Flag

After months of open and contentious debate, the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina agreed in May 2000 that the Confederate Flag would be taken from the State House dome and placed at the Confederate Soldiers' Monument. State Governor Jim Hodges signed the bill, which was supported by the South Carolina Chamber as part of the Business Agenda and the Courage to Compromise coalition, on May 30. "Today, we bring this debate to an honorable end. Today, the descendants of slaves and the descendants of Confederate soldiers join together in the spirit of mutual respect," Hodges stated in a speech just prior to the signing. The actual relocation of the flag on July 1, 2000, complete with pomp and circumstance, was attended by 3,000 people. The official ceremony lasted eight minutes. The fallout lasted for eight months.

In 1994, Jim Folsom, Jr., the governor of Alabama, decided to move a Confederate flag from the state capitol's room to a nearby war memorial. His decision was partially a response to pressure from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Afterward, South Carolina was the only former member of the Confederate States of America to fly the Confederate flag on its capitol building, though some Southern states still used it as part of their flag design. The issue waxed and waned in South Carolina's legislature for the next several years without resolution. In late 1999, the NAACP again mobilized, calling for a boycott of all state tourism, athletic contests, cultural events, and film-making in South Carolina until the flag was removed.

Benedict College, an historically black institution, canceled its September 2, 2000, football game with South Carolina State University after the latter refused to move the game from its campus in Orangeburg, South Carolina, to Charlotte, North Carolina. This event was followed by Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College all canceling spring-break trips to South Carolina's coast. Furthermore, the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I Board of Directors threatened to move games in the men's basketball tournament out of South Carolina if the flag was not removed from the state dome.

The issue returned to the state legislature's general assembly, where, following several weeks of emotional and grueling battle, a compromise agreement was reached in May 2000 by a House vote of 66-43 and a Senate vote of 35-8. The flag came down and took up its new home at the Solders' Memorial. Senator Arthur Ravenel claimed, "The only people that seem to be unhappy are the extremists."

The NAACP, however, took umbrage with the new location, complaining that the flag had become more visible than ever. It sent out mailings, urging the continuation of its state boycott and arguing that the flag also should be removed from all state grounds, including the Soldiers' Memorial. State Senator Robert Ford, a black supporter of the compromise, defended its new location, stating that, contrary to the NAACP's contentions, the flag was not "in anybody's face" in its new location. House majority leader Rick Quinn remarked that the NAACP had "essentially become professional agitators and I think someone needs to stand up to them." Several hundred flag supporters gathered at the ceremony and vowed that the flag would again rise above the state capitol.

After the flag's removal in South Carolina, Georgia followed. In January 2001, Georgia governor Ray Barnes persuaded lawmakers to shrink the Confederate battle emblem prominently displayed on the state flag to a small box in the corner of the flag. The Confederate battle emblem had been added in 1956 while Georgia schools were segregated. Sonny Perdue defeated Barnes in an upset victory in 2002, due in no small part to the flag controversy. In April 2003, Perdue endorsed a new flag that employs the so-called "stars and bars," another historic Confederate banner. However, CIVIL RIGHTS groups, including the NAACP and Rainbow/PUSH, heavily criticized Perdue's stance, demanding that the flag have no Confederate symbols. On April 25, 2003, Georgia's legislature approved a flag that looks similar to the Confederate battle emblem but does not have the Dixie cross or other Confederate symbols.

Other states have had mixed reactions to the flag controversy. Florida quietly removed its Confederate flag from the state capitol in 2001. Mississippi, however, the last bastion of the old South, has held its ground. In April 2001, by a two-thirds division along mostly racial lines, voters overwhelmingly rejected a bill to replace the state's "Southern Cross" on its flag, which dates back to 1894. Mississippi, the poorest state in the Union, showed little concern for any threatened boycotts.

The flag controversy revolves around the intended meaning of the flag. Clearly, if a state's flag represents "symbolic speech," there must be an intent to convey a particular message that is understood by those who view it, in order to invoke FIRST AMENDMENT consideration. Under these conditions, the time, place, and manner of display may be controlled if it can be proven that its display would cause violence or mayhem. According to the NAACP, the Confederate battle flag and emblem "have been embraced as the primary symbols for the numerous modern-day groups advocating white supremacy." The NAACP has referred to the flag as a "banner of secession and slavery." Some Southern whites see it as a banner of honor, however, for the Confederate soldiers who lost their lives during the U.S. CIVIL WAR. Furthermore, they interpret the war to have been more about state and federal power and states' rights to secede from a union that they had joined voluntarily and less as a war to end the institution of SLAVERY. Still further, others see the flag as a banner of "treason against the United States government."

The flag's significance on the state building seems to send two messages. Some have charged that it was more than coincidence that the South Carolina Confederate flag first flew over the state capitol in the early 1960s: it was raised in a centennial celebration of the Civil War. Others believe it was also meant to send a message to the grassroots CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, which was just beginning to mobilize. In a country where historians continued to debate the reasons for the Civil War, the flag's message has been interpreted according to passing ideological or economic battles.

Issues regarding Southern heritage and the Confederate flag also were fought over in schools. In October 2000, the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES declined review of the Eleventh Circuit's decision in Denno v. School Board of Volusia County, Fla., 218 F. 3d 1267 (11th Cir. (Fla.), Jul 20, 2000) which upheld a school's right to discipline a student for displaying a small Confederate flag at school. The school had argued that the flag was such a controversial symbol that its display invited disruption. The Eleventh Circuit panel first issued an opinion allowing the student to proceed with his case against the school board then later withdrew its opinion and issued a dismissal.

Students in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia also have been disciplined in the early 2000s for wearing Confederate symbols or flags on their clothing. Notwithstanding, in March 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit remanded to the trial court a suit by two Kentucky students who were suspended for wearing Hank Williams Jr. shirts with the Confederate flag. (Castorina v. Madison County School Board, 246F. 3d 536 [6th Cir. (Ky.), Mar 08, 2001]). The appellate court stated that the school needed to explain its reason for the ban, such as whether any racial violence had occurred at the school.