The South Carolina Confederate Flag Needs To Go

Source of Photograph:  Gephardt Daily 

NPR political reporter, Jessica Taylor wrote a great piece, The complicated political history of the Confederate Flag 

The Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina capital was not flying until the 1960s. 

The flag not only a symbol of the valor of the citizens of South Carolina  who died during the Civil War but was actually raised to protest the federal government intervention in securing civil rights for African Americans during the 1960's.

As Taylor noted, the "Stars and Bars." was not flag of the confederacy but was a the battle flag of Robert E. Lee's North Virginian Army.  

The  history of the actual Confederate Flag pictured below is described in the  article, "Why the Confederate Flag Isn't the Confederate Flag.  (The controversial flag commonly associated with the Confederacy was never the national banner.)"    

Americans need to understand our history and many symbols of our history should not be thrown away in an effort to sanitize the past.

The American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s impacted our national history.   And the Stars and Bars flag was an important flag  during the Civil War.  However, after having a better understanding of the history for the reason  for the Confederate Stars and Bars  being raised over the South Carolina Capital, it is clearly understandable why the flag has to go.

 If I was a black South Carolinean I would be offended seeing that flag flying over the state house.  As a white American who believes civil rights should not be abridged for any citizens,  the flag is a symbol of repression and therefore  needs to go and  to be relegated to a museum because of its particular history of the 1960s and its current history. 

The retail stores are going a bit over board in banning the sell of the Stars and Bars flag.   

For many Americans, the flag is not a racist symbol, but just a flag acknowledging the rebel in many of us.  But admittedly, I will never view the flag quite the same as just being  a relic of the American Civil War.