Heritage versus Hate: A Geographical Analysis of Georgia's Confederate Battle Flag Debate

A debate has grown throughout the southeastern United States in the 1990s over the use of Confederate symbols. In Georgia, a vociferous fight took place in 1993 regarding a proposal to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag. The flag issue is divisive because there is no one accepted meaning attached to the symbolism embodied in the Confederate battle emblem. This paper examines the flag debate in Georgia and concludes that (1) the Georgia state flag is an example of an icon that acts as a centrifugal force splitting apart the state's population rather than acting as a centripetal force, and (2) support for the current state flag is concentrated in white-majority legislative districts in the rural parts of the state and the suburbs surrounding Georgia's largest cities.