John Carter
Southron
Fri Mar 2 09:27:54 2001


I don't think there's any subject that gets to southern people more than the issues of the removal of old state flags, monuments, flags, state songs (Carry me back to Old Virginny), nicknames, and other symbols of the old Southern Confederacy. I have to admit that it gets to me a bit to see some of these things go by the wayside under pressure from other groups. I wouldn't put it quite the way the contributor to this web site did, but I have the feeling that some of us may have said something similar to ourselves when it happened in our home town. It does make sense to me, for instance, to fly the Confederate flag over the grounds of Point Lookout Prison in Maryland where so many Confederate soldiers died during captivity.

On the other hand, it's probably time to move along and let go of the past. We lost the war- get over it...and to the victor belongs the spoils. But the South many of us envision at the moment was never really the South that existed. There were never "True Southrons" who represented the whole South- the South was never whole in ante-bellum or Civil War times. It was very divided about all of the issues, including slavery and secession. For most states, their going out was a very close thing, and Unionists continued to fight against the Confederacy throughout the war. It was united though in one thing- keeping blacks at the bottom of the social order.

When people talk about losing their heritage when Confederate battle flags are taken down and their state flags changed, they are talking about losing their Confederate heritage, and not just their Southern heritage. And that's ok...but you're holding on to a past that only existed for four short years and was basically a reconstruction which many people have held onto for generations after that. There is so much more southern heritage and history before the Civil War. The problem with the South is that for so long they never allowed other voices to be heard about their particular Southern experience.

I used to be proud of the stars and bars because it represented the South which I loved, but over the years hate groups have tarnished that flag and made it the symbol of something a lot less than what the South was and is. I think I prefer the St. Andrew's cross over the old flag now.

The history of this country has always been to take in more and more diverse groups of people into society and let them work and fight their way into a more secure place within it. That's just the way it has been and probably always will be, and you will just have to live with it. Most of us had southern ancestors who would fall into that category somewhere along the way. It has never been any one group's personal South- we have all shared it, with some being more powerful than others and able to control it.


So if it is an issue of control or in owning the South, forget about it because you probably never owned it anyway- somebody else did and they just let you live there. If it's about race and ethnism- where are you going to run from all of those blacks, and Jews, and Catholics, and Yankees, and foreigners who are forever walking your streets and getting in your way...Those same people who have always been in the South...have been a part of the South...and who are the South. If it's about losing the war...sorry, we did. The winners get to keep their flags and write the histories.

My gr-gr-grandfather fought with Lee for four years in Virginia, and his two brothers fought in Tennessee under Bragg and Johnston. Their father was a delegate to the secession convention in Montgomery and voted against secession. His grandfather fought the British in Virginia during the Revolutionary War, and that man's grandfather came from Northern Ireland to escape the persecution and turmoil there. I am proud of them and the South they made and lived in over the generations. Even if they had not fought for the South, I would have still felt the same. They re-created their own world and their own South each time they moved from VA to NC to TN to AL

SOUTHERN HERITAGE — Quinn Elliott, Fri Mar 2 21:14

• Southern — Wayne Morrison, Mon Apr 2 09:23

The South — GPurvis, Fri Mar 2 19:02