Stoney isn’t the only official looking to sever ties with the Lost Cause. In 2022, General Assembly Minority Leader Don Scott, a Democrat, learned that alongside churches and hospitals, the UDC’s Virginia Division and General Organization receive a special tax exemption on real estate. He told me he was “disgusted” that the government would subsidize a “historically racist organization,” even if the organization no longer sells or purchases much real estate. In January, he proposed a bill to remove the exemption, which failed, he said, after Speaker of the House of Delegates Todd Gilbert, a Republican, “pocketed” the bill so it wasn’t brought to a vote. Gilbert didn’t respond to requests for comment; perhaps the UDC still has some allies in power. Regardless, Scott said he’d reintroduce the bill. “The fact that they still exist is tough to deal with,” he told me. “If you go to Germany, there’s no ‘Daughters of the Nazis.’”
When I attended the 2021 convention in Myrtle Beach, I learned that comparisons like Scott’s, which are made routinely (but usually to the KKK) strike a nerve. Amid the convention’s pin sales and auction—stocked with a “Make Dixie Great Again” hat and Gone With the Wind curios—the Daughters traded anecdotes of being accused of racism for their affiliation with the group. “But I will tell you,” the historian general said during a workshop. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
Rather than examine why comparisons like Scott’s are made, the Daughters seem convinced that anyone who doesn’t like them just doesn’t know who they are. Current president general Jinny Widowski wrote in a January UDC magazine that the media “is certainly not respectful or fair” and is to blame for widespread misunderstanding of the organization and, by proxy, for the attack on the building. I emailed Widowski, inviting her to speak for this article. I told her I wanted to be fair. She never replied.
“Just the nicest ladies” is how the Daughters see themselves. They often used such phrases while discussing their charity projects. Divisions annually report how many hours of volunteer work they complete: in 2021, over 12,000 hours in Florida, over 180,000 in Texas. But their use of the phrase also suggests how they define “racist”: someone who feels animosity toward Black people, who wishes to see communities of color suffer. And “white supremacy” is associated with violence, not societal conditions. By holding to these definitions, the Daughters maintain confusion as to why such terms are applied to them. They don’t feel these things; they’re just nice ladies.