| Book Review | Law and History Review, 21.2

Book Review

J. Michael Martinez, William D. Richardson, and Ron McNinch-Su, eds., Confederate Symbols in the Contemporary South, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. Pp. xv + 351. $49.95 (ISBN 0-8130-1758-0).

In Texas, then-Governor George W. Bush ordered the removal of two Confederate memorial plaques from the state Supreme Court building. In South Carolina, the NAACP declared a boycott against the state's tourism industry because the Confederate battle flag has been displayed at state buildings. In Virginia, Gov. James S. Gilmore III is being pressured to rescind the state's annual Confederate History Month proclamation, and the state's attorney general is battling a federal-court ruling permitting the Confederate battle flag on specialty license plates. The controversy has even reached the collegiate ranks. The NCAA is contemplating the removal of men's and women's basketball tournament games—including the Final Four—from states that fly the Confederate flag or incorporate its battle symbol in their state flags.

Although 135 years have passed since General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the Civil War continues to be fought throughout the erstwhile Confederacy. However, the weapons now are pressure and tradition, rather than minie balls and muskets, and the battlegrounds are public opinion and free expression, rather than lonely fields and meandering creeks.

The controversy over the display of Confederate emblems—and the larger issue of how to view the Civil War through modern lenses—is the subject of this scholarly treatise. The book is divided into eleven essays, each with different authors (most being Southern historians and political scientists). This controversy is worthy of study, the editors assure us, because of the political disputes generated by Confederate flags, monuments and writings, and the virtually apologetic way in which historians and politicians treat the subject of the Confederacy. This is despite the fact there has been more interest in the Civil War during the past few years than at any other time during the twentieth century. The public fascination with the Civil War infiltrates our perceptions, communications and culture. It manifests itself in our pilgrimages to battle sites like Bull Run and Gettysburg, our films and documentaries, our views and sense of justice about contemporary race relations, and our reactions to the murder of a white man by a group of black teenagers who were enraged that he displayed a Confederate flag in his truck.

The war is no longer about slavery, states' rights, Congressional representation or disproportionate taxation methods—the issues Lee and Grant and hundreds of thousands of soldiers fought and died for. The war is now about symbols, and the free-speech rights of some versus the efforts to restrict that speech by others. J. Michael Martinez makes this point in an essay on the political implications of Confederate symbols. He notes that individuals and governments have long relied on the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and free press to display Confederate symbols and commemorate the sacrifices of Confederate soldiers who died for a cause in which they believed. However, symbol opponents have made the contrary argument that Confederate flags and other forms of purportedly racist recognition have a "chilling" effect on the desire and ability of black citizens to use their First Amendment right of free expression.

Modern Constitutional interpretations hold that the display of Confederate symbols as "political speech" are lawful. Indeed, as Martinez observes, even certain types of "hate messages" enjoy Constitutional protection in the free marketplace of ideas the framers intended for our nation. Therefore, while an individual may be uncomfortable entering a building displaying a Confederate flag or plaque, the courts generally do not recognize discomfort as a basis for legal action.

The book's chapters vary in usefulness. For example, three chapters on Southern political thought are out of place in a book that professes to deal with the significance and perceptions concerning Confederate symbols. Although well-written, they offer little relevance to the controversy, and appear to be scholarly padding that stretches several pertinent essays to book length. Another, a history of the Confederate flag, is interesting and thorough, but superfluous. Others are ill-fitting because of their unscholarly bias. For instance, a chapter on the necessity of removing Confederate flags from Southern state capitols contains a first-person recollection about how ashamed the author was to attend a public school in 1980s Georgia, beneath a state flag that included a Confederate symbol. "I want so desperately to ignore the flag, ignore Dixie, and ignore the history for which it stands," the author fulminates (210).

More pertinent to the book's stated topic, a chapter on Confederate monuments chronicles interesting recent controversies. When the city of Richmond voted in 1996 to erect a statue of former tennis great and native son Arthur Ashe on Monument Avenue, which is lined with the statues of Confederate leaders, the issue of placement became a political powder keg. Amid inflamed and racially-charged debate, some argued the statue of the athlete and social activist should be located elsewhere in the city, to avoid offending historic sensibilities and pay proper tribute to Ashe, while others asserted that erecting a statue of a black man among Confederate war heroes was poetic justice. Other useful chapters contend that white Southern identity is not highly correlated to racial conservatism, and that sentiment about the Confederate battle flag as displayed on state flags often polarizes along racial lines.

The race issue permeates the book's eleven chapters, whose authors propose that contemporary claims to honor "Southern history and tradition" are thin veils for latent racism. Their authors having made this point clearly, the editors somewhat disingenuously conclude that compromise is the only solution to the controversy of displaying Confederate symbols, and advise Southern states to follow Alabama's example. Alabama lowered the Confederate battle flag from above the state capitol and placed it beside the capitol's Confederate monument. "No longer was the rebel banner displayed in an official capacity over the capitol, the symbol of state government, but neither was it hidden away in an effort to deny Southern heritage," they write (316). Such compromises can be the antidote to the racially divisive issue of Confederate symbols on display.

Ralph Frasca

Marymount University

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