IT’S THE STRUGGLE, NOT THE CAUSE

By Edwin Cooney

I usually understand and can explain what and why something matters to me. What sometimes befuddles me is what and why something matters to somebody else. What’s grabbing me at present is why the Confederate Flag is so important to so many folks.

Recently, “The Sons of Confederate Veterans,” based in Florida, made a public issue of their unhappiness over an art display at the Tallahassee, Florida Mary Brogan Center of Art and Science entitled “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag.” The display, designed by black artist John Simms, shows a Confederate Flag hanging by a noose from a thirteen-foot gallows.

Art isn’t always easy to interpret. However, a gentleman by the name of Robert Hurst of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has no trouble interpreting Mr. Simms’ art. In fact, Hurst doesn’t consider Simms’ display to be art at all. To Mr. Hurst, John Simms’ display is tasteless as well as offensive.

In addition, Mr. Hurst said that he is considering a lawsuit against the Mary Brogan Center for Art and Science because they insist on displaying something that amounts to desecration of the Confederate flag.

Now there is a statute on the books in Florida that outlaws abuse of the Confederate flag. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has rather consistently overruled laws protecting “Old Glory,” everyone’s flag, from desecration. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the good justices in Washington, D. C. would look with much favor on laws that protect the flag of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis! However, one never can tell.

What I have found most difficult to fathom is why so many people who insist that “Old Glory” is sacred seek to pledge their allegiance to a flag of a foreign entity. That, after all, is exactly what the Confederate States of America really and truly sought and fought to become.

It should be noted that while the original Confederate Flag (The Stars and Bars) was adopted at the first session of the Confederate Congress meeting in Montgomery, Alabama in 1861, that flag would never be universally recognized as the official symbol of the Confederate states of America. As time went on, there would be a total of three flags adopted by the Confederate Congress. They were:

The Stars and Bars which resembled Old Glory in shape and design;
The Stainless Banner which incorporated the Saltier or St. Andrews Cross along with thirteenwhite stars — and, because it was twice as long as it was wide, didn’t fly gracefully;
and a modified version of The Stainless Banner which featured a red stripe to distinguish it from what appeared from a distance to be a surrender flag. This last flag was approved in March 1865 and is what most people think of when they see the Confederate Flag. Furthermore, it was this flag that was recently featured atop the General Lee, the car of television’s “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Additionally, there also was the General P. G. T. Beauregard Battle Flag (square in shape and featuring St. Andrew’s cross) as well as the Bonnie Blue Flag and the Naval Jack plus a host of state flags.

Still, the number of Confederate flags in existence as well as which one was the official flag is quite beside the point in my opinion. What both puzzles and fascinates me is how the American flag -- our national symbol of freedom and justice for all -- can be considered so sacred by some people that they become almost apoplectic at what they consider to be abuse of it by some political movement.

Yet these same people can be equally passionate about a symbol of oppression, insurrection and treason—which is exactly what the flags of the Confederate States of America were.

Many blacks, although by no means all, have another take on the flags of the Confederate States of America. They consider all Confederate flags to be flags of racism. A local talk show host where I live, a black comedian and writer named Brian Copeland, made that exact point during an hour-long talk show. Although I found his argument pretty compelling, there may be another aspect of this whole thing that all of us who feel as we do understandably miss.

One of the unique aspects of American history, as many historians and commentators have pointed out, is that the United States was the first nation ever born with a birth certificate: The Declaration of Independence. Our struggle for independence made us not merely rebels, but something else that was very special -- underdogs.

Here we were, a population of three million, largely agricultural, and in comparison with Western Europe, not only unsophisticated but uncivilized. Unlike our British and European forebears, we didn’t even stand up and fight under the banner of loud colors, drums and bugles. We slipped, like Indians, behind houses and trees.

George Washington forced General Howe’s forces to chase him all across New Jersey once he abandoned New York City rather than fighting in the open like a traditional European Duke. After seven years of exhaustion, heavily favored Britannia was defeated by the American “underdog” --with some strategic assistance from France.

