The chosen symbol of segregationists, White supremacists, and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as well as many Donald Trump devotees, today’s neo-Confederate flag is based upon the battle flag of “an army raised to kill in defense of slavery.”
That’s not the story I learned while growing up in southwest Georgia in the second half of the 20th century. The neo-Confederate flag was plastered across the back of pickup trucks punctuated with prominent rifle racks. It showed up at high school sporting events. It was one of the many myths related to the Lost Cause that I absorbed as “truth” and “good.”
And like the White supremacy that it represented, the 20th century resurrection of the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia has outlived the failed state of its origin.
Yes I knew that South Carolina led southern state secession from the Union in 1860. That was pridefully taught history. What I did not know: in the mid-1860s, decommissioned Confederate soldiers in Tennessee founded the KKK. That the KKK rose into prominence in the early 20th century as part of the “anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-Black” movement.
Nor did I learn that in 1948 South Carolina led southern states as they seceded from the Democratic party.
The newly-formed segregationist States Rights Party (also known as the Dixiecrats) nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate. Their rallying cry (“states rights”) — borrowed from the 1860s — was a dog whistle for “the purposeful denial of fundamental human and civil rights for African Americans.” In a shorter, truthful phrase: White supremacy.
Please continue reading at Medium: Call it by its true name: the Flag of White Supremacy
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com