Group to pay for exhibit on Confederacy at museum

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The Sons of the Confederate Veterans plan to donate $35,000 to cover costs for an exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center. <br/><br/>The money, which will be presented Friday in a check

Saturday, June 11th 2005, 12:19 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The Sons of the Confederate Veterans plan to donate $35,000 to cover costs for an exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center.

The money, which will be presented Friday in a check from the group's General Executive Council, should pay for floor and wall coverings for the exhibit, said M.L. ``Beau'' Cantrell of the Snead-Reaves Camp No. 1417 in Oklahoma City. The Columbia, Tenn.-based group, made up of men who are descendants of Confederate military personnel, has 19 camps in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Historical Society executive director Bob Blackburn said items displayed in the Oklahoma Museum will be displayed differently in the new Oklahoma History Center, which is scheduled to open in November.

Many of the items in the museum's Confederate memorial exhibit will be displayed in the military display, he said. A separate, more personal memorial will be established in the center to explain the history of the Civil War and the history of the South, he said.

``The memorial hall is where we remember those roots of Oklahoma and the impact of Southern history and the impact of the Civil War and the impact of Reconstruction on Oklahoma and Oklahoma families,'' Blackburn said. ``It's not so much an interpretive gallery as it is a real memorial gallery for the first time.''

Blackburn said the memorial hall would allow the history center to use objects from other states, instead of only Oklahoma artifacts.

``It's to remind everyone that we came from somewhere else and we brought our cultural values with us,'' Blackburn said.

More than 80 battles were fought during the Civil War in what is now Oklahoma as Confederate soldiers prevented Union troops from invading Texas.

``That was their strategic mission and they accomplished it,'' Cantrell said. ``The only Yankees that got to Texas through Indian Territory went there as prisoners of war.''