Kevin Drum charts the placement of Confederate monuments, showing that they were mostly put up not after the Civil War but in subsequent periods when whites were aggressively trying to assert their racial superiority and terrorize African-Americans.

"Yes, these monuments were put up to honor Confederate leaders. But the timing of the monument building makes it pretty clear what the real motivation was: to physically symbolize white terror against blacks. They were mostly built during times when Southern whites were engaged in vicious campaigns of subjugation against blacks, and during those campaigns the message sent by a statue of Robert E. Lee in front of a courthouse was loud and clear."

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/the-real-story-of-all-those-confederate-statues/