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Crash Of Symbols Echoes In Society

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Marion Lambert speaks with the Tampa Tribune after raising a Confederate battle flag at US 92 at Interstate 75 Tuesday, June 3, 2008 in Eureka Springs.

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By GRETCHEN PARKER and MICHAEL MESSANO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 16, 2008

Updated: 06/16/2008 12:02 am

If all goes as the Sons of Confederate Veterans plan, a jumbo red flag with the historic, familiar blue X and white stars will permanently unfurl, within the next year, at the prominent crossing of interstates 4 and 75.

To some of the 200,000 drivers who will see it daily, it will release a wash of negative emotion. They'll see a painful reminder of slavery, of a divided country, flashes of white supremacy, segregation and the suppression of minorities' rights.

Others will see an expression of Southern courage, sacrifice and self-determination. They'll see it as an emblem of the South.

The flag's symbolism has been multilayered and changing since it was first flown in 1861. Like many powerful historical symbols, it has multiple meanings that have evolved over decades.

It has come to be recognized as a symbol of the Confederate States of America, so much so that it is popularly thought to be the official flag of the Confederacy.

Not so. The banner commonly called the Confederate flag was never officially adopted by the Confederacy.

It was a battle flag, a replacement on the battlefield for the Stars and Bars, which looked too much like the U.S. flag. The old Stars and Bars had three red and white stripes and a blue square in the corner, with white stars for the seven seceding states.

It looked so much like the U.S. flag, though, that it was confusing.

The new flag, which looked like today's version except it was square, caught on fast.

"It was much more popular with soldiers and the general public than the first one," said William Barney, a Civil War historian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "It quickly became associated with Confederate heroism and bravery."

Its mythology grew after the fall of the Confederacy, Barney said.

The 1880s and '90s, when the Civil War generation began to die off, was when heavy commemoration of the war kicked off. The collection of stories, along with memoirs from generals, became popular.

Over time, the flag's power as a symbol of Confederate resistance and valor ebbed and flowed.

It resonated more, for example, after the civil rights movement, when some Southern whites considered themselves beleaguered, Barney said.

"The flag was always popular, but as an almost iconic religious symbol, it acquired more and more of that meaning over time," he said.

Its negative connotations increased as well. It has become supercharged, for those who see it as a dangerous rallying point for white supremacy.

"That symbol has undergone an enormous transformation," said Dell deChant, associate chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida.

Other rich symbols like the battle flag, with many layers of meaning, are open to multiple interpretations and transformations, said deChant, whose teachings include the cultural role and function of symbolism.

The swastika, appropriated by Nazis in Germany, is synonymous now in Western society with hate and racism.

But its deepest roots go back to South Asia thousands of years ago, and it shows up as a symbol in the Hindu and Jainism religions to signify prosperity, success and achievement, deChant said.

It's another example of the interpretation of symbols: Nazis also saw the swastika as a hallmark of power, success and overcoming obstacles.

The modern association with evil, though, is strong, deChant said. So much so that the main emblem of Jainism, an open hand with a swastika, is now often shown without the "hooked cross," as the Nazis referred to it.

Another symbol used by the Nazis, the pink triangle, also was transformed. Used by captors to label homosexual prisoners in concentration camps, the triangle was taken over by the gay movement as a symbol of liberation.

Other symbols have meanings that have changed. What is widely known as the peace symbol originally was designed, in 1958, for the anti-nuclear movement. It incorporates the semaphore letters N for nuclear and D for disarmament.

It was adopted as an anti-war and peace activist ensign in the United States in the 1960s; in England, it still stands for nuclear disarmament and is used as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

"At any given time in any cultural environment, a powerful symbol will elicit different responses in different people," deChant said.

The Confederate battle flag, planned for the top of a 139-foot flagpole, would be an example of that.

Researcher Michael Messano can be reached at (813) 541-5832 or mmessano@tampatrib.com.

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