Confederate Memorial Day in Los Angeles

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Last Saturday was Confederate Memorial Day. Now when talking about Rebel graves, most people associate Hollywood with the cemetery in Richmond. But here in Hollywood California we have our very own Confederate monument - at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica Blvd. - a mere few blocks from Cosmic America HQ.

As I have mentioned, a good many Civil War veterans moved west after the war to seek their fortunes or otherwise benefit from the perfect...yes perfect climate we enjoy here in Southern California. They did a lot of the same things their comrades did in the East - they formed organizations and participated in Civil War commemorative activities. When they died, many were buried in plots throughout the area maintained by their organizations. In the case of the Confederate plot and monument in Hollywood Forever, we can thank the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Saturday's turnout was pretty light. In the Daughters' defense, there was a big reenactment going on at Pierce College, which more than likely lured the main Confederate contingent to the Valley. And there was little else alerting the general pubic to the event. As you may remember, the Daughters' have had some trouble in the past with issues concerning placement of Confederate flags at the cemetery - they fought and won a case to allow for such activities.

But from what I understand, the Daughters want the event to fly under the radar anyway. On the Thursday prior to the event, I briefly discussed Saturday's ceremony with UDC representative Margaret Alley. She was hesitant to publicize the event for fear of vandalism. In her words..."The neighborhood has gotten...well...shall we say..."dark" over the years - if you know what I mean." She feared that these "dark" (again...her word, not mine) people would take offense to Confederate activity and damage their monument. I'll let you make what you will of Ms. Alley's comments. But I think you can get the drift.

Below are a number of pictures from Saturday's memorial festivities. I'll place some video on my Youtube channel in short order - so you can get the full experience.



Deo Vindice (maybe)

Keith

Mystery Veteran F. A. Whitehead - Not Quite as Mysterious

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Remember last week when I by happenstance discovered a Civil War veteran's tombstone at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery? I wanted to find out who he was and how he found himself in Hollywood in the early twentieth century. I poked around on the Internet for a bit but quickly grew impatient -  so I turned to my fellow Civil War bloggers for assistance. They got back to me in short order. So thanks Robert Moore and Andy Hall!

Here is what they found: According to the 1920 census, New Yorkers Frederick A. Whitehead and his wife, Agnes were residing in Los Angeles - most likely on Carlton Way, what is now an affluent neighborhood north of Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood. I am not yet certain what he was doing in L. A., but I now have a pretty interesting wartime story.

It seems that Whitehead enlisted in Co. B of the 1st New York Mounted Rifles in October 1861, which means he would have seen plenty of action in the Virginia theater of war. By January 1863, Whitehead was listed as a deserter...but turned up as a masters mate in the Navy the following year, serving aboard the U.S.S. Narragansett. He resigned in March, 1865.

Was Whitehead a deserter? It may just be a matter of interpretation. In 1891, he successfully had his name cleared of any wrongdoing through an act of congress. He claimed he had been a minor at the time of enlistment and thus discharged. This was actually not true - he was 18 years old. But one thing suggests that at least he thought he was in the clear to "leave" the Army and transfer to the Navy - he enlisted in the Navy with his real name. Could allegations of desertion simply have been a paperwork mix-up?

After the war he spent some time in Fort Meade, Florida and is noted in a book on Polk County:

Capt. F. A. Whitehead, one of Fort Meade’s leading and most active and influential citizens, has a delightful residence amid towering oaks and a fruitful orange grove, in the heart of the village. He also has a variety of pleasing growths, such as Japanese plums and persimmons, Peen-To-peaches, lemons, limes, pine-apples, strawberries, bananas, mangos, sapadillos, grapes of numerous kinds, flowers in great variety, and other things too numerous to mention. He also has large number of acres of the choicest citrus fruits in grove. A native of New York City, he has made good use of his thirteen years in Florida. Resigning his position in the navy at the close of the war, he made a thorough acquaintance of California, and has been in the fruit and stock business ever since, yet having a farm in Delaware. He prefers Florida to any State, has large tracts here and is doing a very extensive real-estate business.

The whole "captain" thing appears to be a post-war self appointment, as was practiced by many veterans (think of all the ex-Confederate "colonels" running around!). And it was more than likely the citrus business that brought him to California. In the early-twentieth century, the motion picture industry was still in its infancy - Hollywood was covered with lemon and orange groves!

So my next step is to begin searching locally, to see what I can find out about the Whiteheads and their work here in Southern California. His tombstone clearly indicates that he was proud of his service in the Army and Navy - if he was involved in veterans' affairs in L.A., he may very well have had some interesting things to say about being a Yankee westerner. Time...and a lot of digging...will certainly tell. So stay tuned as the story unfolds.

Peace,

Keith

Office Hours: Where is Hattie McDaniel Buried?

