Just last month, Trump’s National Park Service announced plans to reinstall the statue of Confederate General Albert Pike in Washington, D.C.
In Tennessee, the state legislature just passed a law to protect the Confederate flag.
A report from earlier this year revealed that more than 2,000 Confederate symbols remain in public spaces across the U.S., including monuments, plaques, street names, and buildings.
Why are people so passionate about protecting what people mistakenly refer to as the “Confederate Flag.”
A little bit of history is in order.
The Confederate States of America existed for a grand total of four years, from 1861 to 1865. During that time, the Confederacy had four flags, none of which were the Confederate Flag flown today.
The widely recognized flag used by Southerners and other whites today was only used on battlefields in the Civil War, mostly just by the Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee.
After the Confederacy was defeated, the barely used war flag was not used as a symbol of Southern identity or any sort of political resistance.
It wasn’t used as a representation of Southern pride or culture.
So why are people so adamant it was — defending it as if it’s a matter of personal identity.
In 1948, while Civil Rights efforts were aggressively underway, avowed racist senator Strom Thurmond resserected use of the flag during his presidential campaign for the Dixiecrat Party. His platform was unequivocal: oppose civil rights efforts.
And that, not Southern fried chicken, not seer sucker suits, not okra or black-eyed peas, not country music, not “yessir” or “no ma’am,” is how the flag re-emerged. This time as a political symbol of resistance to civil rights and desegregation.
When the Civil Rights movement under Dr. King kicked into full gear in the 1950s and 60s, use of the flag surged as a symbol of preserving racial separation.
That’s consistent with why the Confederacy was formed in the first place. Not because of something called southern culture.
The Confederacy was founded for the purpose of preserving slavery. Alexander Stevens, Confederate VP, was clear on this point: “our new government is founded upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery… is his natural and normal condition.”
In the 1950s and 60s, with civil unrest and disobedience protesting racist laws everywhere, Southern states for the first time ever began hanging the flag over state buildings.
In 1956, Georgia added the flag after the U.S. Supreme Court desegrated schools.
The flag became a mainstay at Klan rallies and was used by white supremacists to protest civil rights.
Other white supremacists followed suit and began adopting and prominently displaying the flag.
The people who defended use of the flag in the 1950s and 60s, so we’re clear, did so explicitly on racial grounds, not heritage. Their words, not mine. Politicians at the time noted that the flag represented resistance to “race-mixing.”
That’s why, by the way, we can still see the flag blowing in the wind on poles in northern states — Montana, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and other non-Southern places. It’s why in March, 2025, someone displayed the flag at a St. Patty’s Day parade in Long Island, New York.
The idea that it represents “heritage, not hate” crumbles under the weight of its actual history: it wasn’t widely flown after the Civil War, not even by proud Southerners, until the Civil Rights Movement threatened to dismantle white supremacy. That’s when the flag came down from attics and up on flagpoles — not as a nod to ancestors, but as a middle finger to integration, justice, and equality.
So when we see the Confederate flag waving in a parade in New York or at a political rally, let’s stop pretending it’s about regional pride.
It’s about a mindset — one that has nothing to do with the South and everything to do with preserving a racial hierarchy.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeffrey Kass' work on Medium.