What Does the Confederate Flag Really Symbolize?

In 1957, Congress created the national CWCC to oversee the planning of the 1965 Civil War Centennial. The idea was to promote reconciliation. This was a nationwide effort. President Dwight Eisenhower had commissioned a national Civil War Centennial, and the state centennial commissions were to coordinate activities. The Centennial was to honor those who died in creating the great union without regard to the cause. In 1959, Gov. Fritz Hollings appointed a Commission to plan the state's observance of the 100th anniversary of the War Between the States. Unfortunately, the Centennial became a time of reopening old wounds, and coincided with the emergence of civil rights, so the intended purpose of the Centennial became totally lost, and then transformed into an ugly outpouring of racial hatred. This occurred in South Carolina, as well as other southern states. In South Carolina, politicians used the Centennial observations as a springboard for defiance to the federal government’s beginning imposed desegregation movements, and the actions of our elected officials regarding the Centennial mirrored the actions of our landed gentry in promoting the Civil War.

South Carolina’s Centennial observations of the Fort Sumter firing began on April 10th, 1961 and continued through the 12th, with much attention paid to the April 11th Charleston ceremonies and the re-enactment of the Fort Sumter cannonade. Why? Just 14days earlier, South Carolina made national headlines after it seceded from the national Civil War Centennial Commission (CWCC) ceremonies, due to a dispute over the segregated Francis Marion hotel in Charleston that was to host a national event of the national CWCC, which had African American members. The Francis Marion Hotel incident actually began earlier in March, when news leaked of the Hotel’s segregation policy: no blacks allowed. In response, the NAACP and Northern chapters of the CWCC threatened boycotts of the ceremony. President Kennedy, in an effort to put the controversy to rest, ordered a change of venue and moved the national centennial meeting from the segregated Francis Marion Hotel to the desegregated Charleston Naval Station. Gov. Fritz Hollings questioned the president’s authority to “dictate” racial integration in Charleston, and accused northern politicians of trying to make “political capital” out of the issue. In late March, just two weeks before the ceremonies, the debate was escalated a few notches by S.C. state Rep. Nat Cabell, who flatly uninvited the integrated New Jersey commission, because it had a black member.

And so on March 28, 1961 South Carolina announced its de facto secession from the national CWCC events in Charleston because of the federal pressure to have integrated meetings. The South Carolina CWCC said that they would hold their centennial banquet at the segregated Francis Marion Hotel, as planned, and that the national and state CWCC commissions — along with all the other invited guests from around the country — were free, “if they so chose,” to attend the banquet at the desegregated Charleston Naval Base. The announcement of this secession came from no less a personage than state CWCC chairman, Rep. John A. May of Aiken, who is central to the flying of the battle flag. The announcement of this secession came from state CWCC chairman, Rep. John A. May of Aiken, who said that the segregation dispute, “if anything, helped give us more publicity.” Publicity about what?

The dispute did not die down and South Carolina indeed held its own meeting at the Francis Marion as planned. Contemporaneous reports by attendees had the dais in the ballroom of the Francis Marion festooned with Confederate battle flags when Sen. John D. Long, who had sponsored resolutions that placed the flag over the House and Senate rostrums, warmed up the crowd by invoking the KKK and Red Shirts of South Carolina. Perhaps it was just as well the Francis Marion events were segregated, given the tenor of the speeches that day:
“Out of the dust and ashes of War with its attendant destruction and woe, came Reconstruction more insidious than war and equally evil in consequences, until the prostrate South staggered to her knees assisted by the original Ku Klux Klan and the Red Shirts who redeemed the South and restored her to her own”. — John D. Long, state senator and co-sponsor of the later 1962 Confederate flag resolution, speaking at the Francis Marion Hotel on April 11, 1961, on the occasion of the Civil War centennial. Senator Long, it should be noted, is the same politician who – at the height of the Little Rock desegregation effort –ordered a dozen sub-machine guns for the Union County, S.C. sheriff’s deputies so that they could “repel any invaders.” (Augusta Chronicle, 4/23/61)

Senator Strom Thurmond, whose Dixiecrat presidential candidacy had made him a folk hero among white southerners and especially South Carolinians and recently revealed as the state’s most well known and longest running racial hypocrite, also spoke for the occasion. He prefaced his speech by resurrecting a century-old argument against Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence, advising the crowd that there is not even a “hint” of purpose in the U.S. Constitution to “ensure equality of man or things.” Continuing, he warned the crowd about the relationship between racial equality and communism:
“It has been revealed time and time again that advocacy by Communists of social equality among diverse races… is the surest method for the destruction of free governments. I am proud of the job that South Carolina is doing [in regard to segregation], and I urge that we continue in this great tradition no matter how much outside agitation may be brought to bear on our people and our state.”
The raising of the Confederate flag at the State House on April 11, 1961, albeit accomplished with no fanfare or ceremony, much like the April 11th Charleston ceremonies and the re-enactment of the Fort Sumter cannonade, was a fairly accurate historical re-enactment of the defiant and secessionist events that had transpired some 100 years earlier, when South Carolina seceded from the Union in order to keep its slavery economy. Only this time, we defiantly wanted to keep segregation. From the standpoint of historical authenticity, the only thing missing from the festivities was people being killed and the Palmetto Guard flag, which was the first Confederate flag flown over Fort Sumter in April 1861, not some naval jack used in Virginia.

