The Flag I Knew but Never Thought About.
I’m a product of the South. I grew up a southern white boy in the 50’s. I went to all white schools and lived in all white neighborhoods. I had all white friends and dated all white girls. I read books about the civil war exploits of confederate soldiers. I watched movies dramatizing the antebellum south. I watched TV shows like “The Gray Ghost” glorifying the exploits of John Singleton Mosby (Mosby’s Raiders). I listened to my grandmother talking about her father, my great grandfather, who fought under Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville. Yes, I’m a true “son of the confederacy”. To me the Confederate flag was a sign of a proud heritage and second only to the American flag. The problem was I never thought about the other side of the meaning of that flag. We in the south, and when I say that, I mean we white people in the south grew up glorifying the confederacy. We lived, we breathed it, it was just part of us. I never thought about the real meaning of the flag and the
