from "flags in the dust" to banners of defiance: tales of a symbol's transformations

From "Flags in the Dust" to Banners of Defiance: Tales of a Symbol's TransformationsAuthor(s): John LoweSource: Callaloo, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter, 2001), pp. 117-122Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300474 .

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FROM "FLAGS IN THE DUST" TO BANNERS OF DEFIANCE Tales of a Symbol's Transformations

by John Lowe

The Confederate flag that is currently, and properly, a subject of controversy will

always be bound up for me with memories of childhood-but not the way you might think. William Faulkner once famously wrote, "For every southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for

Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances . . . that moment doesn't need even a fourteen year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the gold dome of Washing- ton itself . .." (Intruder 195). This dream for Faulkner, at least, no doubt would have been accompanied by a vision of the stars and bars too, because if you look at the frontispiece Edward Shenton designed for Faulkner's real Civil War novel (as op- posed to Absalom, Absalom!), The Unvanquished, you'll see a valiant rebel soldier

leaning on his sword, but holding a huge Confederate flag in the other hand. The act of being "unvanquished" meant holding the flag, rescuing it from "the dust," "unfurl-

ing" it again with unfolding, flamboyant narrative (Faulkner's earlier 1929 novel titled Flags in the Dust in fact links legendary tales of Civil War Sartorises with the dead and failed heroes of World War I, connecting wars in which victory was fashioned from defeat, and vice versa). And indeed, the elaborate rituals of Confed- erate Memorial Day, which used to be a major holiday in the South, always featured the Stars and Bars, and Confederate veterans often had their caskets draped in the flag. Charles Reagan Wilson and others have conclusively demonstrated how these now lapsed commemorative rites re-created the mystical past by employing mourn-

ing rituals to convert dead heroes into legendary progenitors (Wilson 29). Although the Confederate holiday was still in place when I was a child, and a

number of my great aunts were active in the Daughters of the Confederacy, I don't remember any special ceremonies on this Memorial Day, nor do I recall having any special knowledge of the war at fourteen or any other age. On the other hand, I had Confederate soldiers in all my ancestral streams (indeed, great granddaddy Samuel Wharton Lowe had been with Lee at Appomattox); even so, it was only my Martin

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relatives who fascinated me, because growing up in Atlanta, I made many "field trips" during grammar school to the fabled Cyclorama at Grant Park, and the Martins were a part of it. For those unacquainted with Confederate memorial art, this is the place to start; the world's largest painting, the Cyclorama portrays the epic battle of Atlanta, which was fought in July, 1862. Enshrined in a monumental classical build-

ing, the Cyclorama has resided in Atlanta since 1897, when it was donated to the city. The painting was conceived, however, by William Wehner, a German immigrant, who saw a lucrative opportunity in the Lost Cause movement; he had been involved in the "panorama" series of monumental historical paintings that had been popular exhibits for some time in Europe. He recruited a talented team of German, Austrian and Polish artists to do a series of scenes for him in his American Panorama Studio in Milwaukee. The painters first did a gigantic "Battle of Cemetary Ridge," before going on to execute "The Battle of Atlanta," an undertaking that dwarfed any previous canvas. On-site preliminary drawings were done under the direction of Theodore Davis, who was the staff artist during the war for Harpers Weekly and a companion of General Sherman during the siege of Atlanta.

One has always "entered" the painting in dramatic fashion, as it forms a circle- thus the appellation "cyclorama." In the 1950s, when I first saw it, visitors went

through a tunnel, emerging on a central viewing platform situated in the middle of the

painting. Then as now, the distance between the painting and the platform was filled

by scaled figures of soldiers, horses, and replicas of Georgia flora, gouged red earth, and the detritus of war. On the platform, gray-haired ladies-grande dames of the

Daughters of the Confederacy-would narrate, to hushed students, the glorious history of the valiant but losing effort to save the city from the Yankee invaders. I will never forget the withering glance one of these ladies turned on a little boy who asked if Grant Park was named after the Union General Grant (it wasn't!).

