Somewhere in China, teams of low-paid workers are busily stitching together Confederate flags.
In recent days, it has become clear that modern America is finally overtaking the Old South’s symbols. But while the Confederate battle flag as an official symbol is being swept into the dustbin of history, thousands of folks are making personal, individual decisions to hang on to their Rebel pasts — real or imagined.
Decisions to do away with public and official displays have been dazzlingly quick in the wake of the slaughter in Charleston. Conservative politicians in South Carolina and Alabama have moved swiftly to say the right things to correct the actions of earlier generations who raised the flag as a middle finger to the civil rights movement.
Whether pols really mean all they say or are merely doing it to subvert opponents in future elections does not really matter; change has come.
And whether boffo sales of Rebel flags represent a harmless resurgence of southern pride or a lingering hangover from the Peculiar Institution doesn’t matter either. Those are social and political statements made by individuals who have the right to free expression.
If you really want to take the nation’s pulse on the issue, forget the halls of state and look to the temples of commerce.
The fact that Walmart abruptly banned the sale of Confederate items demonstrates how the mood has turned in mainstream America. Ultimately, it was hard to salvage the image of the Confederate flag, after a murderous twerp posed in pictures proudly waving it.
“I’m not surprised (Walmart) acted so fast; the attitude of people has changed very fast,” said Ken Bernhardt, a retired Georgia State University marketing professor who has spent 40 years figuring out how to win people over. “It’s the way the winds are blowing.”
And controversies blow harder in today’s hyper-linked, social-media-fed world. Ultimately, Walmart and other companies just didn’t want this one attached to them.
The uber-retailer has long endured an unlikable image as an outsourcing, employee-abusing, Main Street-killing colossus. But the corporation has tried to carve out a softer, kinder, more socially conscious image in recent years, Bernhardt said.
“I think they’ve thought about the right thing to do rather that just reading tea leaves and acting,” he said.
Soren Dresch, a Yankee by birth who founded Ruffin Flags in Washington, Ga., 25 years ago, has a less charitable interpretation.
“They look like a hero without really doing anything,” he said. “I don’t think they sell much (Confederate merchandise) anyway.”
Dresch said his firm, which is east of Athens and employs 18 full-timers, can’t keep up with the demand for all things Rebel. The landslide of orders, he believes, comes from many people wanting to say, “I’m still here.”
They are still here, but increasingly they are being brushed aside. Obviously, they’re not liking it.
“One of my customers asked, ‘Is the Mississippi flag still legal?’” he said, referring to the only state banner still sporting the battle flag.
(Please, call before midnight tomorrow!!! Operators are standing by.)
“Every time they try to change it, we sell a lot of flags,” Dresch said. “We’ll sell a year’s stock in a week.”
Fittingly, the firm is named for Edmund Ruffin, who, according to popular legend, fired the first shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter — and at war’s end wrapped himself in a Confederate flag and swallowed a bullet.
But the company is not locked into backwards-looking merchandise. Ruffin’s website features a wide array that includes American flags, Polish flags, gay pride flags and numerous versions of the Mexican flag, which allows immigrants to also say, “I’m still here.”
“We live in America, and people are free to express themselves,” he said.
I called both Zell Miller and Roy Barnes, two Georgia governors who gambled their political futures on trying to pry the Confederate symbol from the state flag.
Miller failed in a gallant yet futile effort but lived to govern another day.
With the 1996 Olympics bearing down on Atlanta, he thought it best to push an image makeover. In a speech before legislators in 1993, Miller exhorted lawmakers to act:
“Will you do the easy thing, or the right thing?” he asked in his State of the State address. “Will you proudly act as an individual, or will you just go along with the mob?”
The prepared speech had the word “crowd,” but Miller shifted to the stronger — and darker — image of a faceless mob in his attempt to move legislators.
Some booed and the applause was scattered, mostly coming from black legislators, articles from the time noted. The effort failed.
I called Miller’s mountain home Wednesday. He still believes it was the best speech of his long career, one he acknowledges “almost took me out” in the next election.
“I realized I was putting my career on the line but I thought it was worth it,” he recalled. “I’m glad to see the progress that has been made. It’s a controversy that needs to be put behind us.”
Barnes famously changed the flag in 2001, which in Georgia politics was akin to wearing a Che Guevara beret.
He succeeded by adopting a stealth approach, twisting individual legislators’ arms to cobble together a successful vote. Critics called it a “railroad job,” an apt description.
This week, Barnes recalled that he sat down wavering conservative Democrats in his office and appealed to their consciences. He said, “You’ll have grandchildren one day asking you, ‘Granddaddy, why did you vote to keep that symbol of race and division? Was it to get re-elected?’”
As for Walmart, Barnes said “they have a much better network than politicians. Their leadership says ‘We’re going to be on the right side of a moral issue.’
“That’s why Walmart is the number one retailer in the world. When a moment comes, they make a decision. And they don’t have to worry about running for re-election.”
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