Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, and a host of other swarmy Republican politicians vying to become President of the United States are saying it should be up to the individual states to decide whether to remove the Confederate flag from America’s capitol flagpoles, state flag insignia, and license plates.
Hell no!
That flag is what got us into the Civil War 150 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the war of Southern aggression. Soldiers from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and other Northern states (including three of my ancestors) fought to defeat the traitorous forces that flew the vile flag of the Confederacy, the flag of slavery and white supremacy.
The secessionist South lost the War Between the States. Thank God. But over time, racism has proved hard to eradicate and the Republican Party has done a 180 and increasingly resorted to countenancing and upholding white supremacy as a means of gaining political power. The Democrats aren’t far behind.
The official display of the Confederate flag must not be tolerated as a matter of “state’s rights.” Why should South Carolina and Mississippi and other vanquished states have the ability to reaffirm their support for the despicable Confederacy? What about the right of Massachusetts and our “tradition,” our “heritage,” our “sacred memory?” Why doesn’t the victorious Union, in the form of the federal government, demand that the Confederate flag be removed?
The Confederate flag has no place in a free society. Any public display of the Stars and Bars warrants our deep contempt — not our wimpy resignation or tolerance. TAKE IT DOWN!
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Scott Christianson is the author of Freeing Charles: The Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War.