My favorite part of the narration, however, came when the lady in charge pointed her flashlight beam to a pair of figures, the famous "Martin brothers" from Tennessee. The artists here depict a Yankee giving water to a fallen Confederate. He is horrified when he realizes the dying man is his own brother! My maiden great aunt Darrinda

proudly told me that yes, this was my great-great grandfather and his brother, and the surviving one was her own father. I had seen pictures of Major John Martin at home, as he had lived to be over one hundred (one of the legendary "oldest living Confed- erates") and, more interestingly for me, had a long white beard that went almost to his waist. My mother had sat on his lap as a child and heard his stories about the war, and thrilled to hear how he had found his brother on the battlefield.

Although the current debate over the Confederate flag has usually demonstrated that the "stars and bars" version that concerns us now was actually rarely used in battle, the artists who painted the Cyclorama did indeed use that version in some of their scenes, so yes, I have always associated that flag with the battle and thus the war.

Hollywood has to shoulder much of the blame for the mistaken idea that the stars and bars was the regular symbol of the Confederacy; you all remember, of course, how

importantly the Battle of Atlanta functions in our national memory, because that battle is the one we see in the monumental film (andfaux history) Gone with the Wind.

My father, in fact, as Cadet Commander of the Atlanta Boy's High ROTC, had led his

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troops to stand at attention in front of the Loew's Grand the night the film premiered in downtown Atlanta, with all its stars and Margaret Mitchell present in the klieg lights. The current Cyclorama booklet has a picture, in fact, of a visit the stars of the film paid to the Cyclorama; unlike ordinary visitors, they were permitted to walk

among the wax figures and fake plants, and to get right next to the painting. The

gender gap in Civil War aficionados is figured here, as Vivian Lee and Olivia de Haviland, clad in furs and hats, are pictured talking disinterestedly with each other, while Clark Gable gazes intently at a wax figure of a soldier firing his rifle. This moment in Atlanta's history has many different registers; Alfred Uhry's recent Tony Award winning play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, takes place among Atlanta's Jewish community as they eagerly await the premiere of the movie, against the backdrop of the looming menace of Hitler and his storm troopers in Europe.

Just this year, however, I had to adjust my memories and family legends. I took one of my graduate students, a German, to experience the Cyclorama. I myself had not been there since childhood, so I was eager to see the result of the multi-million dollar restoration of the facility. Now, as in the past, the facade is a grand Greek Temple affair, and the American, Confederate, and Georgia state flags fly in front. Today, however, rather than ascending stairs to the colonnaded entrance, one enters through a new subterranean set of doors, which lead to an impressive state-of-the-art museum. There, one finds the Texas, one of the fabled railway engines from "The Great Locomotive Race" between Rebel and Yankees, and a great deal of Civil War memo- rabilia, along with useful maps and videos that help recreate the battles of the time. The curators have taken care to tell the story of slaves, freedmen, and African- American soldiers, and to generally provide a more accurate story of the war than the one we heard as schoolchildren during the 1950s. One can also screen a fascinating video about the recent restoration of the painting, which was meticulously done by a team of experts over a period of years. Despite the hallowed status of the shrine, the canvas had been allowed to deteriorate badly, and was in danger of irreparable ruin.

After inspecting all this, we went through another tunnel and emerged on the

viewing platform. This gleaming, high-tech affair now consists of a steeply raked set of theatre seats; the entire platform revolves as an automated sound-and-light show proceeds, dramatically recreating the events pictured. The gray-haired ladies were

gone; in their place, introducing the show and answering questions later were two

delightful and very well-informed park rangers, both of them African-American, one sporting dreadlocks.

As we spun around and watched the spotlights pinpoint subjects of the narration, I was excited by the thought of seeing my ancestors once again; but would they play a role in the show? Indeed they did; the robot voice lingered over them and in fact delivered virtually the same heart-rending story that the docents had given so many years ago. I noted again that although there were quite a number of Confederate battle flags in the painting, the traditional stars and bars was quite prominent among them, just as I remembered.

