The place in which the Confederate Battle Flag was designed and adopted was marked over the weekend in Fairfax, Virginia. Part of the plaque reads as follows:
“During the First Battle of Manassas, amid the smoke of combat, troops found it difficult to distinguish between Union and Confederate flags. Generals P.G.T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston and Quartermaster General William L. Cabell met near here in September 1861 and approved the first Confederate battle flag.”
There is nothing too difficult to understand here, nothing outrageous in terms of the historical context. The Virginia Board of Historic Resouces even approved the wording on the plaque and a member of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, Kenneth Alexander had the following to say:
“They are within their right to commemorate the design of the Confederate battle flag. I may have personal objections and other individuals may have objections, but again that is also our right. We have the right to object and to protest, but as long as we do it civilly and within the law and also at the same time respect the group that wants to commemorate the battle flag. This is what makes America America, and what makes America great, the greatest country in the world.”
Great, the African-American community is not upset, the neo-confederate community is on a flag high and all is right with the world! It is quite possible that this marker is nothing to get upset over or protest or boycott…but is the marker telling the whole story?
Does the marker explain that the flag was created by a Government that was at war with the United States of America? Does the marker explain that that government at war with the United States of America had as its main goal the protection and expansion of slavery? One of the many historical facts about the flag the neo-confederates tout is that it never flew over a single slave ship and that is historically correct. It actually flew over the heads of soldiers, who, despite their reason for fighting, fought for the institution of slavery and fought to make that institution all encompasing.
Like it or not, as we have seen the neo-confederate opposition to the NPS adding the story of slavery into battlefield interpretation, slavery in connected to the Civil War and the Confederate battle flag whether they like it or not. The sooner we place slavery and the battle flag in the correct historical context, the sooner we will be able to understand the Civil War and the current situation of Race in this country in a better light.
Excellent! More and more people need to read your article. I totally agree about the flag of the Confederacy. I just don’t understand people now a days. They won’t take the time to understand what is right. They just agree with what they have heard whether it if right or wrong!
Ever hear of waveing the bloody shirt? ( Not a good thing) As per the quote on your site. You write with the emotional age of a two year old.
I don’t believe the shirt is bloody, just historically correct.
Which quote are you referring to?
Billy
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Homely.
I believe Phil F would be referring to the Thaddeus Stevens quote at the head of your page.
Nonetheless, trying to “tell the whole story” begins to get weighed down by presenting the ceaseless relevance of yet something else beyond the initial point of the marker or even museum. It is a very similar theory as that of the “six degrees of separation”, something will always be somehow “connected”, but in the end it simply dilutes and dwarfs the point at hand. It does not allow for brevity or the consideration of the average attention span.