Article by Johan Englen.

After violent protests over the removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, N.C. this August, much public discussion has taken place in regard of these monuments. Thus, public attention has recently turned itself to the history of the Civil War to find answers and guidance to this contemporary development. And that is how “History of Now” was born.

In an attempt to tackle this subject, the Drury History Club is using its first discussion in its new speaker series to explain the history of Civil War monuments so that students may be better informed about this hot-button issue.

The first community discussion is entitled “Of Monuments and Men: Confederate Commemoration and the Political Uses of the Past” and will be held this Thursday, Sept. 28 in the Olin Room at Drury’s Olin Library from 4-5 p.m. All students are invited to come and participate regardless of major. Free light refreshments will be provided.

Dakota Bowen, history club president, explained that the history club was inspired by the success of the political science department’s “Pizza and Politics” weekly series to create “History of Now.”

“[History club] saw a great opportunity to discuss history with relevance to the present because a lot of people often don’t think about the past with relevance to the present. They think it’s just about old dead guys and dates, rather than how we came to where we are currently,” said Bowen.

Dakota Bowen, history club president. Submitted by Bowen.

Half of ‘History of Now’ will be a short lecture by Dr. David Goldberg, an assistant professor of history at Drury. The other half will involve student discussion on the subject, facilitated by members of the history club’s executive council.

“[The upcoming lecture] will be about how those who constructed Confederate monuments were doing so in order to push their political agenda based on segregation. It will look at how the current Confederate monument controversy ignores the origins of those monuments themselves – that they were based on issues pertaining to race,” said Goldberg.

Dr. David Goldberg, assistant professor of history. Photo via Drury University.

The inspiration for Dr. Goldberg’s upcoming lecture mainly stems from how the current popular debate about whether the South fought for states’ rights or slavery and, according to him, is still an “unsettled issue.” However, he is certain on where he stands.

“The civil war was always about slavery. It was almost rarely about states’ rights for Southerners. They barley evoked the term ‘states’ rights’ and when they did it was used as a synonym for the larger community that they were fighting to preserve,” explained Goldberg. “The larger community’s ultimate value was the preservation of slavery because most southerners thought they were benefiting from slavery.”

Dr. Goldberg also asserts that these monuments were based, to a smaller extent, on issues of gender.

“A woman’s place in society was becoming more prominent. By placing men in positions of power it could reassert a sense of masculinity that was threatened by the upending of the old Confederate southern social order,” said Goldberg.

The next installment of the of the “History of Now” series will be led by Dr. Hue-Ping Chin, professor of history at Drury, about North Korea and the Kim Dynasty.