---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote :
Slight correction - the very first time the Stars and Bars were officially "raised" in the Statehouse was in the House of Representatives Chamber in 1938, the Senate followed suit in 1952 - but it was never flown over the State House till 1961. Thanks for the backstory MJ, I just found it. Very interesting. From: "Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 1:30 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The south aint gonna rise again... Bingo, should have read your post before posting mine. From: "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 10:20 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The south aint gonna rise again... Now that Judy has had a go at pretending to know something about it, Here is the real deal on the Confederate flag, at least in SC. It was put up over the Statehouse (where all the laws are made) in 1961 as part of the Centennial Celebration of the Civil War. That is when it was first flown Judy, the state legislature officially confirmed it a year later in 1962. There is a man still alive here in SC who was on the Centennial planning committee who said it was put up by a legislative resolution that specified what date it was to be raised, but no date was included for taking it down. After the Centennial celebration was finished no one paid much attention and it just stated up. It should be noted that the legislature was all white at that time. In retrospect critics claim the real reason the flag was flown was a way for white segregationists in the state legislature to mock the federal government which was in the process of creating civil rights legislation. If that was not the original reason, it surely became so as the 1970's blacks began to be elected to the state legislature. But, eventually those black politicians did what their white counterparts were already doing, and that was using the flag for their own ends. The white lawmakers would bow their backs when people would call for the flag removal and do so to curry favor with their redneck constituents, the black lawmakers did the same thing, calling for the flag removal to get points with their constituents. This went on till the 1990's when the NAACP called for the flag removal or else they would institute an economic boycott.The white lawmakers particularly the really ignorant ones like Jakie Knotts and the real crooks like Glenn McConnell laughed it off and said the boycott would have no effect on the state. They were wrong - people all over the place who had made plans to visit SC for various reasons began to cancel their plans conventions were canceled and the tourist industry began to really suffer. The merchants and businessmen began to scream at the lawmakers to take the flag down, especially those in the hotel/motel and restaurant industry. The idiot lawmakers ignored them, till they started to get threats of being unseated in their nest bid for reelection for not taking it down. Belatedly big institutions that SHOULD have already called for the flag's removal finally joined in like the University of South Carolina. The debate raged and the lawmakers showed their true colors - yellow. A proposal was made to leave it to the people by creating a referendum in the next general election. BOTH sides were running scared of such a solution. The black and white lawmakers claimed it was too important a decision to leave to the people and that it would be "too divisive" for the people to decide and might make folks mad at each other. The truth is the flag opponents were running scared that all the rednecks would come out in great numbers and vote the keep the flag flying high, and the flag supporters were afraid all the black voters and their white liberal supporters would outnumber the "heritage" crowd. So they blabbered at each other for a while and then came up with a "compromise" that made no one happy. They removed the flag from over the State House dome, but placed it in a "place of honor" on the Statehouse grounds. The opponents were incensed and so were the supporters that it had been removed at all. Thus it stands today. Coming from such stock, (there is a few years old picture of my mother's family reunion where the young children were detailed to hold the edges of a really big Confederate battle flag as all the adults stood in the background as the pic was taken) I know that a lot of Southern folk think the flag stands for Southern heritage and not hate. Dunno exactly what that heritage is supposed to be - generally if you ask it goes back to the idea of honoring all the brave men who stood up to Northern aggression, you know, the damn Yankees? Truth be told, a lot of those Confederates were idiots. Only about 10% of white Southerners owned slaves, and nearly half of the white population of the South served in the war. That means that the majority of the Confederate soldiers were dirt farmers who's direct competition were the slave owning plantation big shots. The dirt farmers were fighting to preserve an agricultural system that kept them in poverty. But the bottom line is that no matter how poor and low-down someone is, they always feel better if they have someone to look down on, so the dirt farmers always had the slaves to feel superior to. For that, they were willing to die. From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 8:04 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The south aint gonna rise again... ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote : Scapegoating? Yes, remove that flag. Removing it now is an important act in the play of a large Dharma. Removing that flag is part and parcel of a public education in transcendent and inalienable rights in our long culture of equal rights for everyone in equal protection under communal law. That the rebel flag would be accepted and flown above in any public space of our governance along with our larger symbols of national and state flag shows a profound failure of some public leadership and education in greater public process and values. It is time to remove that old battle flag of ignorance from our public spaces of governance. Flags are just symbols. Everyone knows the country has changed. I'm sure they never would have flown it all these years if anyone thought it still represented the pre-civil war mentality. So taking it down now because of one lonely fruitcake's a-social psychopathology seems daft to me. That's why I called it scapegoating. It's just a pretty bit of cloth. But then maybe i'm incapable of being a fair judge, I come from a country with a flag that has no negative historical connotations whatsoever. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : Let's scapegoat the flag. Someone kills loads of people and likes the flag so the flag has to go. I guess that makes a certain twisted sense. And I thought the southerners had rehabilitated themselves by claiming slavery was going to be abolished anyway? That's Hollywood for you. I hope I'm still allowed to enjoy the Dukes of Hazzard... South Carolina governor calls for removal of Confederate flag from statehouse http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/22/confederate-flag-south-carolina-charleston http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/22/confederate-flag-south-carolina-charleston South Carolina governor calls for removal of Confederate... http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/22/confederate-flag-south-carolina-charleston Governor Nikki Haley makes abrupt about-face in wake of Charleston killings to call for removal of flag that has flown on statehouse grounds for 50 years View on www.theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/22/confederate-flag-south-carolina-charleston Preview by Yahoo
