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SCV Celebrates Confederate Inauguration in Montgomery

Hundreds join a march and rally for the Confederate sesquicentennial celebration in Montgomery, Alabama

Hundreds of neo-Confederates, reenactors and others joined a march and rally organized by the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a Southern heritage group, to unapologetically "CELEBRATE THE BEGINNING OF THE CONFEDERACY."

The gathering, which included the reenactment of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as the president of the Confederate States of America, came as part of a series of events to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and was meant to ensure that the war "is remembered and portrayed in the right way." What was meant by the "right way" was evidenced by the SCV website promoting the event, which insisted that "the South was right!" and claimed that "there is no difference between the invasion of France by Hitler and the invasion of the Southern states by Lincoln."

Although the marchers took the end of the same route as the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in 1965, no mention whatsoever was made of slavery, which SCV members claim had nothing to do with the Civil War — an assertion that has been repeatedly debunked by virtually all serious historians of the period.

Sons of Confederate Veterans sequicentennial

"Jefferson Davis" at Sons of Confederate Veterans sequicentennial

Cannons at Sons of Confederate Veterans sequicentennial