ECHOES OF NEO CONFEDERACY WHITE SUPREMACY AND CONFEDERATE MEMORIALIZATION The book, “Echoes of the Confederacy,” was published by Viola Cobb Bivins, of Longview, Texas, in 1950, manufactured by Banks, Upshaw and Company of Dallas, Texas.1 The book was selected as “Book of the Year,” by the UDC at their General (national) Convention in Richmond, Virginia in 1950.2 The Minutes for the 1950 UDC convention report: The report of the Southern Literature for Home and Foreign Libraries was read by Mrs. Ferguson Cary, Chairman and accepted. Mrs. Cary presented Mrs. J.K. Bivens, Longview, Texas, author of “Echoes of the Confederacy” and Miss Isabell Arnold, niece of Stonewall Jackson, who plans to re-publish “Early Life and Letters of Stonewall Jackson,” by Thomas Jackson Arnold, her father.3 While at the Richmond UDC convention she was honored with a luncheon by the Washington, D.C. Division of the UDC.4 She was the subject of a sympathetic article, “UDC Delegate Still Fights For South Via Typewriter,” in the Richmond Times-Dispatch during the UDC convention in Richmond.5 The book was favorably received and viewed by the members of the UDC. It received supportive and sympathetic reviews in the Montgomery Advertiser which recommended as, “a good book for use in programs at U.D.C. meetings, church groups, study clubs, etc.”6 The Dallas Morning News reviewed it sympathetically.7 The Fort-Worth Star-Telegram titled their sympathetic review, “Ideals, Motives of Confederacy for Posterity.”8 The Longview NewsJournal gave it a favorable review.9 She had been president of the Texas Division UDC in 1925 and re-elected as president in 1926.10
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See front pages of the book, “Echoes of the Confederacy,” by Viola Cobb Bivins, Longview, Texas, 1950. Editorial, “A Patriot Passes,” Longview News-Journal, Longview, Texas, Sept. 4, 1951, page 4. 3 “Minutes of the Fifty-Seventh Annual Convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Held at Richmond, Virginia, Nov. 12-17, 1950,” Pp. 71 4 “Mrs. J.K. Bivins of Longview Honored by UDC,” AP Special Washington Service, The Kilgore News Herald, (Kilgore, Texas), Nov. 21, 1950, page 2. Though the article says Washington Division there has never been a Washington Division of the UDC, and the article is referring to Washington, D.C. 5 “UDC Delegate Still Fights For South Via Typewriter,” Times-Dispatch, Nov. 17, 1950, page 31. 6 “About the South, For Southerners,” Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 7, 1951. 7 “Books in Brief,” Dallas Morning News, Sept. 9, 1950, page 7. 8 “Ideals, Motives of Confederacy For Posterity,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 29, 1951, page 29. 9 Mixon, Rita, “ ‘Echoes of the Confederacy,’ Mrs. J.K. Bivins’ New Book,” Longview News-Journal, May 28, 1950, page 3. 10 Dust Jacket for the book, “Echoes of the Confederacy,” by Viola Cobb Bivins, Longview, Texas, 1950. 2
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The book is based on writings by past Historian Generals of the UDC and on writings in the Confederate Veteran, which was the official publication of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), UDC, Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), and Confederated Memorial Associations of the South. As Bivins explains in a preface titled, “Appreciation”: This is a compilation of material consisting of truths of history studied and revealed through many years by our devoted historians of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The studies were inspired in the beginning by General Robert E. Lee, inspired also by Colonel S.A. Cunningham, founder of the Confederate Veteran publication which has rectified much false writing of history. With the widest acknowledgment and gratitude to those from whom I have consciously or unconsciously borrowed.11 The first four chapters of this book are copied to a word, verbatim, from a speech given by the UDC Historian General Mildred Rutherford in the Municipal Hall, Dallas, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 9, 1916 to the UDC General (National) convention. The speech was printed with the title, “The Civilization of the Old South: What Made It: What Destroyed It: What Has Replaced It:” You can download the 1916 pamphlet at the Internet Archive. https://ia600609.us.archive.org/26/items/addressdelivere00ruth/addressdelivere00ruth.pdf The other speeches she made at the national UDC conventions are also online there. Mildred Rutherford was the first Historian General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and continues to be revered by the UDC. The opinions expressed or quoted by Bivins in her book are the mainstream opinions of the members of the UDC and Lost Cause enthusiasts who erected the Confederate monuments across the United States of America. The book can’t be argued to be the eccentric opinion of one individual or not representative of the ideas of the UDC and those who supported Confederate monuments. In reading her book with its open support of white supremacy and its denigrating and dehumanizing racist opinions of African Americans intertwined with her enthusiasm for Confederate monuments and leaders we see how the monuments are about supporting a white supremacist ideology and view of the past. In the conclusion of the book’s preface, Bivins writes: This book is written to be of practical and inspirational use to the U.D.C. Chapters for program and research material, to Church Women’s study groups, and to families of Old South lineage who would like to brief themselves and their children in the roles their 11
“Appreciation,” unpaginated, in “Echoes of the Confederacy,” by Viola Cobb Bivins, Longview, Texas, 1950.
