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Controversial soldiers
Controversy surrounds research on black
Confederate fighters' lives, legacies
. BY RACHEL ZOLL
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS . ' ? ? __!/?
\ 7
CHATTA\OCXi A, Tenn. Past the rack of pistols at the Tennessee
Civil War Museum and the video on tiring a cannon is a grainy 1861
photo of , Andrew and Silas Chandler.
Both wear Confederate gray. Both hold swords in their right hand's
and guns in their left. Both are about to go into battle.
But this is no ordinary picture of Southern loyalists. Silas is black and
Andrew is his white master.
The photo is part of a display maybe the only one of its kind in a
museum nationwide stating at least 35.000 blacks fought in the 1.2 mil
lion man Confederate army
It's a politically loaded claim that many historians say is inaccurate.
"The numbers are vastly overinflated." said William Blair, director of
the Civil War Era Center at Pennsylvania State yjniversity. "There are
people who want to distance slavery as the cause of the vyar. This feeds
nicely into that whole, view."
Craig Hadley. who designed the privately-owned Chattanooga muse
um which opened last year, believes critics are try ing to bury a sensitive
topic.
"Nobody wants to acknowledge these people because they fought on
the wrong side.'" said Hadley. a Southern Adventist University professor.
Historians agree that some blacks enlisted as Confederates, even
though the South banned them from the army until the desperate few
months before the war ended. No one know s for-sure why they joined up.
Some may have thought of themselves as Southerners first or believed
they would be given money, land or even their freedom in exchange for
lighting, said historian Ervin Jordan, author of "Black Confederates and
Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia." w
Some may have felt lpyal to their owners or pretended to be loyal to
join the troops and plot their escape, he said. Others may have been influ
enced by talk of undisciplined Union soldiers mistreating blacks on their
march. i -
And free blacks who owned land may have wanted to protect their
property.
The Louisiana Native Guards, a group of relatively prosperous free
blacks in New Orleans, volunteered in 1861 to fight for the Confederacy.
But after the North took control of the city a year later, the regiments
reversed course, volunteering for the Union.
"The bottom line is most White "Southerners did not trust black
Southerners but they were willing to consider the use of blacks in the mil
itary to save the Confederacy from defeat."/Jordan said.
The research gets murkier when historians try to coiint the number of
black Confederates. Estimates range from a few hundred to more than
50.000.
Thousands of free men and slaves served the Southern army as labor
ers. cooks and musicians and may have been armed. Many were so-called
body servants slaves like Silas Chandler who traveled with their owners
as personal attendants and often carried guns for protection.
John McGlone. president of Southern Heritage Press and an editor of
the journal "Black Southerners in Gray," is among those who believe
such laborers should be counted as soldiers, even if their masters forced
them into the war.
"When you do get a battle commencing it all becomes a big blur," said
McGlone. a history lecturer at Motlow State Community College in Tul
lahoma. "Often, they got involved in battles even though their normal
role was support."
But many historians find this approach illegitimate, saying armed
forces always make a distinction between soldiers and support crew.
"I would say that while the distinction was blurred around the edges,
it was still a distinction." said Civil War historian James McPherson,
author of the Pulit/er Prize-winning book "Battle Cry of Freedom."
Adding to the confusion are sparse war records in which some sol
diers are identified by nothing more than their initials.
There are eyewitness accounts of black sharpshooters and combat
ants. But new spaper reports often were biased, w ritten by journalists who
never saw battles and-took their information from bragging soldiers as
they returned to camp. McPherson said.
Documents from burial details also were unreliable, as crews often
reported finding "negro corpses" when the bodies simply had turned
black after hours in the sun. McPherson said.
Jordan traced the origin of one well-known account of Southern
troops at Gettysburg with a "colored flag bearer" and discovered the eye
witness actually had written of a "flag bearer bearing the colors."
Records of pensions awarded to hundreds of black Confederate vet
" erans raise more questions. Blacks applied as laborers, but Jordan said he
came across documents where blacks had crossed out "soldier" since they
officially had been banned from combat and written "body servant"
Sei Confederates ?n A9
I : 1
Correction
,
In last week's edition, credit wasn't given for the photograph of
Dr. Larry Hopkins that appeared in the Community Focus section.
$ The photo of Hopkins was taken by Tanisha Bailey.
i INDEX I
OPINION _ _A6
SPORTS __ __ __ _ ?t
RELIGION _ _ B7
CLASSIFIEDS. Bit
HEALTH _ C3
ENTERTAINMENT _ C7
CALENDAR AIO
This Week In Black History...
Oct. 28, 19/4 - Omega Psi Phi Fraternity is incorporated.
Oct. 30, 1954 - Six years after President Harry Truman issued
an order to desegregate the military, the Defense Department
announces that all units in the armed forces are desegregated.
