Posted on 05/08/2003 7:33:37 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Atlanta-AP -- The Georgia state flag, whose symbolism was initially meant to satisfy everyone, will be retired today after being flown for only two years.
Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue plans to sign a bill to take down the controversial flag and replace it with a simpler design.
When the 2001 flag was introduced it was considered a political masterstroke. It shrunk the Confederate battle cross and incorporated the symbol in a small montage of older Georgia flags.
The flag was quickly voted the nation's ugliest by a group of flag experts. School children couldn't draw it. Around the state Capitol, it was commonly referred to as a Denny's place mat.
The new flag is still inspired by the old national Confederate flag but without the famous cross of stars.
Gov. Sonny Perdue plans to sign a bill Thursday to take down the flag and replace it with a simpler design, inspired by a national Confederate flag but without the famous cross of stars.
The closing hours of Georgia's shortest-lived flag brought little in the way of fond farewells. Even some of the architects of the 2001 flag gave it a curt obituary.
"In no way am I sad that flag is being retired," joked Rep. Tyrone Brooks, a black Atlanta Democrat who led the charge to adopt it two years ago. "It's not exactly, you know, anybody's dream flag."
The brief-flying state flag was a compromise intended to shrink the Confederate emblem but incorporate the symbol in a mini montage of old Georgia flags.
The result was what many considered a visual train wreck of words, seals and stars.
The flag was voted the nation's ugliest by a group of flag experts just five months after it was adopted. Southern heritage groups started calling it a "rag." School children couldn't draw it. Around the Capitol, it was commonly referred to as looking like a place mat from a Denny's restaurant.
As lawmakers wrangled for months over changing the state flag this winter and spring, a rural Democrat summed up Georgia's frustration with the 2001 banner.
"I've never seen anybody flying it!" cried Rep. Larry Walker, of Perry, south of Macon. "You ever seen it on a boat? You ever seen it at a football game? Nobody flies this thing!"
Georgia's latest flag saga started last summer, when a rural Republican started talking about it in his underdog campaign to oust Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes. Sonny Perdue promised a statewide vote on the flag, which figured prominently in his surprise victory in November.
Perdue originally wanted a vote on the 1956 flag with its dominant Dixie "X" - adopted by an all-white Legislature at the height of Southern resistance to integration.
But after months of arguing, lawmakers decided to quash any chance of the Confederate emblem's revival and drew a new flag instead. Perdue agreed to the compromise.
Civil rights groups had threatened an economic boycott if Georgia revived the Dixie cross, which many blacks lawmakers call a symbol of oppression. Southern heritage advocates, on the other hand, called the new flag a betrayal.
The new flag features the state's coat of arms and the words "In God We Trust" on a blue corner in the top left, with three red-and-white stripes to the right.
Georgia voters will get to pick between the new three-stripe flag and the 2001 flag in a referendum next March. Few give the 2001 flag any chance to win.
"It's a flag that Georgians didn't warm up to," said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University. "They just didn't embrace it. Very few people ever bought that flag except the ones that had to, schools and so on."
But even as lawmakers and flag experts poked fun at the 2001 "place mat," they said it should be honored for its role as a transition piece. Its odd design helped it pass because some legislators demanded some incorporation of the Confederate emblem before voting for a new flag.
"It wasn't the best design, but it was the only compromise they could come up with to replace the '56 flag. It should be remembered for that," said Ed Jackson, a flag expert at the University of Georgia.
Brooks, one of the creators of the 2001 flag, also emphasized that it was the only design that would have worked.
"It served its purpose," Brooks said. "It has to be remembered in the spirit of compromise and change."
As for Barnes, whose official portrait in the Capitol shows him in front of the 2001 flag, he has no regrets.
"The important thing was to remove the Confederate emblem from its position of prominence," said Bobby Kahn, Barnes' chief of staff. "That was the important step. And we're still proud of that."
The new Georgia flag has a red horizontal stripe at the top, a white horizpntal stripe in the middle, and a red horizontal stripe at the bottom. Sounds like the Confederate First National Flag to me. As I understand it, the pre-1956 flag had the some configuration.
So, if the opponents are worried about honoring the Southern Confederacy, the new design does just that.
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