Navigating Heir Disputes over the New American South: Confederate Memorials and Media Framing of Black Mayoral Leadership Against Symbols of White Authoritarianism

Tyson King-Meadows (), Vishakha Agarwal and Priscilla Nakandi Nalubula
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Tyson King-Meadows: Department of Political Science, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA 23504, USA
Vishakha Agarwal: John W. McCormack School of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA
Priscilla Nakandi Nalubula: Department of Political Science, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-25

Abstract: Contrary to what other mayors had done to deal with calls to remove Confederate monuments in their cities, the first Black woman mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina appointed a 2020 commission to evaluate and make recommendations for dealing with the monument controversy. As the state’s largest city and “international gateway” to the New South, Charlotte had long wrestled with tensions over cultural memory. Utilizing a mixed methods “embedded design” case study approach, this article examines quantitative and qualitative data, including an analysis of newspaper articles from The Charlotte Observer and The Raleigh News & Observer , to ascertain public reaction to the commission. Results show that media accounts often framed the city’s monument controversy as reflecting the locale’s new sociodemographic reality, a euphemism for lingering conflicts in the jurisdiction over cultural memory, heritage claims, electoral representation, race, and monumentality.

Keywords: Confederate monuments; black leadership; elections; public opinion; race; urban politics; white supremacy; newspaper analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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