A Symbol of Hatred

June 25, 2015

The Civil War was fought because Southerners wanted to protect and extend the institution of slavery.  Later, after the South had lost the War, some of these same Southerners propounded reasons such as States’ Rights and economic freedom for trying to secede from the Union.  The symbol of the South’s ill-fated attempt to preserve slavery, even at the cost of treason was the confederate flag.  In all of its different versions from stars and bars to the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (i.e., the flag that today flies over the South Carolina state house) it has always symbolized hatred, slavery, and white superiority.  

The symbol of the South’s ill-fated attempt to preserve slavery, even at the cost of treason was the confederate flag.

The confederate flag could have been used to show “respect” when reconstruction ended in 1877 and the federal troops were removed.  If any form of the confederate flag represented respect for confederate veterans, governmental offices should have flown the flag while some these same veterans were still alive.  Even as the last confederate soldiers aged up through the 1950s, the flag was not flown over the South Carolina State Capitol.  

The South did bring back some form of the confederate flag following the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools.  South Carolina brought the flag back in 1962 as a direct response to the events of 1960 and 1961 as the Civil Rights movement aroused indolent hatred and "insult” to presumed racial superiority.  In 1960, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Bill, the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction.   In the same year, John Kennedy, campaigning for President called Coretta Scott King to offer support when Dr. King was jailed for joining in a sit-in; and the Supreme Court ruled that interstate travel must be desegregated.   In 1961 the Freedom Riders tested whether the South would abide by that Supreme Court Ruling.   It was then that South Carolina raised the confederate Flag.  It was not to honor veterans, or to speak to a sense of duty, or a show of independent spirit.  It was hung to remind the nation that the South still believed in white superiority and would not yield to any law or interpretation of law that was inconsistent with white superiority.

 It was not to honor veterans, or to speak to a sense of duty, or a show of independent spirit.

The strongest symbol of racial contempt – the confederate flag -- was not and is not used to show honor.  It is a deception, like slavery was not the cause of the Civil War, to claim that the confederate flag represents honor.  The claim of honoring those who fought to maintain slavery or any veneer of respectability for this flag merely serves to keep this deception alive.