We know South Carolina is flying the Confederate battle flag
over its state capitol and many (most?) folks are up in arms about it and think it should come down. While on a trip to Georgia this past weekend, I noticed Georgia’s state flag incorporates the confederate battle flag (along with the state seal to the left of it). So how come no one is raising hell over it? (or are they?)
That battle is just not being fought again this year.
A couple years ago the Georgia governor suggested modifying the flag and there was every bit as big a brouhaha as there is, now, in SC. The combatants are just tired, at the moment.
Oh, and if you start looking over the all the flags of the South, you will find that Mississippi has the battle flag (but they’ve had it since 1896), Arkansas has a motif based on the battle flag, and Florida and another state (Alabama?) both use the cross saltire (the X) without the stars in their flags.
Many of the other states’ flags are older, but Georgia’s is a target because it was changed in the 1950s’. The official line of the designs defenders is that is was changed to prepare for the Civil War Centennial, 1961- 1965. Its opponents note that it just happened to be changed in the midst of the Civil Rights movement.
And, if I’m not mistaken, the South Carolina flag didn’t START flying over the state capitol until 1967. And a lot of us interpret that as symbolic not of some fidelity to the boys lost in the civil war, but as symbolic of the state’s resistance to the civil rights movement. That it still flies is a testament to the strength of their anachronistic bigotry.
Thanks. I figured there must’ve been some controversy over it that I just hadn’t heard about. On the same trip, we stopped off in Charleston and toured Ft. Sumter where I learned the confederate states also had two “national” flags – the stars and bars and the southern cross. I was wandering why S.C. (and other confederate states) didn’t use one of those, which wouldn’t be (to my mind anyway) quite as bad as the battle flag, especially the stars & bars. It would seem more appropriate in any case to use the national flag than the battle flag.
“. . .many (most?) folks are up in arms. . .”
Nope. Nope. Nope.
Most people don’t really give hoot–just a very small and loud group on both sides of the issue.
Well, I also have another explanation: Strom Thurmond. You’ll remember, the senator older than Moses, who filibusterd a civil rights bill by reading out of the phone book for hours. The previous poster is right that SC changed the state flag as a protest. Actually, they changed it to commemorate the Confederate dead, but I don’t think the real message escaped many. Thirty years later, most people I talk to think the flag has always been there. Anyway, Thurmond, who continues to “serve” as a Senator, has been a reminder of that, and the flag debate has always been very heated in SC, even before it came up as an election issue (and this wasn’t even the first time). So ingrained is the racism and misguided pride in the state that I’m astonished they actually took it down. It must have been the gazillionth time they tried. One state at a time, I suppose…
He wanted to honor his former comrades-in-arms, maybe?
There were 47,000 people marching in Charleston, both black and white, earlier this year that say you’re wrong.
I’m definitely out of touch, since I didn’t know that happened in Charleston.
I am in Columbia, though, and that was roughly the number that was given here.
I’ll admit I haven’t spoken to the tens of thousands of people that various churches organized to have bussed in.
I did see an occasional token honky as they paraded by the building I work in, but most of the whiteys I saw were people who came out of our (and other) office buildings to watch for a few minutes–but only for a few minutes, since honkies get kinda nervous when they’re in the presence of a group of angry blacks carrying sticks.
Well, now. This honkey whitey has black first cousins, and Korean kids. Gonna whup my ass if I actually decide to excercise my rights as an American, and march in a march like the ones sited above- along side my fellow CITIZENS, because I find the idea of those flags reprehensible?
This is the Straight Dope, not a private home. You have a hard accurate cite that PROVES that virtually NO whites marched, and the ones who were seen were mostly office workers on the sidelines? Numbers.......real accurate numbers. I'd love to see your proof.
Save the roiling hatred for family get-togethers. It’s really got no place on this message board.
Cartooniverse
HMmmmm…47000 people? That’s quite a lot…if you’re talking about Walton’s Mountain. When you consider the fact that Charleston has over 300,000 people, and South Carolina has about 3.6 MILLION, then as far as significant percentages, we’re talking about 1.3%, right? That’s the same as a slightly underweight newborn baby compared to Andre the Giant.
Wait…a newborn baby…that’s also very small and loud. Looks like the analogy is just about perfect.
Mjollnir: For a moment, let’s paraphrase your comment just for argument’s sake. Would it be acceptable if somebody had said this instead?
My guess is that somebody would be having a fit and trying to get that person banned from the board. Why is it widely accepted to be a racist piece of trash, but only if you’re bashing white people? This kind of hypocrisy really pisses me off.
Sycorax noted: On the same trip, we stopped off in Charleston and toured Ft. Sumter where I learned the confederate states also had two “national” flags – the stars and bars and the southern cross. I was wandering why S.C. (and other confederate states) didn’t use one of those, which wouldn’t be (to my mind anyway) quite as bad as the battle flag, especially the stars & bars.
North Carolina flies the Confederate flag (by itself) above the state capitol one day a year, on Confederate Memorial Day. In 1979, the state quietly switched from flying the battle flag to the stars & bars flag, which is much less controversial. According to the local paper, there were no complaints this year, since the whole event is pretty low key.
The day it was up, I went down to the state capitol in order to see the stars and bars flag. It was somewhat strange to see a “foreign” flag flying over the state building.
tomndebb Oh, and if you start looking over the all the flags of the South, you will find that Mississippi has the battle flag (but they’ve had it since 1896), [snip]
Technically, Mississippi had this flag until 1906, but hasn’t had an offical state flag since then. This was only recently discovered, as part of the review of the flag controversy. Someone noticed that Mississippi voided all of its laws during a rewrite in 1906, but never got around to adopting a replacement flag law. The state now has a committee studying the issue, which is scheduled issue a report in a year. Til then, I’ve seen at least one reference to Mississippi’s “common law flag”.
Confederate symbols become controversial on a regular basis, in many Southern states. What made South Carolina’s flag a HUGE and NATIONWIDE issue, rather than just a local issue, is the fact that it came up while the Republicans were campaigning there.
If John McCain and George W. Bush hadn’t been campaigning in SOuth Carolina when the issue came to a head, I doubt whether the issue would have gotten national press. But because it came up during campaign season, and because it provided the Democrats with a handy wedge issue, it became a national story.
When the Olympics came to Atlanta there was some discussion beforehand as to whether Now Might Be The Time for a less inflammatory symbol. As you know, didn’t happen.
–This hit the fan last Summer when the NAACP put South Carolina off limits.
That July night I put the question up in Great Debates to see what people felt and it turned into the Thread That Would Not Die. The candidates showed up w-a-y later.
I’ll bet less than 50% of the 47,000 were actually from SC.
The majority of people participating in these types of activities are “rent-a-protester” from all over the southeast. This is true for both sides of the issue.
I spent 22 years in South Carolina, and I can confidently state that the number of people ashamed of and angry about the flag was/is not small, nor irrelevant. What is irrelevant is the entire issue–when considered in light of the real problems. If the amount of money, civilian time, and particularly government time (I would like to know if anyone out there has a count of how many times the SC legislature defeated bills to remove the flag) had been spent toward the issues truly affected by racism (education, housing, job opportunies–pick an issue), much more could have been accomplished than the relocation of a piece of fabric.
I can also say that the flag issue was treated in the national media during the 1992 campaign, and IIRC, the 1988 campaign. The 40-thousand-odd marchers started in Charleston, the “liberal hotbed” of the state–such as it is (all things are relative). No doubt the flag had to come down; it’s just pretty pathetic that so many human resources had to be mobilized to accomplish so little. In the end, I would bet those who suffer from the real evils which the flag symbolizes are suffering no less.