The rare and precious flag above, now preserved at the Alabama State History Archive in Montgomery, was carried into battle by CSA soldiers who were not likely to have owned slaves. (Most southerners didn't.)

It was their standard. They weren't all fighting because of the slavery issue. They fought for "home and hearth." They fought because they thought their way of life was being threatened, and because they feared that the more populous northern states increasingly controlled the federal government.

This is the flag that flew over Georgia from 1956 to 2001 and still flies in some places. The state seal contains the words wisdom, justice, and moderation, none of which were considerations when this flag was conceived.

It was 1955. Atlanta attorney John S. Bell (later a Court of Appeals judge) suggested that the Confederate Battle Flag should be added to the official state flag. In 1956, state senators Jefferson Davis Lee and Willis Harden introduced the bill to change the flag, and it was signed into law on February 13, 1956. (Source: Flags That Have Flown Over Georgia)

From the end of the Civil War until the 1940s, the Confederate Battle Flag (CBF) was flown mostly by CSA veterans at ceremonies and reenactments. It did not harbor the racial connotations that it would in later years.

In 1961, Alabama governor George Wallace raised the CBF over the Alabama state dome to "commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the civil war." In the following year, South Carolina raised the battle flag over their capitol. Then, two years after Brown vs. Board of Education, the CBF was incorporated into the Georgia Flag.

According to "The State Flag of Georgia: The 1956 Change in its Historical Context," the raising of the battle emblem was to "intimidate those who would enforce integration and a statement of firm resolve to resist integration. Likewise, when the battle flag was incorporated into the Georgia state flag, the state was in a desperate situation to preserve segregation. Resisting, avoiding, undermining, and circumventing integration was the 1956 General Assembly's primary objective."

Below is the old Georgia flag, the one that flew before the segregationists attempted to thwart the Supreme Court's will.

"Let us vote!"

This angry little message is displayed in yards throughout Georgia. It seems that people take exception with the way their governor and their elected representatives changed the Georgia flag - suddenly, with little debate or media play.

Republican challenger, now governor, Sonny Perdue made an issue of the flag change during his campaign. He promised to allow the citizens of Georgia to vote in a referendum on the flag.

Before polling had closed, however, he was backing away from that stance. As Dick Pettys reported in Salon Magazine, during his victory tour, Perdue said, "My goal is to have this state heal, to be reconciled from a standpoint of bitter partisanship and the issues that would divide us... [This] is something we will look at with the leadership once the leadership gets in place in the House and Senate and make a decision on how we will resolve the issue."

Perdue did not run on a platform of "compassionate conservatism." He knows that the wheels of progress are greased by dollars. All he has to do is cast an eye toward our sister southern states and imagine their flag fuss here.

Wisdom, justice, and moderation.

Maybe this "compromise flag," with it's state seal of Dahlonega gold and a nod to our history, too, is exactly what this state needs to heal.

Okay, Georgia. You've got a new governor and Barnes is out of here. You've shot the messenger, but did you take time to hear the message first?

Sources

Flags That Have Flown Over Georgia, Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia. Jan 30, 2001.

Azarlan, Alexander J. and Fresshazlon, Eden. The State Flag of Georgia: The 1956 Change in its Historical Context Senate Research Office, Georgia State Senate. Aug 2000.

Dick Pettys. "New Georgia governor downplays flag issue" Salon, Nov 11, 2002.

Copyright © 2003 Lamar Stonecypher
All rights reserved

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