy to the Mobile area. Further, if some prominent monument goes down, the SCV leadership will be speaking from Mobile, Alabama. If Alabama changes its laws on monuments, the SCV leadership will be speaking from Mobile, Alabama.

In particular I wish to especially alert certain religious groups. African American churches because it was an African American church where a massacre occurred in Charleston. Other groups are Unitarians, Muslims, and Jewish people. The Unitarians have been denounced in neo-Confederate writing for some time. I don’t suppose it should be surprising that Islam has been an object of hostile writing.  I will provide information about their special animosity against these groups online at https://mobileanticonfederate.blogspot.com/.

For Jewish people, the SCV offering for sale the book, “The South Under Siege,” is of special concern. The civil rights movement is held to be a Jewish conspiracy in and Northern Jews are called the South’s “deadliest enemy” in this book. The Black Commentator article details some of this.

I don’t want to create the impression because I mention some religious groups, others are safe. Walter Donald Kennedy and other neo-Confederate groups feel betrayed by the Southern Baptist Conference and have expressed anger in their writings. I think it would be wrong to think that those who commit these massacres are predictable.

Now there hasn’t been a massacre at any SCV reunion ever, but there hadn’t been any massacres from people reading the CCC online material until 2015. As to what should be done, I am not a security expert. I strongly suggest that churches contact those who have expertise in this field.  Feel free to contact me by email for more information about the SCV and the neo-Confederate movement. I will be putting information online at https://mobileanticonfederate.blogspot.com/.

Additionally, I will be sending out two more mailings of matters I think are of concern to Mobile churches shortly, but I thought I should start out with the issue of security first.

                                                                                    Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

P.S. Please share this information with other churches. I compiled my list of churches to write to from Google maps and I am sure I must have missed some. 

Violence in the Neo-Confederate Narrative/ A warning to churches in Mobile, Alabama to avoid a Dylann Roof Repeat

I am going to have a series of posts regarding violence and the Reunion in Mobile, AL. They will have a label violence. I strongly recommend that people in Mobile, Alabama read them all.

Dylann Roof picture on his web page prior to his massacre of church goers. 

Back in 2017 I wrote a short essay published in the Dallas Morning News about the narratives of violence put forth by the neo-Confederate movement. This is the link to the article.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/17/confederate-heritage-root-recent-tragedies-troubles

Anger is boiling over in the neo-Confedeate movement as one Confederate monument after another is taken down.

Dylann Roof

I want to repeat that there hasn't been a shooting at any of the prior Sons Confederate Reunions. However, as the neo-Confederate world crumbles, and in the Southern Alabama region is focused on the Confederacy some unstable person with a gun could end up committing a massacre.

Dylann Roof wasn't a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, he was a reader of the incendiary rhetoric they promoted. The Sons of Confederate Veterans offers for sale material that is in my opinion inflammatory.

At the same time there is a continuing radicalization of the neo-Confederate movement.  I will be posting about that also. The head of "Heritage" operations is a Walter Donald Kennedy and he has included his brother James Ronald Kennedy as an operative.

This is their website http://www.kennedytwins.com/

The Sons of Confederate Veterans likes to express outrage over what they think is an unjust focus on Dylann Roof. At the same time they offer for sale books praising the white terrorist Red Shirts who operated in South Carolina during Reconstruction.

Again look for the posts with the tag violence on this blog.