Thus America, now on her way to superstardom, gave birth to a new American folk hero -- The Underdog! We all love him, especially when inspired by him. What is more, southern rebels weren’t the first to identify with him. The poor, of course, were the first.

Only five years after the British surrendered at Yorktown, Daniel Shays led a group of poor farmers in their struggle to preserve their property from heavy taxation which was actually being encouraged by well-to-do bankers and landlords. Although Shays Rebellion would drive Dan Shays himself into temporary exile in Vermont, the rebellion rang the wake-up bell that brought George Washington out of retirement to encourage the formation of a strong central and stable government. That time, The Underdog had only to bark loud enough and he was heard!

Then again, in 1794, the poor of western Pennsylvania rose up against wealthy land speculating capitalists like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton when the federal government sought to tax all the profit out of their corn liquor. The poor western Pennsylvanians felt that the federal government wasn’t adequately protecting them from British-inspired Indian raids, while at the same time, it was attempting to steal their money and ultimately their land. So, they rebelled.

President George Washington himself rode at the head of the government’s army as far as Harrisburg from which point the troops passed over the Alleghenies. Eventually the poor farmers surrendered and President Washington pardoned two of the leaders sentenced to be hanged, because one was supposedly insane while the other was a simpleton. Still, The Underdog had struck again!

Twenty years later, it was another group’s turn to think insurrectionist thoughts. It was in 1814, the year in which British forces invaded Washington, D.C., burning the White House and the Capitol Building, that certain New England bankers, merchants and shippers called the Hartford Convention into session. They wanted to consider making a separate peace with Great Britain and perhaps seceding from the Union—despite their current prosperity. That convention met from December 15, 1814 to January 4, 1815. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and there was no call for secession. However, the precedent for appealing to “states’ rights” when unhappy with the federal government was begun by the granddads and fathers of those who would take the field forty-seven years later to preserve the union against an especially fierce and determined Underdog who howled and snarled with a southern drawl!

As for the Civil War itself, by its close it was considered by many to have been “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight!” Keep in mind that in a part of the country that had a total population of nearly nine million of which 3.8 million were slaves, there were about 385,000 slaveholders. While these slave owners controlled the politics and policies of the south, it’s my guess that it was the sense of identification with their home states and communities that brought the boys in gray to the battlefield. Since the years of war were probably the only time a boy from Georgia would wander much farther than fifteen miles beyond his parents’ farm, one can readily see how important the adventure of war was to the average country boy as opposed to the outcome.

Thus, the Civil War was the country boy’s “derring-do,” against the northern industrialist and the endless stream of European immigrants brought to the field to overwhelm “Johnny Reb.” I believe that it’s that struggle over mechanized odds that lies at the root of that pride in the Confederate flag and lingers to this very day.

The life of all underdogs is a strange one. It’s a life that’s adventurous and heroic, often short and tragic. Because no underdog can ever win and remain himself, he takes pride in the very outcome and even shuns total victory, actually preferring to win battles and “to hell with the war!”

With victory comes care, worry and responsibility and the loss of status as an underdog. Thus, in a nutshell, you have the South!

Perhaps therein lays a challenge for the American black man and woman. There can, of course, never be any pride in having been captured, abused beyond endurance, enslaved, beaten, raped, and sold at whim—but there can be pride in how individuals coped with that “hellish tyranny!” Perhaps a little dramatization of how the spirit of the American black prevailed as opposed to stories about their obvious and real victimization might enable blacks to realize a powerful level of “soul pride,” fully as compelling as anyone’s flag.

As for the Old South, it’ll never rise again. Even more than the Brooklyn Dodgers, the South is forever an underdog! As for the descendants of those it captured and brought to American shores in indignity and abuse, they may, with a powerful dose of soul pride, rise above and look down on “Old Dixie” shed of their bonds and status as underdogs! As for the Confederate Flag itself, in the wake of considerable reflection, I understand it, but I still don’t buy it. Like the Old South, as far as I’m concerned you can stick a fork in it -- it’s done!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY