It was a time when many in the South were celebrating the centennial of the Civil War. Schools across the South made special efforts to teach lessons about the War. Southern States celebrated the heroism of its Confederate soldiers and in 1959 the last Confederate veteran died. President Eisenhower, Chairman of the Civil War Centennial Commission, noted the death as an occasion for national mourning. Confederate flags, tags and bumper stickers were common sights across Dixie.

It was also a time when many in the South were making strides toward a color-blind society, a society where people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

It was a time when the Dixie Division was a part of the U.S. Army. A unit that proudly displayed its Confederate heritage. A time when the Confederate flag was proudly associated with Southern patriotism and fidelity to the U.S.A.; the country that had invaded and destroyed our Southern homeland.

It was a time very much unlike our own.

It was a time WHEN REBEL WAS COOL!

The Kennedy Twins are the South’s most prolific pro-Southern authors. Their story of growing up in Dixie is typical of those who were raised in the intentionally impoverished rural South. This book demonstrates that while Yankees (and scalawag Southerners) get their history from books written by Yankees to glorify Yankee heroes and ideas-Southerners get our history from our family. To them history is not past-it lives in family stories about relatives who wore the gray in the War for Southern Independence.