JUNE 22, 2015
In 1963, when I was just entering my teens in Waterbury, CT, I encountered the first Confederate flag that I had ever seen outside of books. Of course, I had been taught about the banner’s history in the Civil War, an artifact of a defeated cause. But what was it doing on the streets of an industrial New England city? I probably dismissed it as “some guy from the South” and went on my way.
But years later when I became a little more aware politically, I began to put together why I saw that flag in that city at that point in time. In 1961, South Carolina first flew the flag officially as part of a centennial celebration of the start of the Civil War, by 1963 it had become a middle finger flipped by many Southern states toward the move toward court-mandated desegregation. And in Waterbury, as in many New England cities at the time, the issue was school busing, particularly in a city that was largely white and Roman Catholic. The Confederate flag was a New Englander’s way of saying “F-U.”
In 2015, is it still just about race? It’s certainly not as overt as it was when I was growing up, but it’s still there in the mindset of the “I Want To Take My America Back” crowd, who were given voice in the 2008 Obama election. Take it back from whom? I think we all know by now. But isn’t it ironic that the symbol to which the America Firsters cling for meaning is the very same flag designed to destroy our union 150 years ago?
