Modern display of the Confederate battle flag


Although the Confederate States of America dissolved at the end of the American Civil War, its battle flag continues to be displayed as a symbol. This modern usage can be traced to the 1948 United States presidential election, when it was used by the Dixiecrats, southern Democrats who opposed civil rights for African Americans. Further display of the flag was largely a response to the civil rights movement and the passage of federal civil rights laws in the 1950s and 1960s.
The display of flags associated with the Confederacy is controversial. Supporters associate the Confederate battle flag with pride in Southern heritage, states' rights, and historical commemoration of the Civil War, while opponents associate it with glorification of the Civil War and celebrating the Lost Cause, racism, slavery, segregation, white supremacy, historical negationism, and treason. Incidents such as the Charleston church shooting, the Unite the Right rally, and the murder of George Floyd led to public official display of the flag being mostly retired in the United States, but not abroad.

Background

National flags

The Confederate States of America used three national flags during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865, known as the "Stars and Bars", the "Stainless Banner", and the "Blood-Stained Banner".
The "Stars and Bars" was unpopular among Confederates for its resemblance to the United States flag, which furthermore caused confusion during battle. Criticism of the first national flag led to the rise of the battle flag design, which was incorporated by the "Stainless Banner" and "Blood-Stained Banner". Both of these national designs also failed to gain traction in the South. The "Stainless Banner" was criticized for its excessive white design, creating fears that it could be mistaken for a flag of truce and causing it to be easily soiled. The "Blood-Stained Banner", issued a little over a month before the Confederacy's surrender, was seldom used due to few flags being manufactured.

The vernacular "Confederate flag"

Designed by William Porcher Miles, the chairman of the Flag and Seal Committee of the Confederate Provisional Congress, the flag now generally known as the "Confederate flag" was first proposed and rejected as the national flag in 1861. However, the design was adopted as a battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee and grew in popularity throughout the Confederacy.
To conserve material, the ANV changed Miles' design from a rectangle to a square for the battle flag. The rectangular version, similar to the battle flag used by the Army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston, is the most popular today and common in modern reproductions. Despite never having historically represented the Confederacy as a country nor been officially recognized as one of its flags, it is commonly referred to as "the Confederate Flag" and has become a widely recognized symbol of the American South. It is also called the "rebel flag", "Dixie flag", "Confederate battle flag", or "Southern cross". Opponents of the flag have referred to it as the "Dixie swastika". Due to misconceptions of this design being the Confederacy's national flag, it is often incorrectly called the "Stars and Bars" after the original national design. The self-declared Confederate exclave of Town Line, New York, lacking a genuine Confederate flag, flew a version of this flag prior to its 1946 vote to ceremonially rejoin the Union.

Revival and controversy

During the "memorial period" that ran from the late 19th century through the 1920s, the use of Confederate flags broadened and became the symbolic embodiment of the Lost Cause. The Confederate battle flag was added to the state flags of three former Confederate states. The flag of Mississippi included the battle flag from 1894 until 2020, and the flag of Georgia did from 1956 until 2003. The 50th anniversary reunion at Gettysburg in 1913 was a turning point in obtaining national acceptance of the flag and other Confederate symbols. The flag appears prominently in The Birth of a Nation, a highly successful and influential film which favourably depicts the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group. Woodrow Wilson made this the first ever film to air at the White House during his term as president. Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone with the Wind, led to a brief but intense period of nostalgia for the Old South during which the Confederate flag appeared widely. In the film adaptation, the flag flutters over a scene of vast carnage.

Military use

During World War II, several U.S. military units using Southern nicknames or composed largely of Southerners made the flag their unofficial emblem. Some soldiers carried Confederate flags into battle. After the Battle of Okinawa, a Confederate flag was raised over Shuri Castle by a Marine from the self-styled "Rebel Company". It was visible for miles and was taken down after three days on the orders of General Simon B. Buckner Jr., who stated that it was inappropriate as "Americans from all over are involved in this battle". The regulation replaced it with 48-star flag of the United States. By the end of the war, the use of the Confederate flag in the military was relatively rare. In 1952, Destroyer Division 122 was ordered to stop flying the Confederate flag.
Following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd and ensuing protests, Commandant of the Marine Corps David Berger directed Marine Corps leaders to remove all Confederate-related items from all the Corps' bases throughout the world. The entire U.S. Navy soon followed suit, disallowing the exhibition of the Confederate battle flag in all public places on installations, ships, and aircraft. After the branch-specific bans, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper issued guidance in July that effectively forbade the display of the battle flag by all uniformed American military personnel and at all US military installations around the world.

