It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals: 'that the negro is not equal to the white man'. The Confederate flag, we are told, represents heritage, not hate. But why should we celebrate a heritage grounded in hate, a heritage whose self-avowed reason for existence was the exploitation and debasement of a sizeable segment of its population? - Gordon Rhea. historian
![]()
The Confederate Flag
* * *
Every flag is a symbol. It is meant to evoke the accomplishments, the attitudes, the pride and the heritage of the place represented by the flag.
There were three official national flags of the Confederate States of Americaduring the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865. The first two rapidly gave way to the third one, an X-shaped, blue "St. Andrew's Cross" with 13 white stars on a red field. Since the end of the American Civil War, private and official use of the Confederacy's flags, and of flags with derivative designs, has continued. It is a highly controversial and for some people, an offensive act both philosophically, politically, culturally, and racially in the United States. These include flags displayed in states, cities, towns, counties, schools, colleges, universities, private organizations, associations, and by individuals.
Today, the current state flag of Mississippi features the familiar Confederate "battle flag" aka: the "Stars and Bars") in the "canton", or upper left corner, the only current U.S. state flag to do so. Georgia's state flag is very similar to the first national flag of the Confederacy, the "Stars and Bars", even though its design has not incorporated the Confederate "battle flag" since 2001 design in the canton of the upper left corner. The designs of several other American state flags, currently in use, such as that of Virginia and Louisiana, date to the time of the Confederacy and the American Civil War. The current flag of North Carolina is also a modified version of the 1861 Confederate flag's design. And, the Confederate flag flies all over the U.S. particularly in the South as a flag of defiance, racial prejudice or both.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Confederate flag enjoyed renewed popularity. As a result, during World War II some U.S. military units with Southern nicknames, or made up largely of Southerners, made the flag their unofficial emblem. The USS Columbia flew a Confederate Navy Ensign as a battle flag throughout combat in the South Pacific in World War II. This was done in honor of Columbia, the ship's namesake and the capital city of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union. Some soldiers carried Confederate flags into battle.. By the end of World War II, the use of the Confederate flag in the military was rare but there was a resurgence of its use during integration which has lasted until today.
The Confederate flag is a controversial symbol for many Americans today. A 2011 Pew Research poll revealed that nearly a third of all Americans have a "negative reaction" when "they see the Confederate flag displayed. According to the same poll, this is three times more than those who have a positive reaction. A majority (58%) have no reaction. In a 2013 YouGov poll, a plurality (38%) of those polled disapproved of displaying the flag in public places. In the same poll, a plurality (44%) of those asked viewed the flag as a symbol of racism, with 24% viewing it as exclusively racist and 20% viewing it as both racist and symbolic of pride in the region.
In the U.S. southern state of Georgia, the Confederate battle flag was reintroduced in 1956, just two years after the Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education. It was considered by many to be a protest against school desegregation. It was also raised at the University of Mississippi during protests against integration of schools.
Supporters of the flag's continued usage view it as a symbol of Southern ancestry and heritage as well as representing a distinct and independent cultural tradition of the Southern United States from the rest of the country. Some groups use it as one of the symbols associated with their organizations, including groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. For other supporters, the flag represents only a past era of southern sovereignty. Some historical societies such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (organizations of descendants of Civil War veterans)also use the flag as part of their symbols.
As a result of these varying perceptions, there have been a number of political controversies surrounding the use of the Confederate battle flag in Southern state flags, at sporting events, at Southern universities, and on public buildings. In their study of Confederate symbols in the contemporary Southern United States, the Southern political scientists James Michael Martinez, William Donald Richardson, Ron McNinch-Su write: The battle flag was never adopted by the Confederate Congress, never flew over any state capitols during the Confederacy, and was never officially used by Confederate veterans' groups. The flag probably would have been relegated to Civil War museums if it had not been resurrected by the resurgent KKK and used by Southern Dixiecrats (political party) during the 1948 presidential election.
* * *
Symbols of the Confederacy remain a contentious issue across the United States. Supporters have labeled attempts to display the flag as an exercise of free speech in response to bans in some schools and universities. But, it is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals: 'that the negro is not equal to the white man'. The Confederate flag, we are told, represents heritage, not hate. But why should we celebrate a heritage grounded in hate, a heritage whose self-avowed reason for existence was the exploitation and debasement of a sizeable segment of its population?
Many Southerners seek to justify the Civil War claiming it was justified, a glorious part of the South's past and it was really about state's rights. They even object to calling it what it what it really was, a Civil War. Instead, they insist that it be called "The War Between the States". By doing so, they justify the war, a war in which more Americans died than in any other war, by still implying that they were right to think that every U.S. state is equal, sovereign, and can withdraw from the United States any time and without permission it wants to quit the union.
The South also ignores the real reasons for the Civil War, slavery and the election of an openly anti-slave president, Abraham Lincoln.
* * *
South Carolina was the first state to secedefrom the union. It did so in 1861.
