so is flying the flag that last stood for states rights.
That flag stands for different things to different people. To you, it's states' rights ... to some it's slavery and racism .... to some it's heritage. To me, I see a near miss ... Have you ever thought about what would have happened if the South had won and we were two countries (at least) instead of one great one? There had to have been some published speculation over the last century as to what it would have looked like...
Actually, my ancestors fought and died to end slavery. Their blood helped buy freedom for the oppressed who did not try to buy it themselves. My family were abolitionists motivated to fight to end what they felt was a blight on the liberty of people held as slaves.
The great travesty of our education regarding this period is that educators have portrayed that the south went to war in order to protect the institution of slavery.
While slavery was certainly a polarizing issue - it was not THE issue that motivated southerners to rebel. Most southern troops were not wealthy slave owners. The majority did not even own slaves. They were motivated to stand up and fight for their states rights against what they felt was a strengthening, tyrannically powerful, central government that could "force them to behave".
They felt that if they took one injustice then more would come.
That flag represents racism, to those trained to look for racism. I was born in the north, but raised in the south. I have seen racism and I have seen get even-ism (or reverse discrimination), and they are both wrong.
That flag means nothing to me - but I know folks who are not racists that fly it as an anti-government protest.
The period of reconstruction was the cold war after the hot portion of the civil war.
Many injustices were heaped on the south, and racism sprang from it. I have thought about what would have happened if the south had won the right to secede - there are modern historical articles which state that slavery would not have lasted due to socio-economic and technological pressures...
...but I think more about what would have happened if Lincoln had not been assassinated. He was adamantly opposed to the idea of punishing the south through the policies of re-construction.
THOSE failed and short-sighted policies nurtured bitterness into hatred and became the fertilizer for racism.
I think that the right side lost that war, but the aftermath by short-sighted men used it to enhance their own political power. They did not want southerners re-introduced into the nations governance. The south was cut-off financially as the war wiped out the region agriculturally, the ability to muster a militia was restricted and depleted, and on top of this there was no political representation for those who were truly wronged...so from this came an embittered racism that last for another 100 years - by the time I moved to Georgia in the early 70's I could see the vestiges of that era, but it was dieing - prosperous democracies change society - if by nothing else creating a mobile and transient population.
That flag does not mean racism to anyone I know. It does mean rebellion, it is an anti-government statement, but it has ceased meaning racisim.
Some folks need to stop tilting at windmills.
You will always find what you are looking for.
