Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • NPR

    The Anthemic Allure Of 'Dixie,' An Enduring Confederate Monument

    Despite its origins in the popular music of the North, the song became the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy during the Civil War and still endures as a divisive symbol in modern America.
    by Bilal Qureshi Sep 20, 2018 7 minutes
    The 2nd South Carolina String Band in July, onstage in the main tent of the annual reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg.

    This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at NPR.org/Anthem.

    When my Pakistani immigrant parents chose Richmond, Va. as our American hometown, they didn't realize the city had a pre-existing condition: nostalgia for the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Growing up, the ghosts of the Old South were everywhere — rebel flags waving from pickup trucks, monuments along the city's main avenue. More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, the city is still coming to terms with its past, and an inextinguishable part of that past is the song "Dixie."

    O, I wish I was in the land of cotton
    Old times there are not forgotten
    Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land

    " 'Dixie' is born nostalgic. If you think about what the lyrics say, it's something that's already been lost," Civil War historian and fellow Richmonder Ed Ayers explains. "So it's sort of mingled with this political longing of losing the ill-fated rebellion against the United States."

    Ayers has been at the forefront of Richmond's reckoning with its past: This, who presided over the Confederate States of America from Richmond for four years. After the South lost the war, Davis sought to reframe his nation's demise as an honorable defeat; as Ayers explains, "His great cause became denying that slavery was the center of the Civil War. This is the engine that kept running long after the war."

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from NPR

    NPR3 min read
    Renowned Painter And Pioneer Of Minimalism Frank Stella Dies At 87
    Frank Stella was one of America's leading minimalist artists and a pioneer of the minimalist movement of the early 1960s. The movement challenged the idea that art was meant to be representative.
    NPR7 min read
    She Survived The 1970 Kent State Shooting. Here's Her Message To Student Activists
    On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State students, killing four and wounding nine. A former student who now teaches there reflects on that day and offers lessons for protesters now.
    NPR4 min readInternational Relations
    Senior UN Official Says Northern Gaza Is Now In 'Full-blown Famine'
    Cindy McCain, the American director of the U.N. World Food Program, became the most prominent official so far to declare that trapped civilians in northern Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.

    Related Books & Audiobooks