On April 12, 2000, the South Carolina State Senate passed a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the top of the State House dome by a majority vote of 36 to 7. Originally placed there in 1961, the new bill specified that a more traditional version of the battle flag would be flown in front of the Capitol next to a monument honoring fallen Confederate soldiers". The bill also passed the state's House of Representatives, but not without some difficulty. On May 18, 2000, after the bill was modified to ensure that the height of the flag's new pole would be 30 feet (9 m), it was passed by a majority of 66 to 43.Governor Jim Hodges signed the bill into law five days later after it passed the state Senate. On July 1, 2000 the flag was removed from atop the State House by two students (one white and one black) from The Citadel; a more historically accurate Confederate battle flag was then raised next to a monument on the front lawn of the capitol. Current state law prohibits the flag's removal from the State House grounds without additional legislation.
In 2005, two Western Carolina University researchers found that 74% of African-Americans polled favored removing the flag from the South Carolina State House altogether.The NAACP and other civil rights groups have attacked the flag's continued presence at the state capitol. The NAACP maintains an official economic boycott of South Carolina, citing its continued display of the battle flag on its State House grounds, despite an initial agreement to call off the boycott after it was removed from the State House dome.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has prevented South Carolina from hosting any championship sporting events in which the sites are determined in advance.This NCAA ban on post-season championships in South Carolina has been strictly enforced, with the exception of HBCU Benedict College. In both 2007 and 2009, the school hosted the post-season Pioneer Bowl game, in violation of the NCAA ban, though no action was taken. On April 14, 2007, Steve Spurrier, coach of the University of South Carolina football team, made an acceptance speech for a community service award in which he referred to the flag on the State House grounds as "that damn flag". This statement was also inspired by the actions of a local fraternity on that same day, whose members created controversy as they waved the battle flag while being videotaped for the television show, SportsCenter. On July 6, 2009, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced a decision to move three future baseball tournaments out of South Carolina citing miscommunications with the NAACP concerning the display of the Confederate flag in the state.
Following the Charleston church shooting in 2015, some people and commentators questioned the continued display of the flag at the memorial on the state house ground.
* * *
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof walked into a Charleston, South Carolina's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church sat for an hour, and then killed nine people including its pastor. the nine people were all African- American, Roof' father gave him money as a birthday present which Dylann used to buy a gun. The father did not object in spite of the fact that Dylann had a history of mental illness. And, he had previous records of misdemeanor drug and trespassing charges. Finally , Dylann's reason for the killings was his fear that feared blacks were taking over the world.
It is not clear whether Roof had any connection to the 16 white supremacist organizations operating in South Carolina, but he appears to be a "disaffected white supremacist," based on his Facebook page, said Richard Cohen, president of Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. On his Facebook page, Roof displayed the flags of defeated white-ruled regimes, posing with a Confederate flags plate on his car and wearing a jacket with stitched-on flag patches from apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, which is now black-led Zimbabwe.
Roof’s crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol, the Confederate flag. Visitors to Charleston have long been treated to South Carolina’s attempt to clean its history and depict its secession as something other than a war to guarantee the enslavement of the majority of its residents. This notion is belied by any serious interrogation of the Civil War and the primary documents of its instigators. Yet, the Confederate battle flag, the flag of Dylann Roof, still flies on the state Capitol grounds in Columbia.
Spilling blood inside a black church, especially at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (aka: "Mother Emanuel") founded in 1816, evoked painful memories nationwide, a reminder that black churches so often have been the targets of racist violence. A church founder, Denmark Vesey, was hanged after trying to organize a slave revolt in 1822, and white landowners burned the church in revenge, leaving parishioners to worship underground until after the Civil War. The congregation rebuilt and grew stronger, eventually winning campaigns for voting rights and political representation.
Its lead pastor, State Senator. Clementa Pinckney who was among the dead recalled his church's history in a 2013 sermon, saying, "We don't see ourselves as just a place where we come to worship, but as a beacon and as a bearer of the culture. What the church is all about (is the) freedom to be fully what God intends us to be and have equality in the sight of God. And sometimes you got to make noise to do that. Sometimes you may have to die like Denmark Vesey to do that." Pinckney, 41, was a married father of two and a Democrat who spent 19 years in the South Carolina legislature after he was first elected at 23, becoming the youngest member of the House. The other victims were Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; and the reverends DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Singleton, 45; and Daniel Simmons Sr., 74.
In a blame-the- victim statement, a National Rifle Association spokesman, Charles L. Cotton, said that the dead pastor of the church was to blame for killing because he would not allow guns in the church. Cotton said in a written statement, "... and he voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.... It's my opinion that there should not be any gun-free zones in schools or churches or anywhere else. If we look at mass shootings that occur, most happen in gun-free zones." Not only is the statement insensitive, absurd , it is inaccurate. Most killing do not take place in gun-free zone.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the attack would be investigated as a hate crime.
* * *
The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents “heritage not hate.” Any rational person could clearly disagree with that notion. By his own words, Dylann implied that white supremacy is the cause of his actions. was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder. The flag that Roof embraced and which many South Carolinians embrace does not stand in opposition to this act. It endorses it. No amount of twisted logic or rationalizing can ignore that the Confederate flag is the symbol of white supremacy.