Contemporary Southern Identity: Community through Controversy

3 Stories of the War: The Confederate Flag in South Carolina

87 3 Stories of the War: The Confederate Flag in South Carolina As contentious as the artistic portrayals of Southerners from Robert E. Lee to Arthur Ashe may have been in Richmond, no symbol has divided the contemporary South as widely and to such an extreme as the red field, blue cross, and white stars of the Confederate battle flag. This “rebel flag” has been displayed as a symbol of racist defiance by Ku Klux Klansmen and others of their ilk who continue to defend a racially divided South years after identification became the ruling order through federally mandated integration. Such divisive uses of this flag have imbued it with the symbolism of division or hate in the minds of many people, especially those who have pressed most to see this new order of identification enforced: African Americans, especially those living in the South and those associated with civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). But some other Southerners—white neo-Confederates such as those associated with the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV)—take issue with the meaning of division or hate being associated with any Confederate symbol, especially the battle flag under which their forebears fought. For these Confederate descendants, the flag symbolizes their identification with the cause of their ancestors—the cause of states’ right to secede and rule themselves. Given such division over what the battle flag symbolizes, it was not surprising when debates erupted at the turn of the millennium as to the propriety of displaying the flag atop the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia as well as within its legislative chambers. The way each side in this debate told its stories of the war, the raising of the flag, and the debate over lowering it revealed the way each interpreted the symbol of the flag. Indeed, the two sides even referred to the war differently, with neoConfederates tending to refer to it as the War between the States or the War of Northern Aggression and most other Southerners and Americans tending to refer to it as the Civil War. The flag’s defenders portrayed the war as having been fought for states’ rights and sovereignty in the face of a tyrannous central government , thus making their ancestors’ fight honorable. The flag in turn became symbolic of a positive heritage of fighting for a just cause, and flying the flag atop the Capitol became a reminder of a noble heritage worth preserving. Conversely, 88 The Confederate Flag in South Carolina the flag’s critics depicted the war as having been fought over the issue of slavery and saw the flag as symbolic of those who wanted to keep African Americans in slavery, oppressors during the decades of segregation and since. Thus, people on this side of the debate attributed to the flag meanings of racial oppression and consequently wanted to see it removed from its position of prominence. The positioning of the flag had much to do with its symbolism and thus lies at the heart of this controversy. A flag flying atop or within a seat of government symbolizes whatever entity holds power there. In fact, as James Forman Jr. suggests in explaining the theory of government speech as applied to the Confederate flag, “Because the government is the speaker, a balance of interests arises that is different from those normally presented in the battle between racist speakers and their victims. . . . [A] growing number of scholars [are] arguing that the First Amendment also limits the government’s ability to speak.”1 Many South Carolina groups that passed resolutions in favor of removing the flag reasoned that since the Confederate States of America was not a contemporary, ruling authority in the state, its flag should not be flown along with the flags of those entities that do have authority: the United States (whose flag is always to be flown the highest) and the State of South Carolina. The controversy did not involve whether the Confederate battle flag (or any other Confederate flag, for that matter) can or should be flown by individuals or groups but whether it was appropriate for a state to fly a flag representing an entity that is no longer sovereign alongside the flags of two entities that are. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), many white Southerners became angered by the federal mandate for racially integrated public schools. In...