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It's a grand old flag, y'all
Last Tuesday, residents of Mississippi voted overwhelmingly to hold onto the design of their state flag, which introduced in 1894, prominently displays the Confederate battle cross in the upper left hand corner. The alternative presented to voters replaced the Confederate emblem with 20 white stars signifying Mississippi’s entrance into the union as the 20th state. Despite an expensive campaign by advocates of a new state flag who outspent, according to CNN.com, the opposition by nearly $500,000, the folks down there just wouldn’t budge. And the threat of damaging economic boycotts by civil rights groups that worked on South Carolina and Georgia officials in recent years, didn’t seem to phase them either. Supporters who hold onto the Confederate flag so vehemently explain their affection (or affliction depending on how you look at it) by saying the flag is a symbol of pride and heritage for the South. To them, if you get rid of the flag their history would go with it. In their extreme insecurity, some will even try to parse the reasons for the Civil War and say that the real issue the “war of northern aggression” was fought was over state’s rights. And they’re correct on this one. It was fought over state’s rights— namely their unfettered right to buy and sell an entire race of people. In his book on Civil War history, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, author Jeffrey Rogers Hummel quotes Alexander H. Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy at the 1861 Confederate constitutional convention, who contrasted the new Confederate constitution with that of the U.S., and outlined exactly what that war was fought for. “The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status quo of the negro in our form of civilization . . . This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution,” he said. Later, at the Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas for y’all south of the Mason-Dixon line), the Confederate battle cross became the new nation’s flag, and the undisputed symbol of a white supremacist South. Roughly 80 years later, the flag began to enjoy a resurgence when southern white college students brought the flag to football games. And in the 1950s and 1960s, white southerners began to dust off their granddaddy’s flags when their “genteel” way of life began to be threatened by the civil rights movement. When that Confederate battle cross began inching its way up flagpoles across the South once again, a clear message was sent to southern blacks that some people weren’t interested in moving on from the past. So it’s not surprising that people of all backgrounds now want that symbol taken down and put where it belongs—in a museum. It’s just too bad that the people of Mississippi missed their chance to do the right thing. Letters to The Columbia Chronicle can be sent to us by filling out this form. Note: If your browser does not support multiple windows, click here. Back to top | Home The Columbia Chronicle is a student produced publication of Columbia College Chicago and does not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the views of Columbia College administrators, faculty or students. |
April 23, 2001
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