History of the Confederate Flag: how did it become a hate symbol?

When an American sees the Confederate Flag it usually evokes a strong reaction. Few people feel indifferent about this flag, as there is so much associated with it.

The Battle Flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, better known today by the misnomer 'Confederate Flag', is a symbol that has divided Americans for over 150 years. But why is this piece of cloth so controversial?

The banner, also known as “The Southern Cross”, “The Rebel Flag” or “The Dixie Flag”, has acquired different meanings over the years. But what exactly is its history? Let's go back to Dixie and find out!

The American Civil War broke out in 1861. Increased expansion towards the west brought up the question if new US states should allow or ban slavery. Southern states, which were mostly agricultural, saw slavery as an integral part of their economy and social order.

The Confederacy, as the insurrectionist southern government is also known, soon began adopting symbols to set itself apart from the Union in the north: Gray uniforms, a new seal, and, of course, a new flag…

However, the banner now associated with the rebel side of the Civil War was not the original flag of the Confederate States of America. Instead, it was a battle flag adopted by the Confederate Army to avoid confusion with the Union’s Stars and Stripes. Eventually, it formed part of a canton of the CSA's official flag.

What we now know as “The Confederate Flag” was part of the myth that grew in the following decades after the South’s defeat in 1865.

Veterans and sympathizers pushed forward the myth of the “Lost Cause”: they conjured the image of a genteel, pastoral antebellum South where slaves were treated well.

This myth reached its zenith in 1915 with 'The Birth of a Nation' by D. W. Griffith, one of Hollywood’s earliest blockbusters.

Griffith’s Civil War epic, among other things, portrays the Ku Klux Klan as defending white people against atrocities committed by African-Americans, covering under the protection of the federal government.

'The Birth of a Nation' was the first film ever projected in The White House. It's credited to have single-handedly revitalized the Ku Klux Klan and popularized much of its iconography.

Pictured: A Klan parade in Washington, D.C. in the 1920s.

Organizations such as the KKK helped to uphold unfair policies, such as the Jim Crow laws. These laws allegedly segregated white people and people of color as “separated but equal”, but in practice enforced white supremacy as the norm in everyday society.

A long trend of Hollywood movies romanticizing the Old South, or at least downplaying its negative aspects, continued for several decades with films such as 'Gone With The Wind' (seen here) or Disney’s 'Song of the South'.

Image source: MGM

However, The Confederate Battle Flag didn’t take prominence again until the 1950s. When the US Supreme Court declared in 1954 that segregation in public schools was illegal, this was met with opposition by many people in the South.

Southerners feared that the Supreme Court ruling would bring an end to Jim Crow laws, and the flag served as a symbol of both: A southern rejection of the federal government and a message to uphold white supremacy.

Dixiecrats, members of the Democratic Party that had ruled virtually unopposed the US south for almost a century, took the flag as their symbol to oppose what they saw as a “northern aggression”.

Pictured: A Confederate battle flag during the 1956 Democratic National Convention.

Georgia even adopted the symbol as part of its state flag in 1955 (seen here in a 1996 photo) while South Carolina started hoisting the banner on its state capitol in 1961.

Despite their opposition, the 1964 Civil Rights Act put an end to Jim Crow Laws. Curiously enough, it was Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, who made this possible. This brought an end to the reign of the Dixiecrats.

Pictured: Lyndon Johnson with Martin Luther King.

Southern politics veered to the Republican Party in the following decades. Others, like four-time Alabama governor George Wallace (pictured here), remained on the fringe of the Democratic Party.

Wallace, in fact, ran as a third-party candidate in the 1968 Presidential Election and managed to carry five southern states. He remains the last non-Republican, non-Democratic candidate to win any state in a US presidential election.

During the rest of the 20th century, the Confederate Battle Flag continued to be used as a seemingly harmless symbol of US southern culture, despite criticism. This idea was distilled in the motto: “Heritage, not hate”.

One can see this in TV shows like 'The Dukes of Hazzard'. One of the show’s stars was General Lee, the Duke boys’ car, which proudly sported the flag and played 'Dixie' on its car horn.

Music bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd (pictured here in the 1980s) and Pantera have also been associated with the Confederate Battle Flag, displaying it in concerts and other events.

However, this begs the question about what kind of heritage the flag is celebrating.

In the 1990s and the 2000s, Georgia was at the center of the debate regarding the Confederate Battle Flag. A state senate investigation ruled that the flag was simply adopted to “preserve segregation and white supremacy”.

The state flag was changed in 2005… for one based on the original flag of the Confederacy.

The nationwide debate over the flag raged in the 2000s and in the 2010s. Far-right movements embraced and defended the symbol, waving it in rallies and public events.

As a backlash, many institutions have taken action against its display. South Carolina removed the flag from the statehouse in 2015 in the wake of the Dylann Roof shooting in Charleston. This attracted its fair share of protestors from both sides.

The state of New York approved in 2020 a law penalizing symbols of hate. Among those listed is the Battle Flag of the Confederacy.

In 2021, Mississippi adopted a new state flag to replace the old one, which included the confederate symbol.

The Confederate Battle Flag was seen prominently among Trump supporters during the January 6th Capitol Attack. It was the first time the banner has been displayed inside the US Congress.

Many people jokingly commented that having the attackers sport the symbol of a losing insurrection against the US government was appropriate. However, it makes many people wonder if the values that the Confederate Battle Flag represents continue, even if we no longer see it flying.