Protesters and supporters of Confederate Flag expected to speak

Confederate flag hats, shirts, posters, underwear, etc. have suddenly experienced high demand as well.

These are the topics being debated lately on an endless stream of Facebook posts and news columns.

Surprisingly, Six Flags has largely avoided public acknowledgement and outcry that one of their six flags is a Confederate flag. This flag includes a southern cross in the top left-hand corner of the otherwise white flag. Um … sure, I guess. Each year thousands of people go to Selma and stand on the bridge, crying and making speeches; from their vantage point they can see 40 percent poverty in the town they celebrate. However, a decade later, a New York court in Devers v. SNC-Lavalin Generation, Inc. found that “there is no question that the display of the Confederate flag recalls a history of racial oppression”. But while that history means Southern pride for Hill, for others, such as Eastern Mennonite University sophomore Clinton Ugboaga, from Gainesville, Va… Your secession and rebellion from the Union?

How about the fact that the South lost? In the end, I voted “no” for the removal of that flag on the second reading of S. 897. Let no one forget for almost four quarters of the 20th century, the Confederate narrative dominated the generally accepted memory of the American experience: The Civil War was not primarily about slavery but about states’ rights; slavery, though a clumsy/controversial device, was necessary to civilize the Negro; the failure of 19th century integration was because of greedy carpetbaggers from the North and the incompetent Negro politicians they supported during Reconstruction, etc. This he maintained throughout the war. “And we live in a country where we have to listen to people’s opinions and work it out”. It’s something we’ve been working at ever since. In Walton v. United States Steel Corp. We do know that the African-American tourism market is the third-fastest growing segment in the industry, and South Carolina has not been able to capitalize on attracting this market because of the boycott’s legacy. We hold them dear, too.

According to the national organization’s website, the group is open to female descendants of those who fought for or aided the Confederacy and is dedicating to collecting and preserving Southern Civil War history and educating others about it.

Those bad ideas are still out there, all right, and the ACLU will fight tooth and nail to keep them constitutionally protected no matter how much we disagree with them. We’re all included. And we’re all on the same side. At times you ask your audience, “Do I have your attention?” The Charleston Church tragedy did that and, “Yes, you have our attention.” Unfortunately, it seems that it takes a tragedy of this magnitude to raise the primacy of and simultaneously galvanize the public’s attention.

It’s time for you to get on board. Not to be flippant, but Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolinians and the rest of the nation will find the expulsion of the rebel flag (and the pole it flew on) to a nearby state history display a small victory on the battlefield of narrative control of American history.

Gene Policinski is vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center. You haven’t been for 150 years. For most people, the Confederate flag is a prominent reminder of the darkest chapter in America’s story – a chapter that in some ways has ended but in other ways is still being written.