CONFEDERATE FLAG: YES OR NO

In 1991 my attention was drawn to a news item describing how a Harvard student chose to fly the Confederate flag from her window.  After mulling it over, I decided to write a letter to the president of Harvard expressing my view on the topic.  The recent events in South Carolina—the killing of nine black people in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church—sent me searching for a copy of the letter I had sent.  Although some of the references are dated (24 years ago) I believe the same arguments remain as pertinent today as they were then.  Apparently I was somewhat ahead of the curve; it’s taken nearly a quarter of a century before a majority consensus has emerged strong enough to carry to fruition the ideas expressed herein, a quarter of a century ago!    -Prof. Rosenberg

Freedom of Speech and the Flying of the Confederate Flag (1991)

President of Harvard College

Boston, Massachusetts

Dear Sir:

I watched with uncertain emotions the television news story detailing the college student at Harvard who, for her own reasons, chose to fly the Confederate flag from her window.  To me such a flag suggests that those with Southern roots and loyalties have not accepted the defeat of 1865; they have not accepted the fact that the war should have ended the South’s racist oppression of Black Americans.  The student will not turn back the clock by such a display, nor do I think that is her intent.  I understand that the flag to her might be a symbol of regional loyalty; such an argument, and other similar ones that have been advanced in defense of her right to fly the Confederate flag, do not necessarily depend on any kind of open racist vitriol for justification.

However, having said that much, let me go one step further.  As one who believes in democracy and holds all human beings to be equal without regard to color of skin, I absolutely oppose the display of the Confederate flag on your campus.  That flag was first raised in revolt against the United States of America.  Whether the student in question is doing well in her history courses, it is an indisputable fact that the North won the Civil War.  As a consequence, the United States remained one country and slavery was abolished forever.

The Confederacy, by contrast, stood for continuing of the brutal enslavement of the Negro race indefinitely; this “new country” was synonymous with slavery to all intents and purposes.  Slavery itself was a system so abhorrent in its excesses and dehumanizing treatment of slaves that no enlightened person today, versed in the principles of democratic thought, would dare defend it.  Hence, the Confederate flag remains the symbol of death and mayhem, whippings and torture, to tens of millions of Americans.

That flag is especially odious to Black people who remember well all the injustices and indignities for which it stood—who remember well what life was like for their ancestors in the Southern states that comprised the Confederacy: a living hell with no end to the violence and insult done to their persons.  And that flag is, or should be, equally odious to every American citizen—white, black, brown, or what have you—who defends actively the democratic principles by which we as a nation profess to live.

From a legal viewpoint, then, what can we say of the status of the flag that the Harvard coed chose to fly: that it is mere emblem?  Personal room decoration?  Artistic statement?  Historic relic?  We make too light of the matter if we subscribe to any of these simplifications and if we take only the short-term view.  That flag must be seen in its proper context:

1) The Confederate flag is either a foreign flag, as the Confederacy conceived of itself as a separate or foreign country intending to make separate trade and diplomatic alliances with other nations, or

2) It is the flag of treason raised in unlawful rebellion against the duly constituted United States, a rebellion whose main purpose was to perpetuate human bondage.

The Confederate flag is the flag of the Black race enchained; it is the flag of slavery, pure and simple.  It is an historical association that can never be broken.  As those chains were forged of iron, so too was the link between the flag and slavery forged with unbreakable certainty.  Southern soldiers in revolt against the United States swore allegiance to that flag; they killed thousands of Union soldiers defending their country in the South’s ill-conceived effort to preserve outright chattel slavery.

The Confederate flag, thus understood, is no minor emblem or insignificant symbol—it stood for the South’s attempted separation from the United States even if it meant the violent tearing apart of the national sovereignty in existence in 1861.  The southern “way of life” and the Confederate flag were raised upon the scarred and bloodied backs of the slaves; the rebellion symbolized by the flag was meant to continue the enslavement and exploitation of Black labor for pecuniary gain.

Such a flag represented a death threat to every democratic principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution; in short, as symbol it signified then, as it does today, a violation of those democratic values held most dear in the hearts and minds of American men and women.  The flag conveys a message: it said of an entire race of human beings that they were not human at all but property—not fit for education or religion, family life or marriage, justice or freedom, but fit only for the neck shackle and leg-chains of bondage, fit only for the deadly whip and to be worked to slow death like animals, like beasts of burden.

If we appreciate fully what the Confederate flag symbolized in the past, and continues to symbolize today for millions of Americans, then we must question seriously the propriety of its display . . . To allow this flag to be flown is a terrible mistake, at least if we are sincere in our democratic belief and commitment to equality for all Americans.

