Enduring emblems of division go beyond flags
Calls to remove the Confederate battle flag are mounting across the U.S., but state-sponsored tributes to the Southern rebellion go well beyond the familiar star-studded ‘X’ overlaying a field of red. Here’s a look at some of the other Confederate symbols
PITCHFORK BEN
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley may have called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag that flies in front of her state’s Capitol. But she hasn’t said the Confederate Veterans’ monument alongside the flag should go. Nor has she called for moving a nearby statue of Benjamin Tillman, an unapologetic white supremacist who served as governor and U.S. senator during the early decades of Jim Crow segregation. “Pitchfork Ben” once told the U.S. Senate, “We have scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them (blacks). We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it.” The statue of Tillman was unveiled in 1940, with U.S. Senator James F. Byrnes — a fellow South Carolinian who would go on to serve as a Supreme Court justice and as the state’s governor — delivering the dedication. Earlier this year, South Carolina’s Clemson University opted not to remove Tillman’s name from the school’s clock tower.
A TALL ORDER
On Wednesday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley ordered the removal of four Confederate banners from the Confederate memorial that sits at the Capitol entrance nearest his office. But he said nothing about the 88-foot memorial itself, which was funded in the 1880s with a combination of state and private funds. Jefferson Davis, the lone president of the Confederacy, is said to have laid the cornerstone at a ceremony in 1886.
OLE MISS
Mississippi’s state flag is the last U.S. state banner to include an explicit image of the Confederate battle flag, but calls for change are mounting. On Wednesday, Republican U.S. Senator Roger Wicker said in a statement that the flag “should be put in a museum and replaced by one that is more unifying to all Mississippians.” Former governor Haley Barbour, however, has defended the flag, arguing that it has been used for 120 years. In a 2001 referendum, Mississippi residents voting overwhelmingly to keep it. A monument to the women of the Confederacy sits at an entrance to the Capitol, while The University of Mississippi’s athletics teams are known as the “Ole Miss Rebels” and the school’s band often plays “Dixie” at sporting events.
DAVIS AND LEE
Confederate president Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee are perhaps the most frequently immortalized figures. Lee, Davis and other Old South luminaries have their names emblazoned on streets, while busts and statues can be found in courthouses and on statehouse grounds. Two public high schools near the Alabama Capitol are named for Lee and Davis, with mostly black students. Several southern states also recognize Lee’s and Davis’ birthdays. In a few, Lee’s is recognized on the same day as the federal holiday honouring Martin Luther King Jr. In Kentucky, a Davis statue stands in the Capitol rotunda, positioned so that the Confederacy’s only president appears to be looking over the shoulder of a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
GENERAL CONTEMPT
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was known as one of the most brutal generals to serve in the Confederate army and went on to become the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Dozens of memorials to Forrest can be found in his native Tennessee, including a bust at the Tennessee Capitol. On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam endorsed its removal, telling reporters that Forrest “would not be one of the Tennesseans I would honour” if he had the choice. There is also controversy in Nashville over a statue of Forrest riding a horse that was erected on private land along Interstate 65 in 1998.