"The Negro Students Came to Fight": Black Student Protest against Lost Cause Symbolism, 1965–90

School desegregation was not a singular event at any school. By the early 1970s, it was evident that beyond a simplistic confrontation between Black and white students lay a more entangled battle over cultural history and memory. This was perhaps most evident in the tumultuous battles that occurred across K-12 and college campuses over symbols of the Confederacy and remnants of the Lost Cause. Recently integrated schools sometimes retained “Rebel” mascots, played “Dixie” in their bands and Confederate flags were often part of these schools’ visual iconography. The presence of these symbols signaled to many Black students and parents the fraught and incomplete nature of true integration.

Black students were often punished for their unwillingness to cede ground to displays or traditions they found racist and unrepresentative of their history. Students were suspended or even threatened with expulsion for their nonviolent challenges of Confederate nostalgia. Occasionally, however, altercations over Confederate symbolism turned violent. In St. Petersburg Florida in 1971, Black students protested Confederate symbols by displaying symbols of Black Power and cheerleaders resigned over the continued use of “Rebel” as the mascot and the presence of the Confederate Flag. This tension boiled over when an 80-car motorcade of white students displaying the flag led to a physical altercation with Black counter-protesters who saw the flag as a threat.

This paper argues that underneath these acts of protest and refusal was an assertion of Black-centered memory and countermemory of the Civil War. These students were part of a longer tradition of challenging the Lost Cause alongside contemporary activism. Black students contested the Lost Cause while pushing for a full integration of hostile educational institutions.