There are those who try to make light of flying the Confederate flag; “it is not as serious as all that, don’t you know?”  Say what you will, anyone who has freed himself from bigotry would not wish to defend the flying of the Confederate flag–they would have acquired the sensitivity to acknowledge the pain it causes so many American citizens.

It involves a magician’s sleight of hand for the flag’s defenders to substitute one issue for the other—to deny the flag has nothing to do with racism but is only some sort of cultural memory.  The two issues are inseparable.  You might as well expect a German to say the flying of a swastika had nothing to do with Hitler’s Final Solution–the mass extermination of Jewish people–and is only a “cultural memento” without other significance.  These symbols, by their very nature, instantly invoke memories of the historical conditions under which they arose and how those conditions came to epitomize the most extreme racial bigotry and anti-Semitism the world has ever witnessed.

To try and dissociate the Confederate flag from slavery and its legacy of racism is a pretension that can never succeed.  It is an insult to the true American flag and an insult to all Americans who believe the years of second class citizenship for Black citizens must end—for to fly that flag in light of all that Black people have suffered is to attempt to perpetuate their second class citizenship.  It is to say they have no voice that one needs hear; it is to say no one need respect their rights and sensibilities by removing from sight this damnable symbol of slavery and segregation.  The burning cross, the white hood of the Ku Klux Klan, the lynch rope, and the Confederate flag are inseparable symbols of racist terror.  If we can open our minds and hearts to identify with the feelings of Black Americans, there is no question that the flag must come down.

If the Flag Codes of 1942 do not allow disrespect and mishandling of the American flag, then what are we to say of this display of the Southern symbol of Slavery?  Can there be greater disrespect for the American flag shown than the student choosing to fly the Confederate flag instead, the flag which stands for the exact opposite of these bedrock principles of democracy and freedom for all Americans?  Can there be a greater insult to the American Flag than for a student to refuse to fly the Stars and Stripes and fly instead the flag of destructive rebellion, which can be readily faulted on at least three counts:

  • It is not an official flag of the United States of America.

  • It represented slavery and the subjugation of one race by another; it stood for treason and rebellion, for the Civil War began with acts perpetrated by the Southern states that deserve no lesser characterization.

  • It continues to represent prejudice, bigotry, and southern “loyalty”; it is an insult to the larger democratic, multi-ethnic, equality-for-all vision of our nation.

It is no mere coincidence that it is primarily the Southern states where the attempt to keep the flag flying is found most frequently, where racism appears to survive within certain families from generation to generation as a form of twisted genetic inheritance.  Efforts to sanitize the significance of the flag contradict all known facts about its origin and purpose.  Such talk is only an effort to mask the truth or indicative of a self-delusional attempt to remain ignorant of historical reality: that the main economic motive behind the rebellion was maintaining slavery as the foundation of wealth for the Southern planter aristocracy.  That is what the Confederate flag represented.

This aristocracy would not emancipate their slaves—“their property”—and they resorted to armed revolt to preserve slavery.  As they used brutality to subdue the slave, so, too, were they willing to use armed violence to perpetuate an unjust and inhumane system of slave labor.  Understanding this basic fact, there is hardly a legitimate way to define the flying of the Confederate flag as “benign” save through the most convoluted reasoning based on a deliberate mangling of the actual historical record.

Needless to say, those who would fly the flag appear to do so without the slightest regard for the feelings and rights of Black Americans.  Indeed, so bitter and ingrained was this hate-creating enslavement of millions of Black Americans that many cruel practices remained even after the end of the Civil War.  These practices involved physical intimidation and brutal attacks, including lynching, that remained commonplace well into the twentieth century.  These overt forms of violence were most common where loyalty to the Confederate flag was most widespread.

Throughout the Deep South in the post-war years, a wide range of racist social and economic abuses proliferated, as exemplified by the founding of the Klan in 1866.  These physical assaults and “legalized” forms of discrimination came to define the pernicious practices of segregation that curtailed the rights of Black American citizens, that denied them safety and security in the land of liberty.  Those Southerners most proud of this persistent attempt to oppress African-Americans and deny them full equality, took the greatest pride in displaying the Confederate flag as a symbol of defiance and resistance to the law.

Decades later, when the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the doctrine of “separate but equal”, the Confederate flag was flown by Southern racists to show their opposition to the Court’s ruling and to announce their intention to oppose any effort to enforce integration of the schools.  That much is clear: nearly one hundred years after the end of the Civil War, the Confederate flag still stood for white supremacy and a determined opposition to Black people assuming their full rights as American citizens.

