User:WhisperToMe/The South Was Right!

The South Was Right! was a book by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy, published by Pelican Publishing Company. The book was written to defend the Confederate States of America (CSA).

Content
Adam H. Domby, in The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory, described the book as having "overtly proslavery" and ahistorical talking points;

It argued that slavery did not involve significant coercion, and supported the Lost Cause talking point about slavery not being the most important cause of the American Civil War.

The book places an emphasis on African-Americans who fought for the CSA to negate the arguments made by people opposing pro-Lost Cause talking points. John Stauffer of Harvard University stated that the number of black armed soldiers in the Confederacy was around 3,000-10,000, which was, in probability, below 1% of the CSA Army and below 1% of African-American men in the Confederacy who were of the ages in which soldiers were taken from. Stauffer also stated that many of the black soldiers were forced to serve and did not have true loyalty to the Confedeate cause.

Release
Adam H. Domby, in The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory, published in 2020, stated that bookshops, including national chains, still frequently had copies of this book.

Reception
Bryan Giemza of Randolph-Macon College stated that the work was "instantly-controversial" when it was released. By 1999, the book sold 500,000 copies.

Domby described the book as a "Neo-Confederate screed".

David E. Hardin, the news editor of The Tampa Tribune, stated that the work is "A respite from Yankee history".

According to Giemza, the work is "the kind of book that Chapel Hillians love to hate."