Birth of a Flag
The national conversation has suddenly shifted to the removal of the Confederate flag in the wake of the tragic shooting deaths of nine Bible study participants in a Charleston, South Carolina church. The "stars and bars" of the confederacy still fly above some state capitals in the south and and as part of state flags like Mississippi. The comparison of that flag to the flag of Nazi Germany is a point well taken. Why do we still allow one to fly when we'd never dream of letting the other one near a flagpole? Yet the Confederate flag lives on in more than banners. From Tee-shirts to bumper stickers it rears it's image from coast to coast. I've seen it used as horse racing silks from an owner/trainer combination whose politics are as dubious as their desire to be identified by that emotional image. With these calls for removing the flag I hope will come even more calls to re-teach the way we understand the Civil War and the complexities of Reconstruction. To