Confederates In The Attic: Dispatches From The Unfinished Civil War

Chapter 14 is one of the few chapters that Horwitz devotes entirely to the experience of African-Americans in the South. Prior to this point, much of his conversations had taken place with white Southerners, with the occasional tangential conversation with an African-American for either context or balance. However, with his journey to Montgomery and Selma, Horwitz focuses exclusively on the Civil Rights Movement in the American South and with the effect that the Civil War has had on African-Americans.

Horwitz begins the chapter by touring the capitol building of Alabama, which still has bears witness to the state’s segregationist past (354). While there, he meets a young African-American woman named Sandy who seems oddly out of place giving tours that reflect the white supremacist history of the state; however, to this, Sandy only replies, “Times have changed…I like to think these dead white guys are looking back at me and rolling in their graves” (356). Sandy serves as an example of a member of the African-American community who seems to meet the past and present with a sense of humor and panache that recognizes the history but still attempts to move forward.

Continuing on, Horwitz meets with a man who used to serve on “Selma’s segregationist city council during the civil rights violence of the 1960s” (360). The man is a stunning example of change, as he states, “It [segregation] was stupid now that I think of it” (360).

These two figures stand in stark contrast with some of the other characters that Horwitz encounters, namely Reverend Richard Boone, who was once a member of the protests of “the good old days…everything was clear, black and white…” (362), and now “found himself embroiled in much murkier protests” (362), like supporting the radical leader Louis Farrakhan because he feels that nowadays “You’ve got black faces doing the white massah’s bidding…it’s like the slave day, with house niggers lording over field niggers” (362).

This more vitriolic and militant view of race relations seems also to come through when Horwitz visits the classroom of Rose Mary Sanders, where the African-American students seem to have a staunch and intractable belief that the Civil War means nothing to them and is “the white man’s [history]” (367). After the ensuing discussion and minor argument, Horwitz leaves the classroom and departs from Selma, “feeling lower than at any time during my long Southern ramble” (369-70).

Before closing out the chapter, Horwitz discusses the state of education in Alabama, with specific regard to American History. Having changed the curriculum “so that high-schoolers studied U.S. history only from 1877 onward” (371), the burden of teaching about the Civil War either fell to white Southerners who homeschooled their children (371), community organizations, or teachers who attempted to pack as much information into as little space as possible, “Band-Aid work at best” (371).

Horwitz goes on to describe the current situation as being an unintended result of integration, when “many middle-class white parents began sending their kids to new, all-white private schools” (374), and “Alabama spent less on public education than any other state in the nation” (374). This, coupled with the fact that the Civil Rights movement was only “thirty years ago” (378), might, thinks Horwitz, be the reason why there is still so much tension around race and the Civil War in the South, which is still “relevant because the effects are still obvious…a lot of people are still poor and prejudiced in the South, and that basically goes back to the War” (375).