What can the flying of the Confederate flag mean to them but the raising of the specter of the vicious brutality associated with the birth of the flag?  What else can its display be but a great insult to these democratic United States and the American people, whether we refer to the generations of 1776, 1865, or today’s?  What else can its presence signify but an opposition to America’s efforts to create a color blind legal system?

What else does the flag represent but a negation of freedom for all? As a symbol, it stands in defiance of an inclusive American society where all persons are treated equally and no one is to be unfairly limited by their skin color, gender, or place of national origin.  It was the flag of a confederation of southern states which, had they succeeded, would have taken away all human rights for some four million Black Americans. What else can this symbol of the Confederacy represent?

Why should we think it “okay” to allow the flying of the old flag of the Confederacy, representing as it does those southern states which would have destroyed our democracy through the perpetuation of chattel slavery?  How is there any difference between how Americans should feel toward the Nazi swastika or the Southern Confederate flag?  Both represent the dehumanization of entire groups of people based on race or religion with a horrific level of violence that should be anathema to every American who believes in democracy and freedom.

Shall we stifle our instinctive desire to cry out upon seeing the Confederate flag or Nazi swastika on display “No, sir, do not allow it!”  Shall we stifle such instincts out of a misplaced notion that such detested symbols are merely a “cultural display” of bygone times?  Racists and fascists have rallied behind these symbols before and continue to do so today.  Shall we encourage them by a well-meaning yet foolish attempt to show how liberal and open-minded we are even in the face of the potential danger they most certainly represent to the fundamental freedoms we seek to protect and preserve?

 Yes, to tolerate points of view with which we may disagree is vital to a healthy democracy.  Yes, to protect the rights of non-conformists to speak, the right of the individual to liberty of conscience—these are the fundamental hallmarks of our modern American society.  But by the same token, it beggars the imagination that the American people themselves should be handcuffed in their desire to protect and preserve our democratic freedoms—to keep our most cherished values safe from harm by those forces who would damage them irreparably if given half a chance.  Flying the Confederate flag remains a last desperate toehold some choose to not let go; it keeps alive the possibility of racist groups rallying around the flag once more as part of a resurgence of the vilest racist speech of yesteryear.

The American people have a right to continue to strive to reduce and eliminate all the vestiges of the hate-filled racism of the past.  Hard-working, freedom-loving Americans built this country and in turn we should honor them.  It is the sign of a maturing nation for a growing number of Americans to see through the specious reasoning that would pretend the Confederate flag is not tied to a history of Southern slavery and segregation—more and more Americans will no longer tolerate the devouring beast of racist imagery within the house of freedom.

I urge you to not allow the Confederate flag to be flown on your campus!  Its day of glory, its brief existence under the sun, is long gone—it is a dead letter and should remain so.  If, by some unhappy circumstance, there still be any life left in this flag, then I say that is all the more reason why every democratic-minded American must actively oppose that flag’s display.  Indeed, we must increase our opposition to the same extent the flag may yet be used by some to try and revitalize the spirit of racial hatred among white supremacists who seek out new ways to cause friction and conflict.

If present laws do not already suffice to guarantee its censure, then I beg you to consider proposing new campus regulation, as well as supporting local and state laws, that would outlaw the display of the Confederate flag in or on public buildings once and for all.  When the North emerged victorious during the Civil War, it sounded the death knell of slavery and of that white supremacist flag!

Who now would dare to resurrect the flag of the Confederacy save those persons whose families were most embittered by their defeat?

Who now would dare to claim the flag as a mere display of regional culture save the descendants of those families who developed an obsessive, almost pathological, resistance to the Union triumph?

Who wishes to display the Confederate flag today save someone still refusing to accept history’s verdict, refusing to recognize the defeat of the south and Black people set upon the road of freedom?

Who turns to this Confederate symbol rather than the American flag to feel a surge of national pride, except someone unable or unwilling to admit that the North’s victory set this country on a new course—that its victory meant democracy and not slavery was to hold sway forevermore?

Think of it!  One cannot reasonably fly two flags at the same time if one flag stands for freedom and one flag stands for slavery.  One cannot fly two such flags in the same house without the house collapsing from the strain of it all.  Or, as Abraham Lincoln so succinctly put it, paraphrasing a familiar Biblical passage: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  What has changed?  Do not Americans have the right to be revolted by the sight of the Confederate flag being flown over courthouses and state capitols in the South?

