In neo-Confederate news, the SPLC’s Hatewatch blog takes a look at the Sam Davis Youth Camps sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, where Southern kids are taught that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, and Abraham Lincoln was a racist war criminal.

The camps are heavily indebted to Kirk Lyons, a white supremacist lawyer who led a decade-long effort to recruit hate group members to the SCV (Lyons was at one time a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance). Lyons, who said in 2000 that his goal is “a majority European-derived society,” serves on the SCV committee that oversees the camps. He has lobbied to have SCV funds dedicated to camp scholarships and his own children have participated in the events.

Also serving on the camp’s oversight committee is Ron G. Wilson, a former SCV commander-in-chief (2002-2004) who once served on the board of Lyons’ legal firm. Working closely with Lyons during his tenure as commander, Wilson appointed racists and anti-Semites to key SCV posts, purged some 300 SCV members and leaders who opposed racism, and worked to turn the SCV into an actively neo-Confederate organization. The Sam Davis Youth Camps, which are programs held in various venues rather than specific physical locations, were inaugurated under Wilson’s leadership.

So what does the SCV teach today’s youth? Campers are exposed to various “truths” about what the SCV calls “the War for Southern Independence” and are given “thoughtful instruction” in a whole host of topics: “Southern history, the War Between the States, the theology of the South during the War, lessons on Southern heroes, examples of great men of the Faith, and for the first year, special programs and sessions for our Southern ladies!”

The first camp of the 2010 season was held in Clifton, Texas, during the third week of June. According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, the campers were taught that the Civil War was not about slavery. “Too many people have bought into that notion,” Texas SCV Commander Ray W. James told the newspaper, “and wrongly exalt then-President Abraham Lincoln as wanting to end slavery.” Lincoln was actually “a bigger racist than I ever knew,” James said of the author of the Emancipation Proclamation.

One of the members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is well known in the right wing blogosphere; he writes for Pajamas Media, Hot Air, and American Spectator magazine, and he proudly posted this image of his SCV membership card at his blog.

“Gen Nathan B. Forrest,” by the way, was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Seems to be an odd person to name a “camp” after. I’m just sayin’.