Throughout the South, those still flying the Confederate flag have come under increased scrutiny after the racially-motivated murder of nine African American men and women at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The 21-year-old white man who killed them made it glaringly clear that the flag is a brazen symbol of white supremacy. Over the weekend, activist Bree Newsome was arrested for boldly taking down the Confederate flag in front of the capitol building in South Carolina.
Yet in the context of the current Black Lives Matter movement, we should remind ourselves that racism is not just a problem in the South. Here in Central Illinois, the “Land of Lincoln,” we can find people flying the Confederate Flag.
Back in 2011, Smile Politely published an article by Safiya Noble, who has since left to teach at UCLA, about confederate flags being openly displayed in a booth at the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival.
The day after the Charleston massacre, I heard from a friend, who is African American and lives in Mahomet (a city 15 minutes west of Champaign). He had a neighbor with a Confederate flag hanging in his garage which he could easily see every day driving home from work. The neighbor also drives a reissued model of the Dodge Charger painted to look like the General Lee, from the “Dukes of Hazzard,” complete with a Confederate flag on top. The next day, the neighbor moved the flag to the back wall of the garage where it was more difficult to see. That didn’t make my friend any more comfortable.
I received a call from some other friends in Urbana, a white couple. They have a neighbor who continues to proudly display in front of his house the first flag of the Confederate (1861-1863), known as the “Stars and Bars,” with seven stars for the original states to secede from the union ― South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Although not as familiar as the Confederate Battle Flag, it is still offensive. I went by and got a picture of the house on Anderson Street, shown here:
The “Stars and Bars,” the first Confederate flag flies in Urbana
Another friend told me anecdotally that he has seen bumper stickers of Confederate flags for sale at a gas station in north Champaign. Others can probably provide their own sightings.
“It’s true a flag did not cause these murders,” President Obama said in his eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney. The Confederate flag represents more than just “ancestral pride,” but a “reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now.”
Hopefully, neighbors and businesses will recognize their ignorance and take these flags down. More than that, the country should continue to interrogate its racist past and confront such manifestations today.