members would meet with historians to discuss placing markers by the flag to “explain its historical significance.”
I am sure there will be a self-described “historian” from the Sons of Confederate Veterans eager to help them out.
I would recommend they contact Robert Bonner, chair of the History Department at Dartmouth and author of Colors and Blood: Flag Passions of the Confederate South. In that book, he had this to say about the Stainless Banner:
The decision to make more than half of the new national flag entirely white returned some Confederates to the question of race. The Savannah Morning News argued that the preponderance of white would make clear to the world that “we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race.” It even predicted that the new banner would be “hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN’S FLAG.”
The County Commission unanimously approved a move to fly the flag again days later, saying members would meet with historians to discuss placing markers by the flag to “explain its historical significance.”
Sample marker:
“This flag is used by Southerners to commemorate the brief, four-year period when they seceded from the United States and fought a bloody war over the right to own other human beings as property. Sadly, enough people seem to think that this period of time was totally awesome that markers such as this one have become necessary.”
One Confederate flag supporter told the station: “We live in America, and the last time I checked it was a democracy. So, here in Marion County, which has, what, 300,000 people, how can one man decide to take it off a flagpole?”
Marion County, Fla. officials took down the Confederate flag that flies at the county government complex last week, temporarily replacing it with a flag bearing the county seal, News 13 reported. The County Commission unanimously approved a move to fly the flag again days later …
A spokesperson for the County Commission added, “The Interim County Administrator, Bill Kauffman, decided all on his tyrannical lonesome self to do the right thing, but the Commission took a vote and we unanimously decided we’d rather be assholes.”
The intro to Newton’s book is horrifying in itself, that is how the Klan has held sway over Florida sheriffs and political leaders right up to modern times:
"In vivid, comprehensive, and often grim detail, Invisible Empire charts 130 years of Ku Klux Klan activity in Florida, one of the Klan’s most violent and enduring realms.
Beginning with the chaotic days of Reconstruction, when Klansmen killed more than 150 victims in a single county, this important history describes the organization’s influence on Florida politics and its links to modern law enforcement. From the KKK’s heyday during the 1920s and 1930s, its alignment in the 1970s and 1980s with a growing crop of neo-Nazis and other cultists, and its emergence in the 1990s on the fringe of the “right-to-life” movement, Florida Klansmen have waged a constant war against progressive society. Their crimes range from petty vandalism to assassination and destruction of entire communities. Florida governors have courted Klan ballots, and high-ranking lawmen collaborated with the Klan in campaigns of arson and murder.
In addition to recounting tales of violence, Newton addresses the critical question of how the hooded night riders continue to survive–a bitter, marginalized extremist movement that is still marching in what is arguably the Deep South’s most progressive and ethnically diverse state. He also discusses how to curb guerrilla warfare before the Klan and its allies inaugurate a new century of terror."
I think the historical marker should mention the long struggle for justice against the country’s original sin and an explanation of the significance of county’s decision hoist that flag again should serve as a reminder that the struggle continues even in the year 2015.
The Blood-Stained Banner was, I think, the 3rd national flag of the CSA and the second to incorporate the battle flag as part of the design. <pushes up glasses>
“Last time I checked.” My attitude is always: When exactly was the last time you checked? Describe to me the process. Where do you go to do this checking?
