A Comment

As a white native of Warren County, North Carolina, who was born only 68 years after the end of the Civil War and slavery; as a man who knew several elderly men and women who had been born slaves; and as the great-grandson of at least one slave- owner, I can see no appropriate present use for any of the several Confederate flags outside a museum or a serious historical film or other dramatic reenactment that makes no attempt to defend the rebel cause. Perhaps a few generations from now the stain of slavery, which so appallingly blots the entire Confederate enterprise, will have faded in its power to offend; but as the direct descendant of many otherwise decent souls who supported the awful machine of slavery and who defended their holdings against Union forces, I'd have to say that any present display of the flag in situations other than those named above seems to me a moral insult.

Reynolds Price, James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University, is author of more than thirty books, some of the most recent being The Promise of Rest, Learning a Trade, Letter to a Man on Fire, Feasting the Heart, and A Perfect Friend. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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