Abstract
This chapter explores the gap between national and regional public memory narratives, which influence how Americans build their individual identity. American history was taught in the eleventh grade in the public school that I attended in Jacksonville, Florida, a city just below the Georgia border. We sat in alphabetical order by surname; the student who was placed directly behind me was Terrell Wilson. When the lesson plan reached the topic of the Civil War, Terrell’s normal geniality vanished: such was his indignation in denouncing the Union soldiers, whom he called “the Yankees,” that I felt his spittle on the back