What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

Upton, Dell

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BOOKWhat Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

Dell Upton

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21055

An original study of monuments to the civil rights movement and Black history that have been erected in the American South over the past three decades, this powerful work explores how commemorative structures have been used to assert the presence of African Americans in contemporary Southern society while showing how the construction of such monuments frequently exposes the myth that racial differences have been overcome.

Examining monuments whose creation has been particularly contentious, from the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial in Washington, D.C., to more obscure memorials such as the so-called "multicultural monument" in Bowling Green, Virginia, Dell Upton shows that monument builders must contend not only with varied interpretations of the African-American past but also with the continuing presence of White supremacy—not only in its traditional forms but also in the subtler, more recent assumptions that Whites are neutral arbiters of what is fair and accurate in such monuments.

Upton argues that Southerners, White and Black, share a convenient fiction—a “dual heritage” that allows them to acknowledge the Black past without relinquishing cherished White historical mythologies. In his conclusion, Upton considers how these two pasts might be reimagined and memorialized as a single Southern American history.

*For the A&AePortal edition of this book, the author's black-and-white images were replaced with color.*

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date November 2015 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300211757

EISBN 9780300262261

Illustrations 59

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Memorial to murdered civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman
Viola Liuzzo memorial
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Memorial
Civil Rights Memorial, detail
Testament
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Korean War Memorial
Memorial to the Jackson State martyrs of May 1970
Statue of Confederate General Wade Hampton
Confederate Memorial Monument, detail
Confederate Memorial Monument
Confederate Memorial Monument, detail of bronze collar
Nathan Bedford Forrest monument
Friends of the Forrest Billboard
Monument to the Crescent City White League Insurrection of 1874
Multicultural monument
Abigail Jordan at the African American Monument
Booker T. Washington Memorial
African American Monument, detail of unshackled praying hands
Black Holocaust Memorial
Black Holocaust Memorial
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., detail
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King in his Atlanta headquarters
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, detail
Mountain of Despair, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Dogs
Police dog attacking Walter Gadsden, Birmingham, Alabama
Jimmy Hicks, Julian Bond, John Lewis, and Jeremiah X view the bombed remains of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
Monuments (left to right): to Pauline Bray Fletcher; Julius Ellsberry; Carrie L. Tuggle; and Ruth L. Jackson
Three Ministers Kneeling
Children's March
Firehosing the Demonstrators
Firehosing the Demonstrators, detail
Police Dog Attack
Police Dog Attack, detail
The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth
South Carolina [Confederate] Monument
African American History Monument
South Carolina Vietnam Veterans Memorial
African American History Monument: Slave ship plan
African American History Monument: right (north) wing
African American History Monument: Slave labor
African American History Monument: War Between the States
African American History Monument: Emancipation
African American History Monument: Reconstruction
African American History Monument: Southern States Reacts to Federal Law and Exodus North
Obelisk, Shot Caller Records
Strom Thurmond, detail of inscription
Oak Grove Freedman's Cemetery Memorial
Oak Grove Freedman's Cemetery Memorial
Our Peace--Follow the Drinking Gourd; Memorial to the Enslaved
Our Peace
Donelson family graves
Confederate Home graves

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Contents

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

Contents

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21056

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Preface

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

~~Images of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s made deep impressions on me when I was growing up in New York State. I remember seeing television coverage of the integration of Little Rock Central High School, which interrupted my mother’s daily appointment with American Bandstand. The Birmingham...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21057

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Acknowledgments

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

~Among the compensations of the scholar’s solitary life are the advice and assistance of friends old and new. That is one of the pleasures of research. My gratitude belongs first to Catherine W. Bishir, all-knowing scholar of North Carolina architecture. When I was working on another project, Catherine pointed out that it was really the monuments that...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21058

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Introduction: What Can and Can’t Be Said

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

In the spring of 1999 twenty members of Congress traveled to Alabama to visit sites and monuments associated with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Georgia representative John Lewis, a renowned veteran of the movement, had asked members of Congress of both parties to join him on the pilgrimage to inspire them...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-24

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21059

Chapter subject tags:Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th centuryMemorialsKing, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968--MonumentsSepulchral monumentsSlavery--History

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Chapter 1: Dual Heritage

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

One morning in November 2007 residents of Montgomery, Alabama, awoke to discover that the century-old Confederate Memorial Monument adjacent to the state capitol had been defaced. “N.T. 11 11 31” was spray-painted across one of the original inscriptions, and the hands and...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.25-65

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21060

Chapter subject tags:Soldiers' monuments--Southern StatesRacismMartin Luther King, Jr., DayWhite supremacy movements--United StatesNational Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleSlavery--History

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Chapter 2: Accentuate the Positive

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

In the past half century, Caroline County, a rural county in northeastern Virginia, has been drawn into the orbits of Washington, DC, and Richmond. Only 1.4 percent of the working population now farms in a...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.66-95

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21061

Chapter subject tags:Slavery--HistoryProsser, Gabriel, approximately 1775-1800National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleAngelou, MayaNew Black Panther Party

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Chapter 3: A Stern-Faced, Twenty-Eight-Foot-Tall Black Man

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

On a corner of Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham a bronze statue of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gazes pensively across at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (fig. 23). In dress, scale, and demeanor, the bronze King could stand unnoticed in a crowd. He wears a business suit. The large Bible he carries in his left hand hints at his religious calling. His body is...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.96-133

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21062

Chapter subject tags:King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968--MonumentsCivil rights movements--United States--History--20th centuryMemorials--CompetitionsNational Mall & Memorial Parks (Agency : U.S.)Lei, Yixin, 1953-

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Chapter 4: A Place of Revolution and Reconciliation

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

Among the many monuments in Birmingham’s Kelly Ingram Park, one catches the eye (fig. 31). A German shepherd dog, its teeth bared, lunges at a young African American boy. A stern-looking police officer, his eyes hidden behind aviator glasses, pulls...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.134-171

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21063

Chapter subject tags:Race relationsShuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceCivil rights

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Chapter 5: What Can and Can’t Be Said—Beyond Civil Rights

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

For aficionados of public monuments, the South Carolina State House Grounds are a treat. They are home to many more monuments than most state capitols can boast. These range from a memorial commemorating a South Carolina...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.172-199

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21064

Chapter subject tags:Soldiers' monuments--Southern StatesFlags--Confederate States of AmericaNational Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleMemorials--Competitions

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Chapter 6: What Might Be Said

Dell Upton

What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South

In recent years, memorials to the broader sweep of African American history, of which South Carolina’s African American History Monument is the most elaborate, have become increasingly common and may eventually overshadow the civil rights monuments. For the moment these works offer a fresh chance to rethink memorial strategies, yet they, too, are limited by the same problems of visual...

Author

Dell Upton

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.200-212

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00240.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21065

Chapter subject tags:MemorialsThurmond, Strom, 1902-2003Slavery--HistoryWhite supremacy movements--United StatesCivil rights movements--United States--History--20th century

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