-Caveat Lector-
~~for educational purposes only~~
[Title 17 U.S.C. section 107]
How the Democrats made loving Dixie a hate crime
Robert Stacy McCain
When he was the governor of Arkansas only two decades
ago, Bill Clinton routinely issued proclamations, with
the usual rhetorical flourishes, commemorating the
birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
So did the governors of other states once part of the
Confederacy, and tributes to Southern valor and courage
in the service of "the Lost Cause" were no more
controversial than proclamations of Mother's Day,
Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.
But such tributes to Confederate heritage held in
reverence by millions of Southerners and other
Americans are now political dynamite. Two of
President-elect George W. Bush's Cabinet nominees
are under attack this week, not only for their stance
on policy issues, but for sympathetic remarks toward
the Confederacy.
In recent years, opponents have made a political issue
of the Confederate battle flag. The familiar St. Andrew's
Cross in red, white and blue was for decades an artifact
of amiable tourist kitsch, displayed on shelves beside
pecan rolls, corncob pipes and plastic alligators in
gift shops and restaurants along highways to Florida,
the Mississippi coast and other Dixie resorts.
Long-haired motorcyclists displayed the Confederate
colors to proclaim their rebellion against "square"
society. In the 1970s, Southern rock group Lynyrd
Skynyrd toured the nation, taking the stage lavished
with an enormous Confederate battle flag backdrop, while
TV's "Dukes of Hazzard" showcased Bo and Luke Duke as
they raced down country roads in their souped-up Dodge
Charger, nicknamed "General Lee," with the flag
emblazoned on its roof.
"Back as late as 1986, nobody complained about Confederate
symbols at all," recalls P. Charles Lunsford, president
of the Heritage Preservation Association, an Atlanta
group that defends Confederate history.
So how and why has it become a hate crime to whistle "Dixie"?
"I think it represents a hole in our education," says
Walter E. Williams, chairman of the economics department
at Virginia's George Mason University and a nationally
syndicated columnist who writes frequently on race and
politics. He blames "political opportunism" for the
crusade against Confederate remembrance.
"People are associating the War Between the States as
solely motivated by slavery," says Mr. Williams, a black
scholar who argues that the 1861-1865 conflict "was
more of a states' rights issue than a slavery issue."
Thomas J. DiLorenzo, an economics professor at Loyola
University in Baltimore who has written extensively on
Civil War history, agrees. Left-wing groups "insinuate
that if someone even mentions the word 'Confederacy,'"
he says, "they're somehow secretly in favor of slavery.
"It's absolutely crazy. It's an act of desperation on
the part of the left."
The left is now using the Confederacy as a weapon against
Mr. Bush's Cabinet nominees.
Opponents of former Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri, the
nominee for attorney general whose Senate confirmation
hearing begins today, criticize his 1998 interview in
which he praised Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson as "Southern patriots."
Gale A. Norton, Mr. Bush's nominee for interior secretary,
has drawn fire for a 1996 speech in which she said
proponents of states' rights under the 10th Amendment
"lost too much" as a result of the defeat of the South
in 1865.
Chairman Julian Bond of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) says Mrs. Norton's
remarks "exhibited a wanton insensitivity toward slavery
and its descendants."
In the past decade, elements of Southern history represented
by symbols such as the Confederate flag and by sentimental
songs like "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" have gone
from regional culture to national controversy.
In 1993, Carol Moseley-Braun, then a Democratic senator
from Illinois, persuaded the U.S. Senate to deny renewal
of a patent on the century-old emblem of the United
Daughters of the Confederacy.
The Confederate flag became a presidential issue in the
Republican primary in South Carolina last winter. Sen.
John McCain of Arizona, who called the flag "a symbol
of racism and slavery," was defeated in that key contest
by Mr. Bush, who declined to describe his view of the flag
but insisted that South Carolinians had the right to
decide whether they should honor the flag and if so,
how. Under pressure from an NAACP boycott, South Carolina's
Legislature took the flag from its standard above the
Statehouse in July. But the NAACP vowed to continue the
boycott, upset because the Legislature voted to move the
flag to a place of honor at a Confederate monument on
the Statehouse grounds.
