United Daughters of the Confederacy
American hereditary association / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate[1] hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.[2][3][4][5][6]
Abbreviation | UDC |
---|---|
Established | September 10, 1894; 129 years ago (1894-09-10) |
Founders | |
Founded at | Nashville, Tennessee |
Type | 501(c)(3), charitable organization, lineage society |
54-0631483 | |
Headquarters | Richmond, Virginia |
Coordinates | 37.5571518°N 77.4738453°W / 37.5571518; -77.4738453 |
Membership (2015) | 19,000 |
Jinny Widowski | |
Publication | UDC Magazine |
Subsidiaries | Children of the Confederacy |
Website | hqudc |
Formerly called | National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy |
Established in Nashville, Tennessee in 1894, the group venerated the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era, and in 1926, a local chapter funded the construction of a monument to the Klan.[7][8][9] According to the Institute for Southern Studies, the UDC "elevated [the Klan] to a nearly mythical status. It dealt in and preserved Klan artifacts and symbology. It even served as a sort of public relations agency for the terrorist group."[7] The organization restricted membership to whites at one time, but later lifted the requirement. As of 2011, there were 23 so-called "Real Daughters" (that is, actual children of Confederate veterans) still living, one of whom was black.[10] There are no longer any living children of Civil War veterans. The last, Irene Triplett, died in 2020.
The group's headquarters are in the Memorial to the Women of the Confederacy building in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital city of the Confederate States. In May 2020 the building was damaged by fire during the George Floyd protests.[11][12]