David W. Dangerfield

I am a scholar specializing in southern and South Carolina History. I have written on the common social and economic threads among free persons of color and non-elite white southerners. I am currently researching a small group of "free persons of color" from South Carolina who served in the Confederacy -- they were neither regarded as white or black but were identified in the margins. Their descendants quickly identified as white after the Civil War. I'm particularly interested in understanding how they still challenge the myth surrounding "black confederates," yet also complicate the ways we understand race among the Confederate ranks. I am also beginning research on the history of high school football in the segregation-era.