It is undeniably true that tens of thousands of Americans died to prevent the establishment of the Confederacy from taking root.  May we not fairly ask ourselves: was the Confederacy defeated or was it not?  To claim the display of the Confederate flag is merely am emblem for a local or regional loyalty is to engage in deceit.  This flag is the emblem of—what?—if not slavery!  “Regional loyalty” meant loyalty to a state than once permitted and encouraged slavery–was willing to take up arms for its defense—nothing less, nothing more.  To argue otherwise is a cruel hoax.

To argue that the Confederate flag can be flown without people making the inevitable connection to slavery is to deny reality.  Such a viewpoint is as insulting as it is bogus to every American citizen of conscience who believes in the fundamental principles of equality for all without regard to race or sex, class, or place of national origin.  As President of a great American university that stands for the highest standards in education, I urge you to consider this matter most seriously before opting to defend the student’s right to fly her Confederate flag.

The display of that flag is a denial of the Emancipation Proclamation and of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America.  Its display is another way of saying that these laws promising equality and justice do not matter (nay, do not exist) because the Southern rebellious spirit is still alive and well.  Its display is an open affront to every democratic piece of legislation aimed at ensuring civil rights and liberties for Black Americans and for all the people passed in the hundred and thirty years that have transpired since the Civil War began.

It is an open and unforgivable affront to every democratic-minded American who believes that when the price of liberty had to be paid for with the blood of his countrymen, that at the very least their supreme sacrifice will not have been made in vain.  Americans have a right to believe that their government will carry out the majority will of the people and that states will likewise stand guard against efforts ”to return to the past” or glorify those viewpoints which are, in essence, the most undemocratic and tyrannical of all.  Americans who believe in freedom have the right to oppose any attempt to maintain or revitalize the defeated symbol of a previous era, such as the Confederate flag.

As Patrick Henry once cried out, “Forbid it Almighty God!” I feel the like need to cry out in a similar vein—please forbid the display of the Confederate flag on your campus.  Take the flag down!  We are not to be deceived when the symbol in question denied freedom to four million Black Americans.  It is up to us to champion the cause of Lincoln and the Union Army as they remained true to the original precept of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.”  We know what the Confederate flag represents; it is for us to oppose its open display with all the strength of conscience and power of moral suasion that we can muster.

I will never accept the flying of a Confederate flag at Harvard College without voicing my opposition.  I am a lucky American to have been given, through my doctorate studies, the chance to earn a glimpse—however small or fleeting—into those truly great principles of justice that animated the birth of our country, structured much of its subsequent history, and gave sustenance to the lives of millions of Americans in all the subsequent decades of struggle and adversity, progress and triumphs, in affairs both material and moral.

Do not make the mistake of thinking you defend “liberty” if the Confederate flag stays, for the flag mocks that very liberty which you wish to protect.  Mark my words well, sir: one cannot safely protect the right of free speech for two such wholly incompatible and warring combatants—such as is entailed in the defense of slavery or the contrary principle of democratic freedom for all citizens—without doing a grave disservice to the nation.

To defend the display of the Confederate flag is to mangle legal reasoning; it is a frightful insult to our brave history and a mockery of our most cherished precepts.  It creates a breach in the harmony of citizenry and benevolent civic institutions and constitutes an attack upon our commitment to law and custom in order to promote equality and extend justice.  It is an open insult to the Stars and Stripes, the true American flag, and to everything for which it stands.  To my way of thinking it is an act of treason to fly a foreign flag of a once separately constituted country over any part of the American nation.

If, on the other hand, the Confederacy is seen as too short-lived to have constituted itself a viable nation, then the Confederate flag is relegated to the status of being the flag of rebels in arms.  In attacking the United States government, these men committed treason by seeking to overthrow by force the legitimately constituted government of the United States of America, then in its eighty-fifth year of existence.  Those who would let this flag be flown as a function of free speech or regional cultural icon, with which view of history will their consciences be better appeased: the flag of a foreign nation or the flag of rebels?

That is how matters stand with this American historian at present.  I will fight against the display of that rebel flag with all the literary strength I possess and that is a declaration I make to you just as solemnly as any made by the Founding Fathers in Boston and Philadelphia or by men of Lincoln’s day.  I do so with the same fervor and high ideals that motivated our country’s architects to conclude the signing of the Declaration of Independence in this wise:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance

On the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each

Other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Waiting eagerly for your reply I remain,

Most sincerely yours,

Dr. Roger E. Rosenberg

American citizen