User:North Shoreman/Sandbox7

Post Civil War (1870-1940)
Confederate soldiers were not familiar with the modern flag as such, but many were fond of the flags of their own units. These often included design elements found on the modern Confederate flag. They honored battlefield comradery rather than Southern nationalism.

not generally used by 1st KKK by 1870s appeared in memorial services

During the "memorial period" that ran from the mid 1880s through the 1920s, use of Confederate flags broadened and they became the symbolic embodiment of the Lost Cause.

"While denying vehemently that Confederates fought for slavery, southern partisans of the era did not hesitate to boast that Confederates fought for 'white supremacy.'"

to show loyalty, US flag often flown at public ceremonies along w/rebel flag

The Confederate battle flag was added to the state flag of Mississippi in 1894 and appeared on two former state flags of Georgia from 1956 until 2003.

The 50th anniversary reunion at Gettysburg in 1913 was a turning point in obtaining national acceptance of the flag and other Confederate symbols. The flag appears prominently in Birth of a Nation (1915).

The second Ku Klux Klan (1915–1944), a group inspired by this film, was a nativist organization that flew the U.S. flag exclusively. Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone with the Wind, led to a brief but intense period of nostalgia for the Old South during which the Confederate flag appeared widely. In the film adaptation, the flag flutters over a scene of vast carnage.

College campuses
"By the 1940s, as Southern men mingled more frequently with non-Southerners in the U.S. Armed Forces and met them on the gridiron, they expressed their identity as Southerners with Confederate battle flags. The flag’s appearance in conjunction with Southern collegiate football was auspicious. College campuses are often incubators of cultural change, and they apparently were for the battle flag."

Unofficial military use
During World War II some U.S. military units with Southern nicknames, or made up largely of Southerners, made the flag their unofficial emblem. The USS Columbia (CL-56) flew a Confederate Navy Ensign as a battle flag throughout combat in the South Pacific in World War II. This was done in honor of Columbia, the ship's namesake and the capital city of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union. Some soldiers carried Confederate flags into battle. After the Battle of Okinawa a Confederate flag was raised over Shuri Castle by a Marine from the self-styled "Rebel Company" (Company A of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines). It was visible for miles and was taken down after three days on the orders of General Simon B. Buckner, Jr. (son of Confederate general Simon Buckner, Sr.), who stated that it was inappropriate as "Americans from all over are involved in this battle". It was replaced with the regulation, 48-star flag of the United States. By the end of World War II, the use of the Confederate flag in the military was rare.

Dixiecrats
The 1948 Dixiecrat political party extensively used Confederate symbols, including the battle flag, and contributed to the flag's post-World War II re-popularization. According to historian John Coski, segregationists utilized Confederate symbols as both they and the Confederates had similar goals, that is, opposition to any "change the South's racial status quo." As a result, Coski stated that "There could be no more fitting opposition" to desegregation "than the Confederate battle flag. Although segregationists lost their battle and their cause was discredited, attitudes of white supremacy live on."

Civil Rights opposition (1950s)
In Georgia, the Confederate battle flag was reintroduced as an element of the state flag in 1956, just two years after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. It was considered by many to be a protest against school desegregation.

Civil War Centennial (1960s)
In the 1960s it was also raised at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) during protests against integration of schools.

Latter 20th Century
(largely absent from the current article -- this is era when civil rights groups and heritage groups articulated and hardened their positions)

21st Century
3.61 Religious groups 3.62 Public opinion (2011-2015) 3.63 University of Mississippi statue 3.64 House bill banning flag at VA cemeteries 3.65 Six Flags Over Texas 3.66 Display at American University 3.67 Vehicle license plates 3.68 Retailer bans 3.69 Washington National Cathedral 3.70 Trump rallies 3.71 South Carolina (include Display at South Carolina State Capitol, Reactions to 2015 Charleston church shooting, and Removal from South Carolina State Capitol

4 Popular Culture

4.1 In film and television 4.2 Use by musicians 4.3 Popularity outside the southern U.S.   4.3 NASCAR

5 Historical and modern meaning

Removed for placement elsewhere
Supporters of the flag's continued use claim it is a symbol of Southern ancestry and heritage as well as representing a distinct and independent cultural tradition of the Southern United States from the rest of the country. Some groups use the "southern cross" as one of the symbols associated with their organizations, including groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. However, the flag of the United States is commonly used instead. For other supporters, the Confederate flag represents only a past era of Southern sovereignty. As the public display of Nazi flags (or any other flags) is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech, the Nazi Reichskriegsflagge has also been seen on display at white supremacist "events" within United States borders, side-by-side with the Confederate flag.

Historian John Coski noted that the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the "most visible, active, and effective defender of the flag", "carried forward into the twenty-first century, virtually unchanged, the Lost Cause historical interpretations and ideological vision formulated at the turn of the twentieth." Coski wrote concerning "the flag wars of the late twentieth century":

"From the ... early 1950s, SCV officials defended the integrity of the battle flag against trivialization and against those who insisted that its display was unpatriotic or racist. SCV spokesmen reiterated the consistent argument that the South fought a legitimate war for independence, not a war to defend slavery, and that the ascendant "Yankee" view of history falsely vilified the South and led people to misinterpret the battle flag."

The allied United Daughters of the Confederacy and other historical societies also used the flag as part of their symbols.

From a very different political perspective, both the Southern Student Organizing Committee and the Young Patriots Organization (the latter among Southern migrants in Chicago), were 1960/70s New Left anti-racist movements that attempted to reappropriate the Confederate flag in their symbolism.

Proposal
3 Revival and controversy
 * 3.1 Post Civil War (1865-1940) include state flags and state seals
 * 3.2 1940s (include new info on non-political use)
 * 3.3 Civil Rights opposition (1950s)
 * 3.4 Civil War Centennial (1960s) include part of SC raising of the flag
 * 3.5 Latter 20th Century (largely absent from the current article -- this is era when civil rights groups and heritage groups articulated and hardened their positions)
 * 3.6 21st Century
 * 3.61 Religious groups
 * 3.62 Public opinion (2011-2015)
 * 3.63 University of Mississippi statue
 * 3.64 House bill banning flag at VA cemeteries
 * 3.65 Six Flags Over Texas
 * 3.66 Display at American University
 * 3.67 Vehicle license plates
 * 3.68 Retailer bans
 * 3.69 Washington National Cathedral
 * 3.70 Trump rallies
 * 3.71 South Carolina (include Display at South Carolina State Capitol, Reactions to 2015 Charleston church shooting, and Removal from South Carolina State Capitol

4 Popular Culture
 * 4.1 In film and television
 * 4.2 Use by musicians
 * 4.3 Popularity outside the southern U.S.
 * 4.3 NASCAR

5 Historical and modern meaning

4 Official usage in southern U.S. states include in Post Civil War section