 Official badge, depicting the "Stars and Bars", the first flag of the Confederacy | |
 | |
| Abbreviation | UDC |
|---|---|
| Established | September 10, 1894 |
| Founders | |
| Founded at | Nashville, Tennessee |
| Type | 501(c)(3), charitable organization, lineage society |
| 54-0631483 | |
| Headquarters | Richmond, Virginia |
| Coordinates | 37°33′26″N 77°28′26″W / 37.5571518°N 77.4738453°W |
Membership (2015) | 19,000 |
| Jinny Widowski | |
| Publication | UDC Magazine |
| Subsidiaries | Children of the Confederacy |
| Website | hqudc |
Formerly called | National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy |
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate[1] hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.[2][3][4][5][6]
Established in Nashville, Tennessee in 1894, the group venerated the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era, and in 1926, a local chapter funded the construction of a monument to the Klan.[7][8][9] According to the Institute for Southern Studies, the UDC "elevated [the Klan] to a nearly mythical status. It dealt in and preserved Klan artifacts and symbology. It even served as a sort of public relations agency for the terrorist group."[7] The organization restricted membership to whites at one time, but later lifted the requirement. As of 2011, there were 23 so-called "Real Daughters" (that is, actual children of Confederate veterans) still living, one of whom was black.[10] There are no longer any living children of Civil War veterans. The last, Irene Triplett, died in 2020.
The group's headquarters are in the Memorial to the Women of the Confederacy building in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital city of the Confederate States. In May 2020, the building was damaged by fire during the George Floyd protests.[11][12]
- ^ "Neo-Confederate". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
- ^ Mills & Simpson 2003.
- ^ Elder, Angela Esco (2010). "United Daughters of the Confederacy". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
- ^ Murrin, John M.; Johnson, Paul E.; McPherson, James M.; Fahs, Alice; Gerstle, Gary (2014). Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People. concise 6th ed.: Cengage Learning. p. 425. ISBN 978-1285545974.
They refused to let go of the legacy of the defeated plantation South. They celebrated the Lost Cause by organizing fraternal and sororal organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), whose members decorated the graves of Confederate soldiers, funded public statutes of Confederate heroes, and preserved a romanticized vision of the slavery era.
- ^ Lampen, Claire (August 17, 2017). "White women helped build the Confederate statues sparking conflict across the South". Mic (media company). Retrieved September 16, 2018.
- ^ Cox, Karen L. (August 16, 2017). "The whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy". Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 20, 2017. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
- ^ a b Huffman, Greg (June 8, 2018). "The group behind Confederate monuments also built a memorial to the Klan". Facing South. The Institute for Southern Studies.
- ^ Holloway, Kali (November 3, 2018). "Time to Expose the Women Still Celebrating the Confederacy". The Daily Beast.
- ^ Cox 2003, p. 2.
- ^ Jones, Jessica (August 7, 2011). "After Years Of Research, Confederate Daughter Arises". NPR.
- ^ Robinson, Lynda (May 31, 2020). "Robert E. Lee statue and Daughters of Confederacy building attacked by Richmond protesters". Washington Post.
- ^ Cox, Karen L. (August 6, 2020). "Setting the Lost Cause on Fire". Historians.org. American Historical Association. Retrieved December 6, 2020.