
          Flag Waving Down South: Respecting the Past Without
Offending 
          By Perry, JackJack Perry 
          Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 15-16
          
          What does the Confederate flag mean?
          In asking the question, I have in mind that some black
representatives are objecting to the flying of the Confederate flag
over certain state capitols. I have in mind that in the recent turmoil
over racial hazing at The Citadel, some voices have called for the
Confederate banner to be furled and for "Dixie" to go unplayed.
          I have in mind that different people see the Confederate flag quite
differently--although their quarrel is not really over a flag from the
past, it is over the uses of that past in the present.
          Does the Confederate flag stand for honor and States' Rights and
The Lost Cause? Or does it stand for the defense of slavery yesterday
and the offense of racism today?
          May I tell you what the Confederate flag means to me?
          It means a great deal. I am proud of being a Southerner, proud that
my great-grandfathers marched off from north Georgia under the Stars
and Bars. The portrait of one, Gabriel Wilhite Grimes, my mother's
grandfather, is on my office wall, holding his rifle and his bayonet,
wearing the Gray. Also on my wall are portraits of a number of
Confederate generals--three of Lee, my hero--and a print of the Battle
of Lookout Mountain. I call myself a Southern patriot. Patriotism, to
me, means not nationalism in the sense of jingoism but rather profound
love for one's native place. I feel deep in me the love of the
South.
          The South I love, nevertheless, has a past that gives me pain. A
past that includes slavery, yes, but also that encompasses the Ku Klux
Klan, lynch law, the Jim Crow system of segregation under which I grew
up in Atlanta, the block-the-door reaction to the 1954 Supreme_Court
school decision, the resistance to the civil_rights movement in the
'60s. It pains me that the Georgia legislature changed the state flag
I grew up under--this was during the resistance to the civil_rights
movement--to install a Confederate battle flag that stood, I fear,
more for 20th-century racism than for The Lost Cause. And if that
Southern past gives me pain, so do lingering evidences of racism in
the present.
          Despite that pain, I love the South. I take comfort in the faith
that since Emancipation there has been, underlying all injustice and
racial division, common ground of civility and friendliness and humor
and Southernness and-yes--love, between blacks and whites in the
South. I think that the ending of Jim Crow and the acceptance of
racial equality in a spirit of tolerance is one of the great
accomplishments of any nation in this century. Blemishes and irritants
there are, but I see racial harmony in the South as a real thing, one
that shines.
          "Ah," you may say, "then you are a very idealistic man
about the South." Yes, Ma'am, I am. But I try not to be a fool,
and I recognize that the Confederate flag is flown over some attitudes
that ought to shame us.
          How would I feel about the South if I were black?
          Well, undoubtedly I would feel with ferocious conviction that
slavery was a great evil--an evil that was ended not by Southern good
will but by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and by the military
defeat of the Confederacy.
          I would regard Reconstruction not so much as an occupation by alien
forces as a setting of crooked things straight. I would look on the
rise of Jim Crow, long after the war was over, as a resurgence of the
racist evil that was at the heart of slavery. I would consider the
hostile resistance to the civil_rights movement in the '50s and '60s a
sign that racial enmity dies hard.
          I would, I believe, look with pride on the accomplishment of legal
equality by that movement, an on the gains in status and in political
power by blacks since then; and I would, I hope, be proud of the
friendships that bind so many blacks and whites in today's South. But
I would surely remain aware of painful economic constraints for too
many blacks, and I fear I would be more than a little worried about
the persistence of racism in a host of direct and subtle ways.
          Feeling that way, if I were black, I would look with a hard and
cold eye on what often passes for Southern patriotism today. The Klan
rallies carrying the battle flag. The pickup truck with the battle
flag on the front tag and the rifle in the back window. The flying of
the battle flag over state capi-

tols. The politics behind the flag.
          If I were black, in short, I could not afford to be so idealistic
about the South as this white boy can be.
          Proud as I am of being a Southerner, I would be foolish to shut my
eyes to the racism in Southern history and to its persistence in some
Southern attitudes today. We are capable of gentility and concord
among blacks and whites, and therein lies one of the glories of the
South. We are also capable of hatred and injustice, and the grave
cries out against us if we forget it.
          The Confederate banner I cherish is of many colors.
          Hear what St. Paul saith: "Take heed lest by any means this
liberty of yours becomes a stumbling-block to them that are weak."
If flying the battle flag of the Confederacy gives offense to our
brothers and sisters, and if goads those who enjoy hatred into
offensive acts, should we not furl the flag in public, and find other
ways to show our respect for the Southern past? If the flag is in the
heart, we need not fly it from our capitol flagstaffs to prove our
patriotism. If Southerners of good will and good taste--and I dare to
hope that there are at least a meaningful minority--cease to use
symbols of the past to send intolerant messages into the future, I
remain idealist enough to hope that the South as a whole will finally
live up to our ideal of it.
          For of course flags are merely symbols. What we are talking about
here ultimately is politics, political deeds, positions and laws and
policies that affect how we live.
          I would love--wouldn't you?--to see a message of good will between
the races, in the South and beyond. Flying battle flags, and using
race in politics, can be dispensed with. If we do not close our eyes
to the dark side of our past, and of our present, the chances for wise
choices will increase. And I say all that with a Southern accent.
          
            Ambassador Jack Perry, a retired diplomat, is director of
the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies at Davidson
College. His comments are excerpted from remarks previously appearing
in the Charlotte Observer.
          
        