Nov. 1, 1945 - The first issue of Ebony magazine is published.
Nov. 2, 1983 - President Ronald Reagan signs a bill to establish
a federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Rev. Mar
tin Luther King's birthday.
Third dragging death defendant heads to trial
BYC. BRYSON HULL
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JASPER, Texas - Jury selec
tion began today in the trial of the
last of three white men charged
with the horrific slaying of James
Byrd Jr., a black East Texas man
who was chained and dragged to
his death behind a pickup truck
more than 16 months ago.
Shawn Allen Berry, 24, whose
family roots are three generations
deep in Jasper, hoped a jury of his
peers would be'more sympathetic
than they were to either of his co
defendants.
Jurors will be asked to choose
which is the real Berry - a home
town boy who was in the wrong
place with the wrong people, or a
thrill-seeking killer who got caught
up in a frenzy of racist rage.
Berry's two co-defendants and
roommates, John William King
and Lawrence Russell Brewer, were
convicted of Byrd's murder and
sent to death row.
The three white men - who
have suspected ties to the Ku Klux
Klan - were accused of chaining
Byrd, 49, to the bumper of Berry's
pickup truck and dragging him
over three miles of bumpy country
road on June 7, 1998. Byrd's head,
neck and right arm were shorn off.
Five hundred jurors were ini
tially called up. and some 170
crammed into Judge Joe Bob
Golden's court today. Attorneys
must cull a panel of 14 from the
group - 12 jurors and two alter
nates. ,
"I don't know whether he is a
good person at all. but I know he is
better than those other two. He is
not a racist like the others," said
CompUSA to
BY JANELLE CARTER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A protest
urging CompUSA to advertise
with black-oriented media has
ended with the nation's largest
computer
retailer
promising
to hire a
black
' o w n e d
advertising
firm and
offer store
discounts to
the protest
ers.
"We're
Joyner
using urban radio, just not to the
extent we should be," CompUSA
chief executive Jim Halpin said
Tuesday on "The Tom Joyner
Morning Show," a radio program
that galvanized the protest. "I got
bad advice but it wasn't bad
intended."
Since the protest began 10
weeks ago, the Dallas-based retail
' er has been inundated with calls
and letters, Halpin said. Host
Joyner and Black Entertainment
Television commentator Tavis
Smiley, a regular on the show,
urged listeners to send the compa
ny cash register receipts from their
purchases at CompUSA to illus
trate black buyers' impact on the .
company's bottom line.
"A lot of your customers actu
ally took time to send in receipts."
said Halpin, who is offering a 10
percent store discount to all those
who mailed receipts.
The issue of equality for blacks
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Associated Press photo
Family members of James Byrd Jr. talk to reporters after the sentencing of John William King. King was
sentenced to death for the 1998 dragging death of Byrd. Jury selection began Monday in the trial of
Shawn Allen Berry, 24. Investigators believe Berry's truck was used in the murder.
Betty Hamilton, a retiree who lives
in Jasper.
That will make proving a racist
motive difficult, prosecutors
acknowledge.
"Motive in this case is either
m * * *
one of two things: he lived with
these Klansmen and developed
their way of thinking, or he's a
thrill-seeker who got caught up in
the killing like he was in a pack of
dogs," Jasper County District
Attorney Guy James Gray said.
Berry's co-defendants were
easy to paint as racist killers. Both
were ex-convicts and adorned with
white-supremacist tattoos.
See Trial on A9
I ?" ?
hire black ad agency alter radio campaign
h . . ' ' -?
Joyner, Smiley use radio, TV to prove spending power of blacks
is not a new one for the show
which has emerged as a voice on
black issues. It is broadcast by
ABC Radio Network to more than
100 stations.
In the past, outcry from the
show's listeners has been pivotal in
prodding the award of a Congres
sional Gold Medal to civil rights
Dioneer Rosa Parks and a decision
Ho remove slave memorabilia from
a scheduled auctipn at Christie's in
New York.
The CompUSA matter
stemmed from a dispute a yeaj)ago
involving the Katz Media Group,
which sells advertising time for
hundreds of radio stations nation
wide. Katz issued a memo advising
clients to limit advertising on sta
tions targeting black or Latino
audiences because "advertisers
want prospects, not suspects."
The memo galvanized a coali
tion of black and Latino broad
casters and activists.
As part of discussions to
resolve that dispute, Katz agreed
to identify companies that did not
do significant business with black
media. CompUSA was one of
those companies cited, according
to Smiley.
The company has not given
specifics on its advertising budget.
"I thought I was hitting black
America. We had advertised on
black stations and you showed us
that's not enough." Halpin said
Tuesday. "I want to sell computers
to anyone who walks in the door."
While the argument between
the show and CompUSA was over, '
there was still tension between the
ABC Radio Network and the pro
gram.
"ABC did tell us they were
See CompUSA on A9
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