“A Monument of Disenfranchisement”: Inventing Black Commemorative Authority in the Mammy Monument Controversy

Abstract This essay turns to an early 1920s controversy over a proposed Lost Cause Mammy monument to examine how Black activists crafted their collective commemorative authority over Mammy and her memory. It uses 15 letters and editorials published across several Black press publications to argue activists deployed a complex series of dissociations to displace dominant memory of Mammy and craft their commemorative authority. Activists split the singular, powerful memory of Mammy reified by Lost Cause mythology at several points to uncover a critical alternative, a vision of her in accord with Black freedom. This essay extends existing scholarship on critical memory by inflecting it with an emphasis on authority and revealing how traditionally subaltern stories of the past can gain public influence. Additionally, this case offers lessons for modern activists seeking to discredit renewed white supremacist histories.