[caption id="attachment_2103" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Hattie McDaniel's house on W. 22nd St. in Los Angeles"][/caption]

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

An anonymous emailer wanted to know - so I did my homework and figured it out. You can find Hattie McDaniel's grave, not in Hollywood Forever where she wanted to be buried, but in Rosedale Cemetery off of Washington Street in Los Angeles. Racism dogged McDaniel to her grave. At the 1939 Academy Awards ceremony, where she won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone With the Wind, she and her husband had to sit in a separate area outside the segregated main auditorium. In 1942, she had to launch a class action suit to purchase a home in what was then an exclusive all-white neighborhood - on the corner of W. 22nd Street and Harvard Avenue. When she died in 1952, Hollywood Forever, where she wished to be interred, was reserved for white people.

[caption id="attachment_2104" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind"][/caption]

And thus her final resting place is Rosedale, established in 1892 - one of the few cemeteries in Los Angeles that allowed black interments. You can easily find her modest headstone today - near the Washington St. entrance and just to the left of the driveway. There is nothing there denoting her accomplishments either as an actress or an activist. Just her name and years of birth and death. While she is not surrounded by Hollywood superstars as she would have been at Hollywood Forever, she is in good company. Buried within Rosedale's 65 acres are several Civil War veterans, some of note, and a number of Los Angeles mayors and other prominent citizens.

Peace,
Keith

PS - Youtube blocked my original video, which featured McDaniel's Oscar acceptance speech. Here is a clip (strangely, available on Youtube).

Confederate Veterans at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

After years of living Los Angeles - within blocks of Hollywood Forever Cemetery, I thought it would be a good idea to find their Confederate monument. Here, surrounding a modest monument to the soldiers of the Confederate Army, one can find the graves of about 30 Rebel soldiers together with a handful of United Daughters of the Confederacy. From what I understand, each year the Daughters hold a memorial exercise near the monument - I have to find out when it is...so I can show up and record it for posterity. I mean...stuff like this needs to be seen by the rest of the world.

Anyway, when I was looking into this monument this morning, I found out that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had issued a "Heritage Violation" against Hollywood Forever for disallowing the placement of Confederate flags on these Rebel graves. Here is the blog post - attacking those pesky "liberals" and demanding satisfaction. Whatever.

Still, it got me thinking. What exactly is a Heritage Violation and how does one go about getting one? Well, I checked with the Sons of Confederate Veterans General Headquarters website and found out "Any attack upon Confederate Heritage, or the flags, monuments, and symbols which represent it, can be termed a Heritage Violation." Well - I suppose that I need to be careful then. It seems that I may already have committed several of these right here on Cosmic America. Maybe even leaning (as pictured above) on a Rebel monument with such affected nonchalance could be a violation. I'll have to check into it.

My SCV friends will need to report me as soon as possible, according to the rules and regulations - because "The more time which passes between a heritage violation and any SCV response, the less likely we [the UCV]are to be successful in correcting the situation."

If you really feel the need to report me - you can do so by following these instructions. At any rate - I had a good time today checking out how much Los Angeles has to offer in terms of Civil War history - there is more here than you might think. We have a major street named after General Rosecrans and everything! And in the end - my own Confederate ancestors would be thrilled that I live so close to a Rebel monument. I even saw a few Alabama soldiers there!

I also understand the the great city of Pasadena has a Civil War monument. I think that will be my next stop. See you then!

Keith

A Word or Two about the Premiere of The Birth of a Nation

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

In February, 1915, The Clansman, later titled The Birth of a Nation premiered at the Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles. I want to say just a few words about one: the public reaction and two: how we think about this film today.

Now, if you have been paying attention, you know that the film is as racist as it can be. For example, there are scenes depicting shoeless black people dancing, eating chicken, and leering at white women while serving in the South Carolina legislature during Reconstruction. If that's not enough - there are plenty of scenes of blacks lusting after white women (who have to kill themselves to avoid being raped).

By our standards, this film is an easy target. But the usual analysis by film historians is pretty flat. It goes something like this: Yes - the film is racist but innovative at the same time. Griffith set the bar for future film makers...blah blah blah. How much longer are film scholars going to keep blathering on about the same old stuff?

Scholars of Civil War history have looked at this film too. Some of them (myself NOT included) have noted that the film was met across the (white) nation with a sort of general acceptance. White people (North and South) in 1915 seemed to agree that Reconstruction was a bad deal for the South and that blacks should have been kept in their places. Thus these white people could relate to the "heroic" KKK in the film's climax.

One reviewer at the 1915 LA premiere made a note of it. The audience applauded at scenes of whites triumphing over blacks attempting to assert their rights.

As modern observers, we have a tendency to recognize the widespread racism existing in 1915 and believe that most white people would get on board with the film's message. After all - The Birth of a Nation was a tremendous success all over the country - not just in the South.

But that may not be exactly right. Sure, white northerners were certainly racists by our standards but that didn't mean they supported the Confederate cause or the white South after the fact. Only 50 years earlier loyal citizens of the United States had fought a war to suppress a rebellion and the degeneration of law and order that the Confederate cause had represented. A film about mob rule was not necessarily a welcome thing. And just to add fuel to the fire, some of these guys who had shouldered muskets for the Union were still around to vent their anger!

And their legacy was still around too. Members of Union veterans' organizations like the GAR made sure that US citizens knew what that war had been about. And they were not about to let a Confederate interpretation take hold that easily.

Stick around friends - I'll be back to talk more about this as my research progresses.
Keith