Few things are more beautiful than the colors of fall reflected in a mountain lake. Camp Dorothy Walls, just outside Grey Eagle, has a beautiful little lake as well as a great old building with sleeping porches. Passing it on my long runs for the last several years, I have seen the camp ebb and now start to recover. Given my experience at Brigadude, I think this is great. My assumption is that the denomination which owns the camp, the AME Zion Church, is not as wealthy as, say, the Episcopalians, and I would bet they have worked very hard to have a denominational camp for their kids.
Today as I continued up the road from Camp Dorothy Walls, I noticed for the first time a Confederate battle flag flying from someone’s garage. I don’t know if anyone from Camp Dorothy Walls has seen it. I doubt it is flown to in any way make a statement about the presence of the camp. But I think the Confederate battle flag is a symbol which carries a legacy of hate a prejudice which needs to be retired from public display.
Ok, so my loyal readers will know that I have a higher than average interest in the Civil War. Much of this year, in fact, has been consumed by reading Shelby Foote’s books on the subject. (I’m almost through the second of three 800+ pager.) The suggestion that we should forget the Civil War makes me want to reply “as soon as we forget 9/11.” Keep in mind that several whole cities were burned down during the conflict. Flying the Confederate battle flag does not honor the memory or legacy my ancestors who died on the losing side.
The flag, based on the Scottish flag which bears the cross of St. Andrew, was largely forgotten after the Civil War. As the southern claim to succession of the noble strain of Scottish clansmen faded, so did the battle flag. It was not until the advent of the Civil Rights movement in the middle of the 20th century that the flag was resurrected as a battle standard for resistance to reform. Much of the time it was used as a symbol of outright racism.
Establishment of the will of the majority by coercion of the minority, while sometimes necessary, will always seem un-natural in our country and should be viewed with great skepticism. Asserting the right of the individual to resist (up to a point) is proper and can be made more effective with the use of symbols. The Confederate battle flag, because of its use as a symbol of terror, can no longer effectively serve as a symbol of individual resistance to tyranny.
In addition, the wounds of the South, which some may say are remembered when that flag is flown, are no longer the South’s alone. When New York and Washington were attacked, when the plane went down in Pennsylvania, and when people from across the country were used as weapons against their own people, we all became heirs to the memory of the day our illusion of security was destroyed. The wounds of the South are now joined with those of the North, the West, all of us, and symbolized in the flag of our country. This is the flag we should fly.
