A common refrain among neo-Confederates is “heritage, not hate”—an attempt to divorce the pro-slavery underpinnings of the American Civil War from the perceived nobility of the soldiers engaged in it. Permeable boundaries exist between these groups and the dangerous far right organizations that have re-emerged under President Donald Trump, which benefit from the neo-Confederates’ thin veneer of civility.
1 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County, a neo-Confederate organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, holds a “Confederate Memorial Day” celebration at the Graham, North Carolina, historic courthouse steps on May 20, 2017. Marine Michael Chesny was arrested at the event for dropping a racist banner from the roof of a local building, and was later identified as a coordinator behind the deadly August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
2 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
On August 20, 2018, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students protested the so-called Silent Sam statue on campus—a large, bronze effigy of a Confederate soldier funded in part by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It was torn off its pedestal just hours later.
3 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
Casey Becknell, a Civil War re-enactor, gazes at the pedestal on which Silent Sam stood at the Chapel Hill campus before activists pulled it down on August 20, 2018 (above left). A year earlier, he was an armed participant in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (above right).
4 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
Armed with tear gas and batons, Virginia state police escort Loyal White Knight of the Ku Klux Klan members from a city-provided parking garage into Court Square Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on July 10, 2017. The Klansmen had traveled from North Carolina to protest the city’s rumored plan to remove a Robert E. Lee statue.
5 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
During the Charlottesville Ku Klux Klan rally, police brutalized and arrested twenty-two anti-racist protesters and deployed tear gas only after the Klansmen had left the scene and against Police Chief Al Thomas’s orders.
6 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
Students and community members rally over the statue of Silent Sam on the Chapel Hill campus on August 22, 2017. Heavily militarized police nearly started a riot during what was otherwise a peaceful demonstration by arresting a man who was wearing a bandana on his face to protect his identity. The arrestees were taken to Hyde Hall (above) where heavily armed, militarized police were staged.
7 of 7
DANIEL HOSTERMAN
A year later, on August 20, 2018, police officers again arrest anti-racist activists at the Chapel Hill campus after the toppling of Silent Sam. Since then, as of press time, around twenty-six activists have been arrested. Others have been the victims of pepper spray, smoke grenades, and other assaults from police using hands, knees, elbows, and bicycles.