Mr. Bush ordered two plaques commemorating the Confederacy
removed from the Texas Supreme Court building in Austin.
Mississippi's legislature voted last week to hold a
referendum on the Confederate emblem in its state flag,
and Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes is trying to avoid a replay
of the 1992-1993 struggle over that state's flag, which
also incorporates the familiar St. Andrew's Cross. Some
critics have grumbled about a single star on the Arkansas
state flag, which commemorates the state's membership in
the Confederacy.
Hostility to Southern symbols even has led to criminal
attacks. A year ago, an outdoor mural portraying Lee was
the target of an arson attack in Richmond. In 1995, a
19-year-old Kentuckian, Michael Westerman, was shot to
death by a black teen-ager who was offended by a
Confederate flag on Mr. Westerman's truck.
The change in sentiment toward the flag began in the
1980s when a professor at the University of Mississippi
helped organize student protests against the university's
use of Confederate symbols "Dixie" as the school's
fight song, the battle flag and a "Colonel Reb"
mascot at sporting events.
The NAACP then took up the fight. At its national
convention in 1991, the NAACP adopted a resolution
denouncing the Confederate battle flag as an "ugly
symbol of idiotic white supremacy" and "an odious
blight upon the universe," and pledged the organization
to "the removal of the Confederate flag from all public
properties."
John White, a spokesman for the NAACP, says the
Baltimore-based organization opposes Confederate displays
only on public property, not by private citizens. But he
acknowledges the NAACP's role in promoting opposition to
symbols of the Old South.
"The Confederacy has always been an issue," Mr. White
says, "just like the Ku Klux Klan and other proponents of
racism and slavery." The Klan, in fact, not only
incorporates the flag as its symbol, but the Christian
cross, familiar to black as well as white church-goers.
Mr. Lunsford, of the Atlanta heritage organization,
accuses the NAACP of attempting "to eradicate every
vestige of the Old South" and promoting racial animosity.
"The NAACP has created a campaign of hatred, bigotry and
oppression against all things Southern," he says. "They
are trying to convince their people to hate us, and it's
having some effect. . . . It's getting pretty nasty."
The NAACP has other critics, including conservative
activist David Horowitz, who says the group has become
"a defamation and shakedown operation" in recent years.
"If you are a corporation, they will accuse you of being
racist and stick their hands in your pockets as far as
they can go," says Mr. Horowitz, a prominent '60s radical
leftist who now heads the Center for the Study of Popular
Culture.
"If you are a political opponent, they will tar and
feather you until you bleed or fall," Mr. Horowitz says.
"The Confederacy is just one of the red herrings they
use to keep themselves in business."
Sympathetic media coverage has fueled the attack on
Southern symbols. A database search by The Washington
Times found that three major newspapers the New York
Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times
reported just five Confederate flag-related stories
in 1992, but 283 such stories last year.
Similarly, three newsmagazines Time, Newsweek and U.S.
News & World Report printed 12 stories focusing on the
Confederate flag in 1999 and 2000. A decade earlier, in
1989 and '90, those magazines published only two stories
on the flag.
Ward Connerly, the University of California regent who
led the fight to end racial preferences in that state,
says he finds it "debilitating" for black Americans to
dwell on injustices in the distant past.
"This preoccupation with the past and looking through
the rearview mirror at America's history is preventing
many black people from enjoying the present," he says.
"Many are so concerned about slavery that they fail to
appreciate the profound social changes that have
occurred in our nation."
Mr. Connerly, who is black and who was born in Louisiana
during the Jim Crow era, adds: "Unfortunately, people
like [the Rev.] Jesse Jackson and others don't want
blacks to enjoy life in America. They want them to
feel miserable."
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