I’m pleased to finally showcase a project I’ve been working on for about a week or so. After the events of Charlottesville, a number of colleges and universities have begun to reexamine their Confederate pasts. The University of Texas at Austin and Duke University both removed statues of Robert E. Lee from places of prominence, while the President of Texas A & M university announced that the university would not take down its statue of Sul Ross, a Confederate General who led the university after the Civil War. In part to flex my data visualization muscles, and also because I think it is important that students, faculty, staff, and alumni know if there is a monument to the Confederacy on their campuses, I’ve cataloged all of the college campus-based Confederate memorials I could find on the map below.

[embedit snippet=”confederates-on-campus-project-map”]

In the map, you’ll see three kinds of markers. The first, a teal cannon represents those memorials, statues, and buildings that honor Confederate veterans for their conduct in the Civil War. Purple mortarboard hats represent memorials to college benefactors or leaders who also were Confederate veterans or supporters. Those memorials don’t honor their subjects for their support of the South in the Civil War, but for other deeds entirely. A great example of this kind of monument is Clemson University. The namesake of the university, Thomas Green Clemson was a Confederate soldier and married John C. Calhoun’s daughter. However, the university is named after him because of a substantial gift of money and land he gave to found the institution – not because of his Confederate past. Lastly, orange crosses represent the memorials – like those at Texas and at Duke – that have been relocated or removed. Clicking on any of the icons will bring up a popup box with a description of the memorial. You can click the name of the monument to see my source for that popup. In the bottom right-hand corner of the map there is a small menu with two checkbox options. Those checkboxes will allow you to confine the map only to those monuments that exist currently or only those that have been removed.

If you are interested in replicating this map. I’ve posted the code and materials on my GitHub. If you are using a mobile device or are otherwise having difficulty seeing the map, click here for a standalone version of the map.

Have I missed a Confederate memorial? Fill out the contact form below and I’ll add it to the map! Please, include the name of the monument or person honored, the college or university where the monument is located, and a description of the monument.

Thanks to all the contributors who have sent me memorials to include so far!