THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409220013
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
The squabbling over the flying of the third - and last - Confederate national flag at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History is destined to sputter on until everybody tires of it, if ever. No words from us or anyone else could hasten the controversy to a harmonious conclusion. This flag is not the Confederate battle flag that is the most famous emblem of the Confederacy.
A similar quarrel afflicts South Carolina, where some business and political leaders recently asked the state Supreme Court to rule that the flying of a symbol of the Confederacy from the Statehouse dome is unlawful. The Confederacy, unlike South Carolina, no longer exists, of course - although it seemingly is very much alive and well in the hearts and mouths of legions of Southerners and would-be rebels.
In both Danville and South Carolina, blacks complain about symbols of a Confederacy of slave states flown by an institution that gets public funds, and whites rally to defend emblems of a Lost Cause seen as honorable. Yes, some bullies and murderers have embraced the Confederate battle flag - and the Christian cross, the Bible, and the American flag. But the Southern past, like all other pasts, is a mixture of good and evil, merit and mediocrity, glory and folly, richness and poverty, truth and lies. That many Southerners take pride in their past is as understandable as many other Southerners' distaste for it.
A proposed resolution of the flag skirmishing in South Carolina was rejected. The state Senate settled on a compromise that would have permitted the disputed banner to rise on the Statehouse grounds along with a memorial to the civil-rights struggle. But the lower chamber scorned the arrangement.
So it's on to court (as what isn't these days?), with a lawsuit pressed by people who say the flag flap is bad for South Carolina's image and economic-development prospects.
The same objection was raised in Danville, where City Council recently divided along racial lines to bless the flying of the third national Confederate flag from a monument erected on the grounds containing the museum. The museum is in a house that was briefly the last capital of the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis, in flight from the real Confederate capital in Richmond, roosted briefly there.
That happenstance is the museum's main claim upon tourists, students, historians. What could be more appropriate there than the third national Confederate flag, itself an object of interest to sightseers, history buffs, students?
Danville presumably is still at odds over the things. Meanwhile, the people of that Southside city, no less than the people of any other place, struggle daily with threats of varying severity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Everywhere there is much to be done, individually and collectively, to promote the more perfect union and provide for the common welfare that were among the aims of the founding fathers.
Passion and energies expended battling over banners may be satisfying. But they are passion and energy diverted from grappling with real ills. And, Lord, do we have them.
The squabbling over the flying of the third - and last - Confederate national flag at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History is destined to sputter on until everybody tires of it, if ever. No words from us or anyone else could hasten the controversy to a harmonious conclusion. Incidentally, this flag is not the Confederate battle flag that is the most famous emblem of the Confederacy.
A similar quarrel afflicts South Carolina, where some business and political leaders recently asked the state Supreme Court to rule that the flying of a symbol of the Confederacy from the Statehouse dome is unlawful. The Confederacy, unlike South Carolina, no longer exists, of course - although it seemingly is very much alive and well in the hearts and mouths of legions of Southerners and would-be rebels.
In both Danville and South Carolina, blacks complain about symbols of a Confederacy of slave states flown by an institution that gets public funds, and whites rally to defend emblems of a Lost Cause seen as honorable. Yes, some bullies and murderers have embraced the Confederate battle flag - and the Christian cross, the Bible, and the American flag. But the Southern past, like all other pasts, is a mixture of good and evil, merit and mediocrity, glory and folly, richness and poverty, truth and lies. That many Southerners take pride in their past is as understandable as many other Southerners' distaste for it.
A proposed resolution of the flag skirmishing in South Carolina was rejected. The state Senate settled on a compromise that would have permitted the disputed banner to rise on the Statehouse grounds along with a memorial to the civil-rights struggle. But the lower chamber scorned the arrangement.
So it's on to court (as what isn't these days?), with a lawsuit pressed by people who say the flag flap is bad for South Carolina's image and economic-development prospects.
The same objection was raised in Danville, where City Council recently divided along racial lines to bless the flying of the third Confederate national flag from a monument erected on the grounds containing the museum. The museum is in a house that was briefly the last capital of the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis, in flight from the real Confederate capital in Richmond, roosted briefly there.
That happenstance is the museum's main claim upon tourists, students, historians. What could be more appropriate there than the third Confederate national flag, itself an object of interest to anyone possessing healthy curiosity?
Danville presumably is still at odds over the thing. Meanwhile, the people of that Southside city, no less than the people of any other place, struggle daily with threats of varying severity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Everywhere there is much to be done, individually and collectively, to promote the more perfect union and provide for the common welfare that were among the aims of the founding fathers.
Passion and energies expended fighting over flags may be satisfying. But they are passion and energy diverted from grappling with real ills. And, Lord, do we have them. by CNB