The Confederate flag and racism

The profound racial implications associated with Confederate flags became increasingly intolerable for the American society. The current disappearance of flag-laden merchandise from retail establishments and the potential removal of Confederate flags from state capitals necessitates a direct and honest confrontation with the historical reality of the Confederacy and its associated symbols.

Following the tragic incident involving the killing of nine individuals of African descent in a church located in Charleston, South Carolina, photographic evidence surfaced of the alleged perpetrator, Dylan Roof, standing with a firearm in one hand and the Confederate battle flag in the other. In response to widespread public disapproval, legislators from the southern region who are of Caucasian descent eventually yielded to persistent calls for the elimination of Confederate flags from state capitals, government structures, and, specifically in the case of Mississippi, from the composition of its state flag.

Regrettably, a significant number of these individuals in positions of authority are failing to fully comprehend the underlying significance of the flags they represent. The outcome entails a partially committed and insufficient effort to disassociate from the racist Confederate legacy embodied by these emblems.

A significant number of politicians have previously advocated for the public display and reverence of Confederate flags. This assertion holds validity, as exemplified by the case of Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina. During her initial campaign for the aforementioned position half a decade ago, Haley maintained that the Confederate battle flag was not inherently racist, but rather constituted a component of a tradition that evoked feelings of pride among certain individuals. As she revises her position about the display of the flag, she maintains that it symbolizes “noble traditions” for a significant portion of our state’s population, encompassing historical, cultural, and ancestral legacy. According to her statement, the suggested course of action is to reduce the prominence of the Confederate flag due to its regrettable misinterpretation and inappropriate utilization by individuals such as Roof, who have associated it with racial ideologies. According to the speaker, the individual accused of murder possesses a distorted and perverse interpretation of the flag. Members of both major political parties express similar statements. The Democratic mayor of Charleston, Joseph P. Riley Jr., expresses his sorrow over individuals such as Roof who have taken possession of a certain entity and employed it as a representation of animosity. Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat, expresses remorse over the misappropriation of the Confederate Battle Flag in recent decades, asserting that it has been unjustly employed to promote racist ideologies and other objectionable causes.

The expression of remorse for the Confederacy and its associated emblems is not a recent phenomenon. The Confederate battle flag was displayed on South Carolina’s capitol building until 1996. Following an NAACP boycott, the flag was eventually relocated to a neighboring place due to pressure. However, the then-governor, David Beasley, persisted in refuting any inherent racist connotations associated with it. The issue at hand lies in the fact that the Ku Klux Klan has been able to exploit this particular emblem as a means to propagate racist ideologies, a trend that has been observed in the past. Additionally, there are instances where individuals have misappropriated this symbol exclusively to represent and promote racist beliefs, as has been documented.

Indeed, assertions of this nature bear minimal relevance to the historical actuality. The Confederate States of America espoused a steadfast and resolute commitment to the institution of slavery and the ideology of white supremacy from its inception. Contemporary individuals with racist ideologies, such as Roof, who prominently display Confederate iconography, are not misrepresenting the intended significance of these emblems. Contrarily, these individuals who hold racist beliefs align themselves closely with the principles and values associated with the Confederate tradition. Engaging in a facade of denial hinders the sincere acknowledgement of this nation’s historical narrative and the persistent influence of the discriminatory ideologies upheld by its symbolic representations.

The institution of African American enslavement played a major role in the economic development of the southern region before to the Civil War. In the year 1860, it was observed that approximately one-third of the population residing in the southern states were subjected to enslavement, wherein they were owned by individuals without any legal autonomy. In the contemporary financial landscape, the aforementioned population of approximately four million individuals possessed an estimated value of approximately $3 billion. The aforementioned figure exceeded the combined worth of all farmland in the southern states. The money in question was three times the total cost of constructing all the railroads that were operational across the entirety of the United States at that time. The profitability of the crops cultivated by enslaved individuals held greater significance for the accumulation of wealth in the southern region, surpassing even the monetary value obtained through the sale of these individuals. These crops played a pivotal role in driving the southern economy. Moreover, it was solely the utilization of enslaved labor, specifically individuals who were completely owned by landowners and without any agency to voice their grievances or decline their assigned tasks, that enabled the intensive and cost-effective cultivation of these crops, ultimately resulting in substantial profits. The justification for black slavery was based on the belief that African Americans were deemed inferior to whites, therefore rendering them suitable only for social exclusion, subordination, and forced labor.