So we got what we wanted: publicity. Amid this nationally reported and well documented racial hatred rhetoric and drama in our fair state led by our Governor, ex-Governor and every senator and house member, the Confederate flag was raised at the State House and in the Senate rostrums. We’ll show ‘em” could be our state motto, or “Don’t make me start another war”. “The flag is being flown this week at the request of Aiken Rep. John A. May," reported The State on April 12, 1961. However, as a point of fact, Rep. May didn't introduce his resolution until the next legislative session. By the time the resolution passed on March 16, 1962, the flag had been flying for nearly a year. All of these facts are verifiable through news accounts of the day. Is there any doubt about what this flag symbolized to those who raised it then? Just what is the symbolism of the flag?

While it was in use in war, the flag itself never symbolized or represented the Confederacy. The overriding independence of the Confederate states resulted in a kind of balkanization of the armies of the states, and even within state armies from different sections of the state. Literally, there were hundreds of flags in use for units, divisions, brigades, cavalries, artilleries, etc, all different, some handmade, some manufactured. No actual agreement was never reached, but over time, the “Southern Cross” battle flag — which was the Naval Jack and official flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was the largest and most organized force, and the force that accepted stragglers from all states armies — came to be most used as the battle flag and was mostly flown throughout the rest of the war beneath one of the 3 national CSA flags. While the battle flag was never officially adopted by the CSA, it is arguable that it became the de facto symbol of the Southern war because of the overwhelming use by the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil war. There is no evidence that that South Carolina in particular adopted or exclusively used the battle flag of Northern Virginia distinct from it generalized and unofficial use. I challenge anyone to produce verifiable facts that any person from South Carolina that fought in the Civil war recognized the battle flag of Northern Virginia as their flag.

When South Carolinians protest that the flag represents their heritage, they factually cannot be referring to the flag that flew in the initiation of the war at Fort Sumter. The actual flag flown was the Palmetto Guard, and the original is currently on display at the Fort. While there are some reports that the Bonnie Blue from Texas flew too, they are not verifiable by any eye witness accounts. When South Carolinians protest that the flag represents their heritage, they factually cannot be to any battlefield banner carried by Southern troops in the battles of Bull Run and Pickett’s Mill. That was 1st national flag of the CSA, the Stars and Bars, which was adopted just weeks before the start of the Civil War in March of 1861. It lasted approximately 2 years as the standard. Then the Stainless Banner became the 2nd national flag of the CSA. It was adopted in 1863 and designed to eliminate the battlefield confusion of the 1st flag, which was often confused as a flag of surrender because of its predominant white color. Two years later in March of 1965, the 3rd and final national flag of the Confederate States of America adopted was the Blood Stained Banner. The Blood Stained Banner was nearly identical to the Stainless Banner, except for the broad red stripe on the right border, placed there to remove any appearance of truce or surrender. Ironically, the bloodied and decimated Confederacy surrendered just a few weeks after the Blood Stained Banner was adopted.

Some say that the flag is their southern heritage, and that it is not about hate. A heritage is first property that can be inherited, an inheritance if you will. They cannot be talking about that since the flag is a symbol. Secondly, it is a station or status acquired by a person through birth, a birthright. They cannot be talking about that as a result of being born in the South, since the confederate battle flag is the defiance flag of choice for Neo-Nazi in present day Germany and the Montana Freemen and the KKK of every state in the Union, all of whom are not sons of the South. Thirdly, a heritage is something passed down from generation to generation, generally understood as a tradition. That is the one closest to what they mean, I think. What the flag symbolizes is their heritage. Again, what does the flag symbolize?

Sadly, when anyone refers to heritage as a tradition handed down from generation to generation in the battle flag, they are also, perhaps without conscious knowledge, referring to the ubiquitous symbolic banner flown by groups during the Jim Crow era of 1867 through 1965, when, under the ever present battle flag, legal process was used to segregate and deny equal protection under the law, on the theory that an entire race of people was inferior, and less than human. Is there any doubt what this flag symbolized to those Jim Crow supporters?

This is also the time of Ku Klux Klan begun in 1865 and the infamous White League begun in 1874-1875 and the even more infamous Red Shirts of South Carolina that used rape and assassination against blacks and their white sympathizers, with the well known and admitted financial and political support of Wade Hampton. The confederate battle flag was their flag and symbol, ever present in every endeavor of mayhem, murder and intimidation, both public and private. Is there any doubt what this flag symbolized to those KKK and Red Shirt supporters after during and after Reconstruction up through the 1930s?

