Don Doyle talking:
this is not the Confederate flag. It’s the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee’s major army, not just for Virginia, but for the Eastern Theater. And it was a symbol of rebellion, rebellion in 1860, ’61, against the electoral victory of the Republican administration under Lincoln. And it was a rebellion to secede and to overthrow the power of the federal government within the what became 11 Confederate states.
So, a century later, that flag then became, or had been, a symbol of a second rebellion, and that was a rebellion against desegregation and federal efforts to interfere in the states’ rights to perpetuate segregation. It goes back not to 1962, but earlier to at least in 1948, when Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, U.S. senator, led the Dixiecrats out of the Democratic Party, protesting the civil rights plank that was included that year in the Democratic Party platform. And it continued to become a symbol. Now it was politicized and became a symbol of resistance to desegregation in 1961, 1962. This was a time when the—when Clemson was about to be desegregated, with Harvey Gantt applying for admission, James Meredith in Mississippi. And not just South Carolina, but nearly all of the Deep South states began to use the Confederate flag as a kind of symbol of resistance.
Now, it was also entangled with the commemoration of the Civil War centennial of a century earlier. So it was confused and shrouded in this issue of heritage and history and this kind of benign concept of celebrating or honoring the past. And I think people very sincerely believe in that, but at the same time, the political implications of the flag in 1962, when it was raised on the state House dome along with the United States flag, the state flag and then this battle flag, I think it was clear to everyone that this was a symbol of resistance, of defiance, and that if it provoked and offended, I think that was OK with the people who defended the place of that flag up on the state House dome.
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Don Doyle, McCausland professor of American history at the University of South Carolina. His most recent book is The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War.
— source democracynow.org