Confederate flag

From 1860–61, 11 slave-holding states seceded from the US, forming the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy, triggering the Civil War. In 1861, the Confederacy adopted its first of three national flags, known as the Stars and Bars. The Stars and Bars had a blue canton, or upper corner, with white stars, symbolizing the seceded states, and red and white stripes.

Its similarity to the US flag made it unpopular with some Confederates. One, named William Porcher Miles, had suggested an alternative design to the Confederate Congress, a red flag with two thick blue diagonal lines and 13 white stars, standing for the 11 seceded states plus Kentucky and Missouri. This design became what we know as the Confederate flag today.

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The resemblance of the Stars and Bars to the US flag led to confusion at the 1861 Battle of Bull Run, one of the first major battles of the Civil War. Afterward, Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard adopted Miles’s flag as a battle flag for his troops.

In 1863, the Confederate States adopted a new national flag, with the battle flag in the upper corner and the rest of the flag in white. Two years later, a vertical red stripe was added to the Confederate national flag, but this flag was short lived, as the Confederacy surrendered only a month later.

Following the end of the Civil War, Confederate veteran groups used the battle flag in memorials to fallen soldiers. In 1894, the state of Mississippi adopted a flag using the Confederate battle flag as its canton, with blue, white, and red horizontal stripes.

The Confederate flag began to be used more prominently in the 1940s. In 1948, student groups flew the Confederate flag at the Southern States Rights Party (also known as the “Dixiecrat” party) convention. The Dixiecrats opposed civil rights measures in the Democratic Party’s platform. The United Daughters of the Confederacy issued a statement at the time opposing use of the flag “in certain demonstrations of college groups and some political groups.”

idc if u think u fly a confederate flag for “southern pride” it’s representative of racism and oppression. goodnight.

— kylie (@kyrobertsonn) August 16, 2018

Georgia changed its state flag to include the Confederate flag in 1956. The state’s previous flags, used from 1879 to 1956, were based on the Stars and Bars. Georgia adopted a new state flag in 2000, which contained a small inset image of the 1956 flag, along with other historical flags. This was replaced again in 2003 with a flag resembling the Stars and Bars.

In 1961, South Carolina began to fly the Confederate flag over its state house. In 2000, the flag over the state house was removed, at the request of civil rights activists, but a smaller one was raised on the state house lawn. The Confederate flag was notably removed from the South Carolina State House grounds in July 2015 following the shooting of nine Black parishioners at a South Carolina church. Photographs of the shooter, an avowed white supremacist, showed him posing with the flag.

In June 2020 during the George Floyd protests for racial justice, calls mounted to remove various Confederate symbols (including statues) from public displays. In June 2020, the Mississippi state legislature voted to replace its flag—the only remaining state flag that featured the Confederate flag.

The Mississippi state legislature voted on Sunday to replace its state flag, the last in the nation to display the Confederate battle emblem. https://t.co/9AaB6QDQJt

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) June 28, 2020

Still, many in the South consider the Confederate flag a symbol of regional pride, though others associate the flag with racism against African-Americans. As the Anti-Defamation League notes: “While a number of non-extremists still use the flag as a symbol of Southern heritage or pride, there is growing recognition, especially outside the South, that the symbol is offensive to many Americans.” The meaning of the Confederate flag still remains a hotly debated topic today.

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The Confederate flag is also called the rebel flag, as Unionists sometimes called Confederates “rebels,” or the Dixie flag, with Dixie a historic nickname for the South.