Confederate Flag: What’s All the Flap?

0 Comments10/20/11

Sometimes Americans argue about issues that are largely symbolic. One such issue is that of flying the Confederate flag—you know, the “Stars and Bars” from back during the Civil War. Is the Confederate flag a racist symbol or something more benign? That depends on whom you ask.

Controversy about the flag pops up in the news with regularity—most recently after African American folks in a South Carolina neighborhood built immense fences to block out their view of a Confederate flag being flown by one of their neighbors, a white woman. You can read about this controversy, and other similar incidents, at the Washington Post.

In Louisiana, an African American man based his appeal of a murder conviction to the state supreme court in part on a novel claim—that he couldn’t get a fair trial because the Confederate flag flew outside the county courthouse and thus prejudiced jurors. The case is covered in the Wall Street Journal. The Louisiana Supreme Court recently ruled on the issue. You can read about its decision at the American Civil Liberties Union Blog of Rights.

You budding lawyers out there might be interested in a legal case having to do with the display of the Confederate flag at a school in West Virginia. In this case, Bragg v. Swanson, a district court found that the school’s prohibition against the flag went too far and violated the kid’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

If you’re interested in the Confederate flag as part of Civil War history, an informative Web site is Son of the South, which discusses the flag’s origin and evolution. Defenders of the Confederate flag and the right to fly it argue that it’s a symbol of the South’s history and heritage, a representation of valor and regional pride. This view is explored in an article in the Christian Science Monitor and examined by Mackubin Thomas Owens, a research fellow at the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University. To some observers, the Confederate flag is a hate symbol, a token of racism, oppression, white supremacy, and slavery. That’s the position of the Anti-Defamation League. It also seems to be the position taken by many editorial cartoonists.

Americans love to argue. Maybe arguing keeps Americans relatively sane—we throw brickbats rather than actual bricks or bats, at least usually. What are your thoughts about the Confederate flag? Is a person who flies the flag—or sports a Confederate flag on a T-shirt or a flag decal on a pickup truck—a racist hick, as some believe? Should the flag fly over courthouses, statehouses, or other public buildings, given the racial heritage of the Civil War South? Why do you suppose the Confederate flag pops up in other countries, like Canada? And here’s the key question: What does the controversy tell historians about the power of memory in shaping views of historical events? Hmmm, we smell a great topic for a research paper—or argumentative essay—here. Have at it.

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