Edward H. Sebesta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Henri Sebesta is an anti-neo-Confederate activist and researcher from Dallas, Texas. He has written for a variety of publications, spoken in person, and been quoted as an expert on the movement by several media sources, such as Pacifica Radio and Salon.com.

1 Beliefs
2 Criticism of Sebesta
3 Sebesta's Theory of Southern Identity
4 External links

[edit] Beliefs

Sebesta's activism includes campaigns to remove historical monuments and statues featuring Confederate generals as well as buildings and parks named after Confederate and southern historical figures. He began his campaign in 1992 when he petitioned the City of Dallas, where he lives, for the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue from a city park there. On August 6, 1992 the Dallas City Parks board voted against Sebesta's request by 13 to 0.^{[citation needed]}

After this defeat, Sebesta created his website at www.templeofdemocracy.org and began campaigning against Confederate-themed issues. Sebesta's profile increased in the late 1990's when various political personalities began interviewing him on Confederate flag controversies. He was interviewed on Pacifica and the Alan Colmes radio show in 1999 and helped historian James Loewen with research for his book Lies Across America. In the early 2000s he gave more anti-Confederate interviews to groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Institute for Southern Studies.

Sebesta now maintains a voter guide of candidates who he says support neo-confederate causes and he also runs a blog. His organization advocates removing street signs from U.S. Highway 1, named the Jefferson Davis Highway, as well as dozens of lesser known streets. Sebesta advocates boycotts of companies he deems friendly to Confederate causes including Tommy Hilfiger, which he accuses of secretly incorporating Confederate insignia into their clothing lines.^{[citation needed]} He has also called for cutting federal cemetery maintenance of Confederate soldiers' tombstones.^{[citation needed]}

Sebesta identifies alleged neo-Confederates with many modern political movements. Sebesta has written articles accusing neo-Confederates of attempting to infiltrate the environmentalism movement and writes that "homophobia is integral to the Neo-Confederacy."[1]

Sebesta believes that opposition to homosexual issues is closely tied to support for the Confederate States of America. Many of his essays focus on an alleged connection between homophobia and groups he deems neo-confederate.[2] According to Sebesta: "Confederate symbols as the tools of Confederate ideology are a threat to Lesbians and gays." Sebesta claims that in the homosexual community "interracial dating is much more accepted as is dating across class boundaries." He says "this fluid mixing challenges the Confederate hierarchical idea of society with its many divisions of race, class, and ethnic groups," which he believes causes neo-confederates to view gays and lesbians as a "subversive threat."[3]

[edit] Criticism of Sebesta

Sebesta is a controversial figure on the Usenet, where he frequently posts news releases from his organization. Critics there charge that Sebesta makes abusive allegations of "neo-confederate" or "racist" sympathies.^{[citation needed]} Civil War historians and academics who are active on usenet are among Sebesta's main critics, including those who have political beliefs similar to Sebesta's.^{[citation needed]} Two of his main critics -- who also consider themselves to be opponents of neoconfederates -- are Civil War historian Brooks D. Simpson of Arizona State University, and Mathematician James Epperson, who is also an amateur Civil War historian. Simpson says that Sebesta uses the same "tactics much like the white supremacists he deplores." According to Simpson:

"In fact, Ed has no credentials worth considering, and it's best to understand his comments as an expression of envy."[4] +

[edit] Sebesta's Theory of Southern Identity

In Sebesta's view, southern identity is a form of false consciousness supported and maintained by the Neo-Confederate movement.[5]By discrediting Neo-Confederates and their organizations, Sebesta means to destroy the effectiveness of their propaganda apparatus, which he believes is the evangelist of southern identity.[6]The propaganda apparatus discredited, says Sebesta, southern identity will fade away; it will no longer provide a bulwark for reactionary politics, and the South will disappear as a self-conscious region to be replaced by more natural, benign regions, modeled on the rest of the United States. This will in turn break the political dam that hampers progressive political change. [7]

Sebesta has alleged that the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans have white supremacist agendas. The UDC describes Sebesta as a "hater of all things Confederate" and describes his charges as abusive and slanderous.[8]