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ancestors played in one of the most brilliant and remarkable civilizations the world has known. [Italics in the original.]12 With this book Bivins hoped to transmit to the future the white supremacist ideology of the Confederate monuments to the future. The chapters are in separate PDFs. Some topics are flagged, but in some cases, like chapters 1,2,3, and 4.
FURTHER READING: This page has information about how the Confederacy and neo-Confederacy is about white supremacy. It has the materials that couldn’t fit in the book. http://www.confederateneoconfederatereader.com/ Later in the 1950s the UDC was part of the resistance against the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. UDC Magazine ran a series of articles against civil rights in its issues in 1959. Their opposition to civil rights is documented in the publication of The Citizens’ Council.
You can read all the issues of this publication from 1955 to 1961. You will notice that the Confederacy and how they understand its values is integral to its fight against civil rights. http://www.citizenscouncils.com/ 12
“Preface,” unpaginated, in “Echoes of the Confederacy,” by Viola Cobb Bivins, Longview, Texas, 1950.
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From the Dust Jacket: “It was a thrilling moment of my life,” states the author, “when I had the privilege of decorating six grandsons who fought the German army in World War II – the grandsons of J.K. Bivins who at the age of sixteen fought the Germans that A. Lincoln hired to trample the South in the ‘sixties.’”
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Does it matter what Robert E. Lee or Ulysses Grant did about slavery or thought about slavery? Generals fight on behalf of nations, nations don’t go to war on behalf of generals. This is a typical argument of the supporters of the Confederacy to misdirect the conversation to an irrelevant issue. Also, the historical facts are totally wrong. Lee did NOT free his slaves before the Civil War, this bogus myth circulates. What slaves he did free during the Civil War were those who he was required to do under the terms the will by which they were left to him. Before the Civil War Grant was a creditor and received a slave, Bigger Thomas, from the debtor who went bankrupt. Grant was not a good business person and wasn’t well off. But he freed Bigger Thomas. Later he did marry a woman who was part of a slave holding family. It is not clear if he had title to any of the slaves, but he was married to a woman of a slave holding family. For a good book on the bogus mythology about Robert E. Lee read Alan Nolan’s book, “Lee Considered.”
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The book is intended to be an instruction manual the history of the Confederacy and slavery for UDC chapters.
The first four chapters of this book are copied to a word, verbatim, from a speech given by the UDC Historian General Mildred Rutherford in the Municipal Hall, Dallas, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 9, 1916 to the UDC General (National) convention. The speech was printed with the title, “The Civilization of the Old South: What Made It: What Destroyed It: What Has Replaced It:� You can download the 1916 pamphlet at the Internet Archive. https://ia600609.us.archive.org/26/items/a ddressdelivere00ruth/addressdelivere00rut h.pdf The other speeches she made at the national UDC conventions are also online there.
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Lest the reader think that these defenses of slavery belong to the distant past, I direct the reader to this website where they can see offered the book “Myths of American Slavery.” http://www.kennedytwins.com/ As of 9/2/2020 he is the “Chief of Heritage Operations.” https://scv.org/heritage-operations-2/
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