Stone Mountain Confederate Rally

Stone Mountain GA

Description

Darn, I saw several days ago that the Confererate dudes were going to have a rally today at Stone Mountain and forgot about it. I usually never go to the park on weekends due to the crowds, but I meant to go today. Instead I went to Little Five Points to look at all the weird people and had lunch. I am as Southern as any one gets, I was born in Atlanta at a hospital with a Peachtree Street address, and lived in Ga my whole life. But I have never understood peoples obsession with the Confederate Battle Flag. What we all know is at the beginning of the (Un)Civil War the Confederate Battle flag was all White with a small about 12 inches square Stars and Bars in the upper left hand corner. The problem with that flag was as Union forces were ready to fight Confederate troops, and the wind wasn't blowing, the Souths Battle Flag looked like a white flag of surrender. That confused the Union soldiers, so they asked the Confederate soldiers to come up with a better flag. Really, that happened. It took the Confederate Army 3 tries to finally come up with a standard battle flag, and they are still flying at the Plaza at Stone Mountain Park. Where they should be, in an outdoor Museum. The Confederate States went through a lot of different flag designs, and the Stars and Bars seems to have become the standard by 1863. Now as we all know the South lost the war officially on May 9, 1865, and fully surrendered. At that point the Stars and Bars should have been relegated to museums only. Through out history when a village, state or nation loses a war, they always put their battle flags away. Unfortunately the Kay Kay Kay adopted the Stars and Bars as their official flag in 1915, and it has represented White Supremacy ever since. To claim other wise is delusional. Case in point in the 1950's as desegregation was underway, Georgia changed our perfectly fine state flag and added the Stars and Bars in opposition. Over the last 35 years I have asked around 12 people that have a Confederate Stars and Bars flag and talks about Southern Heritage, why, what is their obsession with it. Every single one of them has replied exactly the same, "If I have to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand." I have pushed several of them to explain it to me, and if I don't understand, that is my problem. But they will never answer my simple question. That I know of I have 3 ancestors that fought for the Confederacy, 1 from my fathers side, 2 from my mothers. My fathers family owned a saw mill prior to the Civil War and was middle class. That ancestor was educated and joined the Confederate Army as a Lieutenant. He wrote a few letters home that we still have, and after a couple of years, the letters stopped, he never returned home, and no one knows why. One of my fathers sisters did a massive amount of research on their family and my mothers family concerning the Civil War, and came up with a lot of old documents several historical societies wanted to add to their records. The 2 ancestors from my mothers side were dirt poor share croppers, but they could read and write like 80% of their peers back then. They were in the same Infantry unit, and both wrote a few letters to their parents, my great great great grand parents. Their letters stopped in late 1863. They deserted the Confederate Army and later records indicate they headed to California. By 1863 the Confederate Army had desertion rates up to 20% for the foot soldiers that were tired, hungry, and realized what they were fighting for. As far as we know none of my ancestors owned slaves. I have had arguments with some Stars and Bars people that talk about Southern Heritage like living in the 13 Confederate States before the Civil War was Utopia. They will even say the Civil War had nothing to do with Slavery, it was all about States Rights. When I ask them if they have read any of the Souther States Articles of Secession, some of which prove they seceded from the union so they could continue the Institution of Slavery, they say no, they don't have to read anything to know what they're talking about. Before the Civil War 10% of the people that owned 95% of the slaves controlled almost every thing. The next 25% of people were middle class and may have owned 1 or 2 slaves to help them run their business'. Heck, it was even common for a Preacher to have a slave one of the wealthy plantation owners gave him to help maintain their church. The remaining 65% of southern white people back then lived hand to mouth. Some managed to own a few acres they could farm, many other's sharecropped excess land the Plantation Owners did not have enough slaves to farm. I am asking, no, begging any of you who can reply to this post here on CL politics for all of us to see, to explain what your real obsession is with the Confederate Battle Flag today? Thank you for your time.