When anyone refers to the heritage in the battle flag, they are referring to the officially chosen and ever present flag of the 1940s Dixiecrat Party that built on the prejudice of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow era, and made clear “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever” whose leader Strom Thurmond, who incidentally later in his enlightened life, supported removing the flag. George Wallace segregationists and mobs raised this flag over their violent campaigns against blacks in Selma, Alabama during the 60s. They are claiming as their heritage the symbolism of the flag actually worn by policemen and state troopers in Alabama and Mississippi, who unleashed their fire hoses, bullets and dogs onto civil rights activists, and actually wore the battle flag sewn onto their uniforms. They are claiming their heritage the flag raised by governors of southern states as a show of defiance against federal law simply commanding equal treatment under the law. Is there any doubt what this flag symbolized to those segregationist supporters from the 1940s, 50s and 60s?

They are claiming as their heritage a flag currently carried by Nazis, white supremacists, Montana Freemen, various far right minute men, and all unrepentant racists who have yet to concede the inhumanity of an economy built on slavery, or the racist cause of white supremacy based on the debasement of other races, the meaning, cause and outcome of the Civil War, much less the rightness of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. In an unbroken line from the 1865 KKK and Redshirts until the present day of KKK and white supremacists from Berlin to Boise, the flag is symbolic of white suppression and supremacy, racial hatred and segregation. Whatever honor or duty or sacrifice made on the battlefield under that flag has long been dishonored by those who have subsequently hated and continue to hate under its symbolism.

I am as much a son of the South as anyone can be. My bona fides are a matter of provable fact. Both sides of my family were here in South Carolina before it was named, before the United States was a country, and we have never left. Both sides of my family have many names inscribed as veterans of the Civil War. I honor their memory as my blood relatives, and have often reflected on the loss and longing expressed in letters home, along with their simple nobility of purpose, however misguided and misinformed they may have been. I do not judge them, or anyone else for actions taken during the Civil War. They were all products of their times, and most did what they thought was right.

While the Confederate Battle Flag likely may have been one of the flags under which my ancestors fought and died, it was never their flag then and it is not my flag now. While the flag may be my part of my blood past, it is not, in all of its inescapable legacy as a symbol of racial hatred and violence, something passed down to me as an inheritance. It is not my birthright. It is not my family tradition. It is not my heritage, and I will not pass the idea that it symbolizes some idealized honor on to my children or grandchildren. In an unbroken chain of hateful use almost immediately after hostilities ended, what it symbolizes cannot be reconciled with my social, political, or Christian beliefs. It is as simple as this - It offends my neighbor. Take it down. At long last, begin the reconciliation so desperately needed in our state and nation.

Confederate Memorial Day

Since today is Confederate Memorial Day I thought I'd tell you about my Great Great Grandfather on my mama's side, Benjamin Travis Hayes. He was born August 31, 1829 in Pickens, SC and died October 16, 1864 in Staunton, VA. He married Elizabeth Hood on January 12, 1850. They had six children, including Daniel Travis Hayes, my Great Grandfather. He was a sharecropper and preacher before the Civil War. He never owned a slave. To him the Civil War was about one thing only -the defense of his home and native state. He was first part of Company H, 4th SC Infantry under Capt. Garvin. Later he would serve in Regiment B, 37th VAVCB, Anderson District. He died of lockjaw from a musket wound and was buried in Staunton, VA. His units fought in engagements in Tennessee and Virginia. The wound that would eventually kill him was incurred at the Battle of Fisher's Hill near Strasburg. We have copies of several letters written to his wife while he was away. He loved his wife and children dearly and wanted to keep them safe from the ravages of war. He wrote longingly of home but was determined to do his duty as he saw it. In one letter he wrote, "for independence we will have shed the last drop of our blood." Benjamin Hayes left his home and family to defend liberty. He fought under often cruel conditions and ultimately gave his life at the age of 35. Today we honor those brave souls like my ancestor Benjamin Travis Hayes who endured loneliness, deprivation, cold, and hunger to do what they thought was right. May we all follow their examples of devotion and sacrifice.

It's Still Early

I know it's only May 6, but I want to point out that my Rays are 19-6 to start the season. I've already seen them once, and they lost that night. According to my team of correspondents in Tampa (ok, my brother-in-law Gordon and his wife Jimmye) the Rays are tearing it up with great pitching and timely hitting. Will they challenge the mighty Yankees and Red Sox this season? Only time will tell. It looks pretty promising this season, but the season is an endurance test, so injuries, slumps, bad karma, and other things may play a role. Or the big spenders may have better players. At any rate, I will keep you posted, although I know most of you could care less. When I started blogging I promised to write about what interests me. That still holds true today. I plan to resume my blog, BubbaSpeaks now when interest and opportunity meet.