Symbolic meaning
DANA DRATCH
Jewish Renaissance Media
Few Georgia symbols generate more emotion than the current state flag. While one-third of the banner is devoted to the state emblem, the other two-thirds consists of the Confederate battle flag - a symbol many modern-day Americans associate with the Ku Klux Klan and racist hate groups.
State legislators adopted the current flag in 1956. Some said it was meant to honor the upcoming Civil War centennial but others described it as an in-your-face gesture to the federal government and the Supreme Court following the Brown v. the Board of Education decisions mandating school desegregation.
Robert Rosen, a Civil War historian in Charleston, S. C., said flying the flag is an affront to Confederate veterans. Robert E. Lee and his soldiers gave the Confederate flag to the Union Army and, in keeping with military protocol, it was never to be flown again, Rosen said. "To me, the idea of raising the flag up years after surrendering it is contrary to everything these men stood for."
In July, the state of South Carolina faced a similar controversy. After a national boycott by African-American groups, state leaders agreed to remove the Confederate battle flag from atop the state capitol - and move it to another part of the grounds.
Many Georgia Jews say they would like to see the flag replaced.
"The battle flag hurts people," said Atlanta City Councilman Doug Alexander, whose ancestors fought in the Confederate army. "What it's come to mean, thanks to our friends in the white sheets, tells a third of our population, 'You are second class at best.' I don't deny anyone's right to fly it, but it shouldn't be our state flag."
Atlanta resident and author Lewis Regenstein, 57, whose ancestors also fought for the Confederacy, disagreed. While he admits the flag may have been adopted for the wrong reasons, the symbol honors Southern heritage.
"It's a shame that some of the hate groups have tried to pre-empt the Confederate flag as their symbol," he said. "But it's not - it's a symbol of a very noble effort by the South to resist invasion."
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