“Uncle” Steve Eberhart is featured on sites as a black confederate. In reality, for a period of his live he was enslaved and his official name was Steve Perry. In his everyday life, he didn’t use the Eberhart last name.
He traveled to Confederate reunions and performed story telling, re-enacting foraging and telling jokes. Camp slaves, body servants and black teamsters were treated very differently from White Confederate Soldiers at these reunions. In many cases they still at ate segregated tables.
Confederate Veterans of the time seem to understand much better than current Confederate Heritage defenders that the roles former camp slaves at these reunions performed were largely that of cosplaying “the old times” and being an “old-time darkey”.
“I want to thank the good white people of Rome for sending me to Texas to the Old Soldiers’ Reunion. I am thankful. I shall ever remain in my place, and be obedient to all the white people. I pray that the angels may guard the homes of all Rome, and the light of God shine upon them. I will now give you a rest until the reunion next year, if the Lord lets me live to see it. Your humble servant. Steve Eberhart.” —1920.[24]
Source: Dead Confederates Blog: Steve Perry and “Uncle Steve Eberhart”
The article above has several documents surrounding who Steve Perry was and what role he played at Confederate Reunions.
Steve Perry probably felt and thought a lot of things, but there is no record of how Steve Perry felt or thought. It has all been overwritten by the Confederate fantasy of “happy slaves” and “loyal servants” like “Uncle” Steve Eberhart. Btw, you will almost never see a white man called Uncle anything as an army title, because this title was reserved for older enslaved people.
There is never a thought given to the fact that Steven Eberhart’s travel was sponsored, and that he collected money for various things when he went to the reunions. The inability to see a man surviving in the context of the Jim Crow South is no different than someone who pays for sexwork and then mistakenly thinks they are in a relationship with the performer.
Confederate Veterans wanted camp slaves to come to their reunions, tell them stories, entertain, serve them and be reassured that they still had good relationships with black people. Confederate descendants then spend years spreading this around as if it is proof of black Confederate soldiers, despite evidence to the contrary. It’s like a human centipede of disinformation.
So what is asking to be honored here? What other comedians and foragers in the Confederacy were upgraded to Soldier status? Servant/slave pensions were significantly less than solider pensions. If Confederate Heritage folks truly wanted to honor “black confederates” they would advocate for reparations for enslaved and free blacks that their great and great-great-grandfathers forced into the war on the behalf of the planter class.
Here are a few references that Kevin Levin, history professor who has written a book on Black Confederate myths, found of Steve Eberhart in the records of Rome, Ga and various post-war newspapers:
- “mascot of Floyd County Camp 368 of Confederate Veterans”
- “Uncle Steve Eberhart”
- “Ex-Slave, Loyal to His Old Master”
- “Steve Eberhart, the ancient Senegambian”
- “Steve Eberhart, the slavery time darkey”
And when you think about it, isn’t this exactly how people who respected and valued this man’s service would have talked about him as a solider? No. Oh okay.
Steve at an old Confederate reunion, the guy right before him is from Arkansas, but I haven’t figured out his identity yet:
It's about Heritage! 