Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate[3] nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers[2]: 6–9 that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
Abbreviation
SCV
July 1, 1896[1]
R. E. Lee Camp, No. 1,
Confederate Veterans[1]
61-1522953
Worldwide
c. 30,000
Jason Boshers
Donnie Kennedy
Dan McCaskill
General Executive Council[2]: 17–19
- Adam Southern
Executive Director
United Sons of Confederate Veterans[1]
The SCV was founded on July 1, 1896, in Richmond, Virginia, by R. E. Lee Camp, No. 1 of the Confederate Veterans.[1][4] Its headquarters is at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee.[2]: 29
In recent decades, governors, legislators, courts, corporations, and anti-racism activists have emphasized the increasingly controversial public display of Confederate symbols—especially after the 2014 Ferguson unrest, the 2015 Charleston church shooting, and the 2020 murder of George Floyd. SCV has responded with its coordinated display of larger and more prominent public displays of the battle flag, some in directly defiant counter-protest.
Purpose
Like the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the SCV has promoted the ideology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, a deliberate distortion of the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction[5]: 220 [6]: 602 [7]: 16 [8][9] inextricably linked to White supremacy.[10] That ideology or mythology told the story of "faithful slaves and a virtuous South oppressed by Northern tyrants".[5]: 218 One of its central tenets is that the Civil War was fought over states' rights and not over slavery.[11] As of February 2024, the SCV's website says, "The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution."[12][13]
The proclaimed purpose of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is "to encourage the preservation of history, perpetuate the hallowed memories of brave men, to assist in the observance of Confederate Memorial Day, to aid and support all members, and to perpetuate the record of the services of every Southern soldier".[1]
Eligibility
Male descendants of those who served in the Confederate armed forces, or one of the constituent states, to the end of the war, died in prison or while in actual service, were killed in battle, or were honorably retired or discharged, are eligible for membership. Membership can be obtained through either lineal or collateral family lines. Kinship to a veteran must be documented genealogically. The minimum age for full membership is 12 years, but no minimum exists for cadet membership.[2]: 6–9
Controversies
License plates
Georgia: In 2014, the state of Georgia approved a battle flag specialty license plate.[29]
Louisiana: In 1999, the state Legislature of Louisiana approved a SCV specialty license plate. Through May 2022, about 475 plates had been issued.[30]
Mississippi: In 2011, the Mississippi Division of SCV launched an unsuccessful campaign to honor Confederate Lieutenant General and KKK Grand Wizard Nathan B. Forrest with a specialty license plate.[31][32]
North Carolina: On January 1, 2021, the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles determined that license plates that included the Confederate flag were offensive and stopped issuing them. In March 2021, the North Carolina Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans sued to restore the symbol, saying the Department of Transportation had acted in bad faith and that the action was driven by a lack of understanding of the state's history and hate for their inheritance as Southerners.[33]
Texas: In 2013, the state of Texas denied a request for a Confederate Battle Flag specialty license plate, a decision upheld in state court.[34] That state court decision was overturned in Federal court, and the matter was ultimately heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, which held that Texas was allowed to deny the request for a specialty license plate featuring the group's logo.[35][36]
Virginia: The Virginia General Assembly approved a specialty license plate for the SCV in 1999, but lawmakers forbade the group to display the Confederate insignia. The organization sued for the right to display the Confederate battle flag on the license plate, and won a 2001 injunction from a federal judge requiring the state to include the Confederate insignia. The injunction was upheld by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2015, after a white supremacist murdered nine African Americans at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that the Commonwealth would phase out the state-sponsored specialty license plate, which was then displayed by more than 1,600 Virginians. The SCV challenged the governor's authority to recall the license plates, citing the 2001 injunction. However, in August 2015, the court dissolved the 2001 injunction, citing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Texas case.[37] Hundreds of SCV members who had the specialty plates refused to remove them from their vehicles and exchange them for new plates even after the specialty plates ceased to be valid.[38][39]
Relationship with SUVCW
SCV has a longstanding and friendly relationship with the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW). The Commander-in-Chief of the SUVCW attended SCV annual reunions in 1995, 1996, 1997,[56] 2005, 2017,[57][58] and 2023.The SUVCW cooperates with the SCV in preserving American Civil War graves, monuments, and markers.[59]
Buildings and sites
The General Headquarters of SCV operates the National Confederate Museum at the Elm Springs house in Columbia, Tennessee. At its 2018 dedication, an SCV vice commander said the museum "will be out of the reach of the long arm of political correctness".[60] George Washington University professor James Oliver[61] said that the museum's "casting the Confederacy as a honorable force standing strong against Northern aggressors is a willful misreading of the historical truth that the institution of slavery was at the core of the Civil War".[62]
The SCV also own and maintain the Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home in Chapel Hill[63] where the future Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard[64] spent parts of his childhood.
Notable members
Notable members of the organization include former President Harry S. Truman, former senators Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Absalom Willis Robertson, political commentator Pat Buchanan, and actor Clint Eastwood.[65][66]
According to Heidi Beirich, William D. McCain is regarded within the SCV as its true founder. McCain, who remained a steadfast segregationist throughout his tenure, was Adjutant-in-Chief of the organization from 1953 to 1993. While he occupied this office he was also president of the University of Southern Mississippi and director of the Mississippi Archives. He never ceased to defend the Confederacy and its politics, and controlled the SCV "with an iron fist" until the late 1980s. He opposed the civil rights movement, claiming in a speech he gave in 1960 that "The Negroes prefer that control of the government remain in the white man's hands", and strived to prevent blacks from attending the University of Southern Mississippi.[67]
