Confederates in the Cul de Sac: exploring race and neighborhood names in the southern United States

In this article, we make three contributions to our understanding of place-based Confederate commemoration. First, we demonstrate that neighborhoods are a widespread yet understudied site of Confederate commemoration through an inventory of 297 southern United States neighborhoods commemorating the Confederacy (NCCs) with neighborhood or street names. Second, informed by critical toponomy, we use Citation2020 U.S. Census data to test two hypotheses regarding the relationship between Confederate commemoration and neighborhood racial composition: (a) NCCs house larger proportions of white residents than do other neighborhoods; and (b) NCC populations are more likely to surpass the 85% white threshold with which we define white spaces. Sociologists apply the term white space to social settings such as overwhelmingly white neighborhoods in which whiteness is normalized, and Black people are marginalized. Findings vary by geographical context. Outside metropolitan areas, Census data support both hypotheses. Within metropolises’ urban cores, however, the hypotheses’ directionality is reversed: Black residents comprise larger percentages of NCCs than of other neighborhoods. Third, to gain perspective on these divergent findings, we present selected case studies of neighborhood origins and their demographic trajectories. These vignettes suggest ways that Confederate commemoration intersects with race and racial politics in the ongoing negotiation of community identity.