How Other Southern States' Flags Also Evoke the Confederacy

ABC News ^ | 06/22/2015 | Meghan Keneally

[ScottWalkerForPresident2016]

The American flag was lowered to half-staff at the South Carolina state capitol last week after the deadly church shooting in Charleston, yet the Confederate "battle flag" still flies on the state capitol grounds, outraging South Carolinians and other Americans.

Local politicians and leaders held a joint news conference this morning to call for the Confederate flag, currently flying, by law, at full-staff, to be to be removed entirely from the site, and Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to make a statement on the issue this afternoon.

But though the controversy is focused this week on South Carolina, it is not the only state to have the remnants of the Confederacy in its state symbol.

The Georgia state flag isn't what most Americans commonly recognize as the Confederate flag, but it is is actually based on an earlier version.

That earlier version prominently featured the "Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia," which is the commonly recognized version of the Confederate flag.

The current version was adopted in 2003 after two years of debate over the specifics of the flag, as described in "The New Georgia Encyclopedia". The flag used today is based on the first national flag of the Confederacy (dubbed the "Stars and Bars"), with the Georgia state seal inside the circle of stars and "In God We Trust" written below.

"This legacy did not go unnoticed by African American legislators and others -- but most expressed a willingness to allow this tribute because they did not see it as a symbol widely associated with racist groups," reads "The New Georgia Encyclopedia," which is run through a partnership with groups including the governor's office and the University of Georgia Press.

[jmacusa]

Youisright!

[central_va]

You are siding with race baiters, Obama and the other leftist agitators; haters of the 1st and 2nd amendments. But I guess you are OK here because you are just to stupid to realize it. You get the “stupid pass”. Every village needs an idiot. So does Free Republic.

[central_va]

Would you have wanted to be a black male in the antebellum South General?

As opposed to being a dead teenager in Baltimore?

[jmacusa]

I’m asking you, would you have wanted to be a black male in the antebellum south? So is the subtext of your question that blacks were better off on the plantation?

[jmacusa]

You need medication dude. Seriously. You are one angry little cuss.

[central_va]

If I told you you could live to be 70 years old on a plantation and have many grand children or be dead at age 17 dealing drugs and gang banging which would you chose?

[jmacusa]

And be sold off at say, 17? General, you have lost whats left of your mind.

[Ben Mugged]

Exactly who did the south oppress? At the beginning of the war both sides agreed slavery was not the issue as slavery was held by both sides at the beginning.

I suggest you get educated before you bloviate.

[Ben Mugged]

Here is some information I bet you don't find in today's school books.

The U.S. government had a Civil War era slave census, and it showed that 1.4% of households owned one or more slaves, and a very small subset of those had more than 5 slaves. You can get your information from a reliable source like www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/document... You might also read former Virginia Senator Jim Webb's book, Born Fighting, for corroboration of these numbers.

There were 5,447,220 southern whites of which approximately 76,000 owned 3,521,110 slaves or about 46 slaves per owner. Approximately 2000 of the 132,760 free blacks also owned slaves.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Memo to Nicki Haley: We will be flying the Confederate flag alongside the Gadsden at our deck party on the fourth of july as usual. Sorry Nicki no RINO’s invited.

[rockrr]

Hey village idiot, where’s those links?

[rockrr]

Could you please provide a link to evidence that “both sides agreed slavery was not the issue as slavery was held by both sides at the beginning”? Thanks.

[vetvetdoug]

The Lone Star Flag of Texas was the Confederate Battle Flag for the 1st Texas Infantry, Army of Northern Virginia. So far, the race baiters haven't made the connection yet.

[vetvetdoug]

There were many black slave owners in the South or did you miss that in your history books? When Ruffin caned Stevens on the floor of Congress, it was the black slave owners of Charleston that presented Ruffin with a new cane to carry with him back to Congress.

[trebb]

The media's witch hunt has concluded that every state flag in the South is racist.

The South is still a threat to them - all them folks having conservative values, a love of God and an affinity for guns brings out the hatred.

[9YearLurker]

That was the inevitability—hastened by going to war over the establishment of slavery in new territories.

[9YearLurker]

You don’t think the slaves in the South were oppressed?

Another Freeper in denial about the African-American experience in the US.

[9YearLurker]

So you’re a slavery apologist, too?

[jmacusa]

I know all about the black slave owners. And how The Cherokees owned them too. Slavery knows no race or color. What’s your point?

[DiogenesLamp]

That was the inevitability—hastened by going to war over the establishment of slavery in new territories.

That theory is often proffered to argue "we had to do it for their own good", but it is not actually a persuasive argument for killing 600,000 people and destroying an entire region.

Lincoln was not going to abolish slavery in the south, so arguments that the south would lose slavery are just wrong, and reflect a lack of understanding of the actual history involved.