WHOSE HERITAGE?

153 YEARS OF CONFEDERATE ICONOGRAPHY

The dedication of Confederate monuments and the use of Confederate names and other iconography
began shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865. But two distinct periods saw significant spikes. The
first began around 1900 as Southern states were enacting Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise African
Americans and re-segregate society after several decades of integration that followed Reconstruction.
It lasted well into the 1920s, a period that also saw a strong revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Many of these
monuments were sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The second period began
in the mid-1950s and lasted until the late 1960s, the period encompassing the modern civil rights
movement. While new monument activity has died down, since the 1980s the Sons of Confederate
Veterans has continued to erect new monuments.

SCHOOLS
MONUMENTS ON COURTHOUSE GROUNDS
ROADS
1909
MONUMENTS ON OTHER GOVERNEMNT OFFICE GROUNDS
NAACP founded
OTHER SITES (INCLUDING MONUMENTS)

1900
Various Confederate
memorial associations hold
their first national meeting
1896 1962
Plessy v. Ferguson 1915 James Meredith becomes first
Klan resurgency as African-American student to
1896 attend University of Mississippi
“Invisible Empire” 1963
Sons of Confederate
George Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse
Veterans established 1960 door” at University of Alabama
1894 Ruby Bridges is first student
United Daughters of the to desegregate New Orleans 1964
1865 Confederacy established elementary school Civil Rights Act of 1964
The first Ladies’ Memorial 1957 1965
Association formed 1889 Little Rock Nine Voting Rights Act of 1965
United Confederate
1866 Veterans established
Formation of 1954
the Ku Klux Klan Brown v. Board 1968
of Education Assassination of
Martin Luther King Jr.

1861 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2018
1861-65 1865-77 1914-19 1929-39 1941-45 1954-68
CIVIL WAR RECONSTRUCTION WWI GREAT DEPRESSION WWII CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

*This chart does not include monuments or other symbols for which the dedication dates are unknown.
The hollow circles indicate the dedication dates for symbols that now have been removed from public spaces.