The increasing animosity of the Northern populace towards slavery in the 1850s, particularly its expansion within the United States, prompted the southern states to secede from the Union and instigate the Civil War. South Carolina, as the initial state to secede, specifically undertook this action in order to protect the “right of property in slaves” from potential interference by “the non-slaveholding States” who sought to pass judgment on “the appropriateness of our domestic institutions” and restrict the “rights of property” pertaining to individuals. The secession of slave states from the Union and the subsequent formation of the Confederacy can be attributed to South Carolina’s declaration, which cited the election of a President whose views and intentions were perceived as being in opposition to the institution of slavery. The architects of the Confederacy concurred with the influential Charleston journal, the Mercury, in their belief that Lincoln’s election signified the eventual eradication of slavery within the former Union.

In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis emphasized to his congress the crucial role of African slave labor in the economic prosperity of the southern states. The election of Abraham Lincoln, an individual opposed to slavery, posed a significant threat to the interests of the Southern States. Consequently, the people of these states felt compelled to take action in order to prevent the imminent danger they perceived. The acknowledgment made by Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, highlights the recognition of the North-South debates regarding the “proper status of the negro in our form of civilization” as the primary catalyst for secession. The speaker expressed enthusiasm for the establishment of the new Government, asserting that it was based on the fundamental belief that those of African descent are inherently unequal to those of European descent. Furthermore, the speaker maintained that the institution of slavery and the subordination of the African American population to the dominant white race are inherent and customary aspects of their existence. The newly established republic of slaveholders endeavored to create a constitution that accurately represented the core objective of secession. The Southern rendition of the U.S. Constitution closely resembled its original counterpart in several aspects. However, it notably diverged by including a provision that ensured the prevention of any legislation by the Confederate government that would infringe upon or diminish the right of individuals to own African American slaves.

The outcome of the Civil War resulted in the eradication of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment solidified the abolition of slavery, while two subsequent amendments ensured that black males were granted equal civil rights as their white counterparts. In the post-1870s era, proponents of white supremacy orchestrated a brutal campaign of terror that effectively eroded the advancements made by freed slaves and their offspring during the Civil War and its immediate aftermath. The individuals who spearheaded the aforementioned effort and supported the enduring segregationist Jim Crow regime, which was enforced through acts of terrorism, perceived themselves as inheritors of the Confederacy. The Sons of Confederate Veterans, for instance, proudly proclaimed over fifty years following the conclusion of the Civil War about the Southern region’s triumph in the “significant struggle for white supremacy and the ideals of the South.” As the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s witnessed the progressive rise in strength of new endeavors aimed at dismantling the Jim Crow system, proponents of segregation staunchly opposed these initiatives, rallying under the symbols and ideals associated with the Confederacy. Several states in the southern region of the United States integrated symbols associated with the Confederacy onto their flags as an act of resistance against the growing civil rights movement.

Dylan Roof and individuals of similar mindset do not engage in actions that bring discredit to the legacy of the Confederacy, nor do they distort or exploit its symbols. The establishment of the Confederate States of America was primarily motivated by the preservation of African American slavery and the perpetuation of white supremacy. Following the formal abolition of slavery, proponents of white supremacy understandably regarded the slaveholders’ republic as their legitimate predecessors. If the nation has finally reached a state of genuine readiness to discontinue the commemoration and reverence of the Confederacy and its emblems, it should undertake this endeavor with a comprehensive understanding of the extensive and detrimental customs that have rendered such action imperative.

This week the inherent racism of Confederate flags finally seemed too much for America to stomach. As flag-laden memorabilia disappears from store shelves and the flags themselves face removal from state capitals, it’s time for the truth about the Confederacy and its symbols to be confronted squarely.

In the wake of the slaughter of nine black people in a Charleston, South Carolina church, photographs emerged of suspected killer Dylan Roof posing with a pistol in one hand and the Confederate battle flag in the other. Amid the ensuing pubic revulsion, southern white politicians at last began to bend to long-standing demands to remove Confederate flags from state capitals, government buildings and—in the case of Mississippi—from within the design of its own state flag.

Unfortunately, quite a few of these office-holders are acting without coming to terms with just what those flags do in fact stand for. The result is a half-hearted, incomplete distancing from the racist Confederate tradition that these symbols represent.

Many of these politicians have previously defended public veneration of Confederate flags. That is true, for example, of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. When she first ran for that office five years ago, Haley insisted that the Confederate battle flag was “not something that is racist” but was just part of “a tradition that people feel proud of.” As she now alters her stance about flying that flag, she continues to claim that “for many people in our state” it “stands for traditions that are noble… traditions of history, of heritage, and of ancestry.” It should be lowered, she now says, only because people like Roof have unfortunately misunderstood and misused it for racist purposes. This alleged murderer, she continues, “has a sick and twisted view of the flag.” Similar statements come from members of both major parties. Charleston’s Democratic mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., grieves because those like Roof “have appropriated something and used it as a symbol of hatred.” “The Confederate Battle Flag,” regrets former U. S. senator Jim Webb, another Democrat, “has wrongly been used for racist and other purposes in recent decades.”