Political groups

The 1948 Dixiecrat political party extensively used Confederate symbols, including the battle flag, and it contributed to the flag's mid-20th-century re-popularization. According to historian John Coski, segregationists utilized Confederate symbols since both they and the Confederates had similar goals, that is, opposition to efforts to "change the South's racial status quo". As a result, Coski stated that "There could be no more fitting opposition than the Confederate battle flag."
In Georgia, the Confederate battle flag was reintroduced as an element of the state flag in 1956, just two years after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. It was considered by many to be a protest against school desegregation. It was also raised at the University of Mississippi during protests against the integration of schools.
File:National-socialist-movement-knox-tn1.jpg|thumb|Members of the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement marching at Market Square in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2010
While some supporters of the flag's continued use claim that it is merely a symbol of Southern heritage and ancestry, or that it represents the cultural traditions that distinguish southern states from the United States at large, white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan have continued to use the "southern cross" as a symbol. Such groups often display Confederate flags alongside others like the Nazi-era Reichskriegsflagge or the Blood Drop Cross, contributing to public perception of the Confederate flag as a hate symbol.
Historian John Coski noted that the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the "most visible, active, and effective defender of the flag", "carried forward into the twenty-first century, virtually unchanged, the Lost Cause historical interpretations and ideological vision formulated at the turn of the twentieth." Coski wrote concerning "the flag wars of the late twentieth century":
The allied United Daughters of the Confederacy and other historical societies also used the flag as one of their symbols.
From an opposite political perspective, both the Southern Student Organizing Committee and the Young Patriots Organization, were 1960/70s New Left anti-racist movements that attempted to reappropriate the Confederate flag in their symbolism.
In Petersburg, Virginia, the Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburg in 1909 had a Tiffany stained-glass Confederate flag included in a window over the door to the former Blandford Church.

Religious groups

At its annual meeting in 2016, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling for Southern Baptist churches to stop displaying the Confederate flag, as a "sign of solidarity of the whole Body of Christ."

Public opinion (2011–2021)

The Confederate flag is a controversial symbol for many Americans today. A 2011 Pew Research Center poll revealed that 30% of Americans had a "negative reaction" when "they saw the Confederate flag displayed". According to the same poll, 9% of Americans had a positive reaction. A majority did not react. Among black Americans, 41% had a negative reaction, 10% had a positive reaction, and 45% had no reaction. A similar poll taken in 2015 revealed little change from 2011.
In an October 2013 YouGov poll, a plurality of those polled disapproved of displaying the flag in public places. In the same poll, a plurality of those asked viewed the flag as a symbol of racism, with 24% viewing it as exclusively racist and 20% viewing it as both racist and symbolic of pride in the region. 35% viewed it exclusively as a symbol of regional pride.
In a national survey in 2015 across all races, 57% of Americans believed that the Confederate flag represented Southern pride rather than racism. A similar poll in 2000 had a nearly identical result of 59%. However, poll results from only the South yielded a completely different result: 75% of Southern whites described the flag as a symbol of pride. Conversely, 75% of Southern blacks said the flag symbolized racism.
Another poll, administered by Economist / YouGov after racially motivated violence in Charlottesville in August 2017, showed that by a 5% margin – 43% to 38% – the Confederate Flag was viewed as a symbol of southern pride rather than racism. However, participants of color were 32% more likely than their white neighbors to see it as a sign of racism.
In July 2020, over a month after the George Floyd incident, Quinnipiac released a poll showing that the majority of both Southerners and Americans in general now viewed the Confederate flag as a racist symbol rather than one of heritage, with 55% of Southerners associating the Confederate flag with racism compared to 36% who said the flag a symbol of Southern pride. Closely followed were Americans in general, 56% of whom said the flag was a symbol of racism, with 35% saying it was a symbol of southern pride.
This contrasted with polling conducted Morning Consult and Politico right after the George Floyd incident, which showed nearly the opposite - 44 percent of saw the Confederate flag as symbol of Southern pride, and 36 percent saw it as racist.