What if the South had won the Civil War? Would the United States be as it is today, or would slavery still be common practice and civil rights a thing that never happened?
A new film by director Kevin Willmott and executive producer Spike Lee asks those questions and the answers may not be as uplifting as you'd think.
In "C.S.A. - Confederate States of America" Willmott presents a faux-documentary that tells the story of a new history in which the South won the War. The Ken Burns-style documentary is presented as if it is being broadcasted into the living rooms of citizens of the C.S.A., complete with commercials for products such as "Darkie" toothpaste, and state-of-the-art shackles to keep one's slave from running away.
The film follows the history of the country from the Civil War to present day, and despite some striking differences, many historical events, such as the plight of Native Americans, stay the same.
"As I went along I quickly started to discover that in many ways the South did win the Civil War," Willmott said. "Not in the battlefield, obviously, but in their attempt to hold on to their way of life."
Willmott believes that the issue of slavery is not one that can be ignored, especially since the aftereffects continue to emerge all the time. Willmott cited the local issue of the memorials in Confederate Park as a recent example.
"Can you honor people who fought to enslave people? Is there a place for that in our national memory? Or is it time to finally let that go? I think the film is pretty clear about that," Willmott said.
Willmott said he also hopes his film will clear up some misconceptions on the causes of the Civil War.
"One goal is that maybe people will finally come to terms with the fact that the Civil War was fought over slavery, and not states' rights, not economics, not all the things that people kind of like to hide behind," Willmott said. "But that the war was fought over slavery, and that slavery is the defining thing in the American experience."
Some of the faux-commercials in the film allude to contemporary cultural icons such as "The Dukes of Hazzard."
"Hollywood would never think about putting two heroes of a Hollywood movie in a car with a swastika on it. They would never in a million years think about that," Willmott said. "But this image that is involved in the murder of a lot of black people and the enslavement of a lot of black people, that was somehow OK."
According to Willmott, the normalization of such images is also one of the aftereffects of slavery that is still prevalent.
"The premise of the film is that slavery is normalized. You know, slavery was normalized. It wasn't a shocking thing to own a human," Willmott said.
Gary Edwards, a history professor at The University of Memphis, said racism existed in the U.S. long before the distinction was made between the North and South.
"Problems associated with issues of race have been particularly poignant for the South, but they are not exclusively Southern, nor do they stem directly from the Confederate defeat in 1865," Edwards said. "To the contrary, they stretch back generations before there ever was a Confederate States of America."
Beverly Bond, also a history professor at The U of M, said the issue of slavery should be discussed more in the U.S.
"That's an important part not just of African-American history but of American history," she said. "How can we possibly teach our national past and omit discussions of the institution of slavery, its role in the national psyche, and the social, political and economic changes that followed the emancipation of enslaved people."
Bond also said she believes coming to terms with the nation's past is a crucial step that the U.S. must be willing to take.
"Coming to terms with this past means knowing what the past was and determining it will never happen again in any way or form," Bond said. "Americans will never be able to buy and sell African-Americans on auction blocks, but that doesn't mean some people won't try to institute other forms of human bondage. I think that's what we have to constantly guard against."
Willmott said he hopes his film will force Americans to take a retrospective look on their past, even though it can be an upsetting task.
"That's what the movie challenges us to do is to be willing to look at ourselves," Willmott said. "The movie upsets black people and it upsets white people and it upsets a lot of different kind of folk because it's the truth. And that's so rare anymore that we get to see any of that."
The film will be premiering in Memphis tonight at the MALCO Ridgeway Four.
