SC black Confederates monuments proposed

Two Upstate legislators want to erect a Confederate monument at the South Carolina Statehouse — the country's first-ever honoring black soldiers who purportedly fought for the South. Historians point out that most African-Americans in the Confederate ranks were slaves forced into the military service. "The stories about slaves in the war have been distorted to make them out to be soldiers. The myth of the lost cause allows white Southerners to reconfigure what war is about — that it's not about slavery,” said historian Kevin Levin. But one of the bill’s sponsors said some free blacks voluntarily enlisted. • Article