This implicit apology for the Confederacy and its symbols is not new. Until 1996, the Confederate battle flag flew atop South Carolina’s capitol building. When an NAACP boycott of that state finally forced the flag’s removal to another (nearby) location, then-governor David Beasley continued to deny that there was anything inherently racist about it. The problem was simply that “the Klan can misuse it as a racist tool, as it has, and others can misuse it solely as a symbol for racism, as they have.”

In fact, claims like these have little to do with historical reality. The Confederate States of America firmly and emphatically stood for slavery and white supremacy from its birth. Modern-day racists like Roof who brandish Confederate symbols are not distorting their meaning. On the contrary: these racists stand squarely within the Confederate tradition. Pretending otherwise is an obstacle to coming to terms honestly with this country’s history and the enduring strength of the racist views that its symbols celebrate.

Before the Civil War the enslavement of African Americans was central to southern prosperity. In 1860, nearly one in every three people who lived in the southern states was enslaved, was owned outright by others. On the markets of the day, those nearly four million human beings were worth something like $3 billion. That was a sum greater than the value of all the farmland in all the states of the South. It was a sum fully three times as great as the cost of constructing all the railroads that then ran throughout all the United States. And even more important to southern wealth than the sale price of these human bodies were the very profitable crops that the slaves produced for their masters, crops central to the southern economy. And only slave labor—only the labor of people owned outright by the landowners, people who had no right to object to their conditions much less refuse to do the work—would cultivate those crops intensively and cheaply enough to yield the immense profits that they did. Black slavery was justified on the grounds that African Americans were inferior to whites, fit only for ostracism, subordination and bound labor.

The Northern population’s mounting hostility to slavery during the 1850s—and especially to its continuing spread within the U.S.—led southern states to leave the Union and initiate the Civil War. The first state to secede, South Carolina, explicitly did so to safeguard “the right of property in slaves” against attempts by “the non-slaveholding States” to judge “the propriety of our domestic institutions” and to deny “the rights of property” in human beings. Slave states bolted from the Union and formed the Confederacy, as South Carolina announced, because of “the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.” The Confederacy’s founders agreed with the influential Charleston newspaper, the Mercury, that Lincoln’s election foretold “the extinction of slavery” throughout the old Union.

In 1861 Confederate president Jefferson Davis reminded his congress that because “the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable” to southern prosperity. “With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled” by the election to the presidency of an antislavery man like Abraham Lincoln, he declared, “the people of the Southern States were driven . . . to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced.” The Confederacy’s vice president, Alexander Stephens, also acknowledged that disputes about “the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization” between North and South constituted “the immediate cause” of secession. “Our new Government,” he exulted, was founded “upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.” The new slaveholders’ republic fashioned itself a constitution that reflected secession’s central purpose. In most ways a carbon copy of the U. S. Constitution, the South’s version distinguished itself by guaranteeing that no “law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves” would ever be enacted by a Confederate government.

Union victory in the Civil War destroyed slavery. The thirteenth amendment enshrined abolition, and two additional amendments promised black men the same civil rights that white men enjoyed. During the 1870s and afterward, however, champions of white supremacy led a vicious terror campaign that successfully stripped former slaves and their descendants of many of the gains that they had achieved during the war and its immediate aftermath. Leaders of that campaign and upholders of the long-lived segregationist Jim Crow system that terrorism imposed regarded themselves as heirs of the Confederacy. The Sons of Confederate Veterans, for example, boasted more than half a century after Appomattox about the South’s postwar victory in the “great battle for white supremacy and southern ideals.” And as new efforts to overthrow Jim Crow gradually grew in strength during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, segregationists fiercely resisted under the banners of the Confederacy. Various southern states incorporated Confederate insignia into their flags in defiance of that rising civil rights movement.

Dylan Roof and his kind, thus, do not dishonor the memory of the Confederacy; they do not misrepresent and misuse its symbols. The Confederate States of America came into existence to preserve African American slavery and white supremacy. After slavery’s legal abolition, the defenders of white supremacy quite logically looked back upon the slaveholders’ republic as their true forebears. If the country is at last really ready to cease celebrating and honoring the Confederacy and its symbols, it should do so with a full awareness of the long and poisonous traditions that makes this necessary.