For all practical purposes, the Confederate flag was a Democrat flag. Every state that seceded from the Union in 1860-61 was a Democrat-ruled state. The Confederate officers were Democrats. Not to be confused with the first flag of the Confederate States which was called the “Stars and Bars,” the flag popularly known as the Confederate flag features a blue diagonal cross emblazoned with 13 white stars on a field of red. Called “the Southern Cross” and “the Stainless Banner,” it was the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. Savannah Morning News editor William T. Thompson, said, “As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization contending against ignorance, infidelity, and barbarism” (Savannah Morning News, May 4, 1863). The Confederate flag was promoted by the Democrat politicians who passed the Jim Crow segregation laws. In 1948, Democrat Strom Thurmond used the Confederate flag as a symbol of his presidential candidacy and of the Dixiecrats’ rejection of civil rights for blacks. In 1956, Democrat lawmakers of the state of Georgia incorporated the Confederate flag into its state flag “as a symbol of resistance to integration.” In 1963, Alabama Democrat Gov. George Wallace flew the Confederate flag over the statehouse to protest Black civil rights. At his inauguration that year, he said, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In 1987, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton signed Act 116 that described the state flag: “The blue star above the word ‘ARKANSAS’ is to commemorate the Confederate States of America.” When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 and 1996 and Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, some of their campaign buttons and other paraphernalia featured Confederate flags.
(Friday Church News Notes, March 11, 2022, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)