Every time I leave our hotel it is a strange experience. It does not feel like I live here as I do when I leave my house in San Francisco or even my college dorm for that matter. Yet this extended stay feels like more than a vacation where I am simply a guest. In that respect, New Orleans has become my temporary home. This city is so different from every stereotype I've held about the American South, that I often forget about where I really am.
But there are moments when this reality becomes much clearer, where I cannot forget my sense of place. As I think harder about where I am, I process that I am in Louisiana, the American South. When we toured the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum, Southern history was on display right in front of my face. I entered with an open mind, channeling my history-buff mindset ready to learn more about the past of this country, my country. I believe that this part of America's past is essential to study and to remember, however through the lens of critiquing proponents of slavery for being on the wrong side of history, not as individuals to be commemorated. I expected that this museum would share the same historical interpretation but I was mistaken.
Rather than framing the historical missteps of the Confederate South as a cautionary tale for our country to not repeat similar atrocities going forward, this museum was glorifying the Confederacy in every exhibit on display. I was in disbelief. Upon observing the museum's other guests however, I realized that many of them authentically felt that this aspect of their history should be celebrated, remembered not as a fallen atrocity but as fallen glory. This divide between our perspectives on history was vividly apparent, leaving me unsettled but curious.
While I recognize that the life of any fallen soldier is a tragedy worthy of remembrance, the complete lack of contextualization or big picture perspective in this commemoration process is what truly shocked me. While recounting the details of fallen Confederate soldiers’ “chivalry” and “bravery” is not inherently inaccurate or invalid, the presentation of solely these aspects of the Confederacy distracts and disrespects the truly important takeaway from this time: the atrocity that was the institution of slavery.
History matters because it allows us to learn from successes and failures of the past, building on what has happened to guide our actions going forward. Thus, a meaningful understanding of history has little to do with the timelines of individuals' lives, but rather the large-scale impacts of how individual and collective action has shaped society. In this context, the story of the Confederate South should not be told without confronting the preservation of slavery at it's core, which oppressed African American people in the most inhumane way. And yet I did not see the word “slavery” mentioned once in any display, much less the atrocity that this institution was. The only tragedies I heard about were the death’s of Confederate soldiers and how prized the remnants of the Confederacy were to their descendants. This omission isn’t accidental – it’s a deliberate reframing. The museum has made a purposeful choice to focus on details that are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things while ignoring the far more painful and important truths of the very history on display.
I’ve always been eager to learn about differing perspectives and lean into new experiences, especially those that challenge my worldview as a San Francisco native where liberal politics are all I've known. I've always been deeply curious about how people come to hold values that differ so drastically from my own. In trying to put myself in the shoes of my fellow museum visitors, I reflected on the deeply entrenched cultural circumstances which are all they know and have likely shaped their views of this history to be celebratory rather than critical. Even so, I don’t feel this justifies the harm that having such selective memory causes.
After visiting this museum, I gained no respect for the perspective of history on display: rather than simply offering a different viewpoint, it wrongfully idealizes a deeply racist past by omitting important information and emphasizing minutia. Much like how withholding information is a lie in and of itself, this museum’s skewed portrayal of the Civil War misrepresents history by not even scratching the surface of the Confederacy’s true historical impact. As one of the last standing places commemorating the Confederacy, this museum holds real influence over people’s memory of the past. Thus, it is that much more harmful when this power to portray history is done in such a unidimensional and selective way. The way I see it, this museum is going against the very goal of studying history: instead of holistically portraying historical impacts to learn from past mistakes, it covers up these very wrongs so that what is most important to remember is wiped from memory.
Experiences like these are so foreign to me that I forget I am still here in my own country. In some ways I am ashamed to be a citizen of a place that refuses to learn from its own history. In other ways, I have no identification here as this America is completely different from the one I call home. The truth of my attitude is somewhere in between, in which I can be extremely critical of this museum for opposing my moral understanding of history and blame those that perpetuate this dynamic, all while being deeply saddened that American history can be remembered this way. Even though these aspects of the South could not be more different from how I grew up, this history is still my country's history and, whether bad or good, I feel some level of accountability for making sure it is remembered accurately.