At Rural South Carolina Shop, Confederate Flags Fly Off Shelves

[Rosemary]

Losers

One problem we have in America is many in the South feel this way anyway...a good friend of mine moved to the south to teach, and in some of the text books in his district refer to the civil war as " the War of Northern Aggression" and that’s what these kids are taught.....I have another example of something that happened to him in that district ( he has since left it) that is mind blowing... but I should ask his permission before I post that story....

in many ways we are way to divided a nation.. fuelled by hate and mistrust...and some of it, not all by any means, does stem from that flag... do i think it should be banned.. no, wear it on your shirt, fly it at your home if you like.. but I defiantly believe IT SHOULD BE REMOVED from ANY government building...much in the same way I feel anything of a religious nature should be as well.....not banned...but not representative of the government....

that's just one Yanks opinion though


Steadmund Brand

It was never called War of Northern Aggresion in my textbooks as a child 50-60s but we have developed a culture among the lower & working white class, otherwise known as rednecks or peckerwoods, of defeatism. I'll not debate wrong here, but I don't believe in changing history in retrospect, even though I'm a descendant of slaves. I'd never call slave-quarters a dependency building or servants building.

[Rosemary]

Well

Very true, Pinkmoon. You should follow up your Civil War reading with some works on the Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, the novel "The Help", and the documentary series "Eyes on the Prize".

The United States in the 1850s were divided into the industrialized North and the agricultural cotton and tobacco empires of the South, a fedual society built on slave labor. They feared the growing Aboltionist movement would lead to the end of slavery, so they resisted the Federal government and started what the North saw as an "insurrection".

What I don't understand is why couldn't they use free, paid laborers? Was it simple greed? Stubborn pride on the part of the plantation masters?
Yes, General Sherman's March to the Sea destroyed many fine plantations and threw the South into even greater poverty, but more than that it cemented Southern hatred against both Yankees and freed slaves. This is why in the 1950s and 60s young people of both races were marching for civil rights, such as voting and education, that had still been denied to them by the white authorities.

I'd have to ask my great-grandfather about that, but my guess is $$$

[Rosemary]

On the other hand

Then I'd have to ask my great-g-g grandmother how she felt being sold into slavery in Senegambia & sent in the Diaspora to British colonies in the Caribbean. But then, I'd also ask my ancestors in Cantabria how they felt about the possibility of being Roman slaves. I have collateral ancestors on my grandfather's side who committed suicide in their little village, en masse, rather than submit. Or so we were told.