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   "Dedicated to the Preservation of Southern Heritage"North Carolina Chapter  Black Confederates debatedFew ready to believe African Americans fought for the SouthBy Dan Sewell / Associated Press ATLANTA -- Like other members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Emerson Emory says he wants to preserve his Southern heritage. His mission, however, is especially challenging -- and controversial. The 74-year-old Dallas psychiatrist is black, and his insistence that many black Southerners not only supported the Confederacy but fought for it in the Civil War often draws reactions ranging from skepticism to outrage. "Most of the reaction was among my friends in the black race -- they couldn't understand," Emory said. "I think it's one of those things that they don't want to hear anything about." While recognition of the role black soldiers played for the Union -- dramatized in the movie Glory -- has grown, there is little acknowledgement of black Confederates. There is sharp debate about their numbers, and why they would have supported the South. Emory, a World War II Army veteran, was turned down last summer in his request to pay tribute to black Confederates at ceremonies in Washington that honored nearly 200,000 black soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Civil rights leaders also criticized the teachers of a class last fall at Randolph Community College in North Carolina. The teachers contended that some slaves were loyal to the South.  Charles Kelly Barrow, a Zebulon, Ga., high school teacher, has spent years researching blacks in the Confederacy. Besides many disbelieving blacks, he said, there are whites who don't want to admit that blacks fought for the South. "They're in opposition either way. Certain people have always tried to divide white and black Southerners," he said. Barrow's 1995 book, Forgotten Confederates, is an anthology that draws upon wartime newspaper accounts, later accounts of Civil War reunions, essays, obituaries and pension records to offer evidence of blacks serving the Confederacy. Some Southern heritage buffs estimate their numbers at anywhere from 38,000 to 90,000 men, mainly serving as laborers, teamsters, musicians and cooks. As early as 1863, Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne urged that blacks be enlisted as soldiers. There was opposition from Confederates who questioned whether men serving as soldiers could be returned to slavery after the war. Besides examples of loyalty and even bravery on behalf of the Confederacy, Southern heritage buffs also note that there were no wide slave insurrections during the war. "Why? This was their home," Emory said.  Copyright 1999, The Detroit News  
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