Although I never had any particular obsession with the Civil War, I knew other little boys who did. One of them, Jimmy Jones, had his room draped with Confederate flags, and over his bed was a large cartoon poster of a grizzled confederate veteran

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holding the flag-a balloon over his head framed the words, "Fergit, Hell!" I think at the time I was more amazed that his mother allowed him to have such a forbidden word posted in his room than at any singularity of the room's decoration.

As a pre-teenager, however, who became more and more committed to the Civil

Rights Movement, I remember being disgusted, disturbed, and personally persecuted during the notorious Sibley Hearings in Georgia, which was one of the earliest

examples of the use of Television for propaganda purposes. The Sibley Commission was sent out to conduct hearings among the people of Georgia to see how they felt about the looming desegregation of the public schools. Many of the mothers who

appeared to declare their children would never sit next to "nigras" in integrated classrooms had counterparts outside the various courtrooms, who proudly carried the Confederate battle flag. Indeed, many of the women who took the stand made it a point to proclaim that they were Daughters of the Confederacy. If you said anything in favor of desegregation, however mild, you were sure to be called a "nigger lover," and to be asked the notorious question, "yeah, you say you want them to have equal rights-but would you want your sister to marry one?" Years later, when I studied Faulkner's novel that grew out of this question, Absalom, Absalom!, I always remembered these moments, which were wrapped up in my memories with the Confederate

flag. One of the most dramatic occurred when the defiant Georgia legislature voted to replace the current state flag; before the 1950s, it had broad red, white and blue bars, with the seal of Georgia on the left (ironically bearing the words, "Wisdom, Justice, Moderation"). The legislature retained the blue field and seal on the left, but replaced the red and white broad bars with the Confederate stars and bars battle flag, an act that was purely and simply a gesture of racial defiance.

Before the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the Little Rock desegregation drama, and the Sibley hearings, I had never associated the flag with race; it had rather been wrapped up for me with personal memories and family legends, with romantic, hazy concepts of the "lost cause," Southern nobility and gentilesse, Gone With the Wind, and the concept of stoically accepting defeat after a valiant struggle. Never- more. From the Sibley hearings onward, and especially during my involvement in Civil Rights marches and Maynard Jackson's successful campaign to become the first African-American mayor of Atlanta, the flag would take on a new set of meanings, many of them hateful.

Today, despite all the talk of resilient racism in the South, and the necessary and

just outcry against the similarly defiant flying of the flag itself over the statehouse in Columbia, and the continuing portrayal of the stars and bars in the state flags of

Mississippi and Georgia, I suspect there is in fact more of a racial meaning in the flag than before. I say this because Jimmy Jones and my other friends are now in their fifties, and my experience in the classroom and among young people everywhere in the South would seem to indicate that Faulkner's famous pronouncement is now ridiculous; we are fortunate if students today know anything about the Gulf War; the Vietnam conflict, Korea, the World Wars are hazy concepts at best for our students (save for Saving Private Ryan impressions); the Civil War is only a venerated and well- known moment in history for aging pot-bellied white men, not for their sons or

grandsons. My students are more likely to associate the flag with our state's notorious

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David Duke than with Robert E. Lee. The romantic notions that I had about the flag as a child were after all based on some rather specific ideas about history. You can

hardly have those gaudy impressions if you in fact have no impressions at all! What I'm saying, I guess, is that it's very unlikely in 2000 that any young Americans have

any specific "lost cause" feeling about the flag, and that in fact, if they have any feeling about it at all, it's either through disgust at what it now means to racists, or enjoyment of a defiance that is connected with their own sense of inchoate hatred of people they ought to know better.

Now let me loop back to that recent visit to the Cyclorama. Right afterward, I was

visiting with my mother and told her about showing my student Wolfgang the

painting. I reported the pleasure I had in once again seeing my Yankee great-great grandfather ministering to his dying Rebel brother. My mother, much to my astonish- ment, snorted, saying "I can't believe they're still telling that crazy story!" Alarmed at the possibility of my childhood legend evaporating, I begged her to explain what she meant. "First of all," she said, "they weren't from Tennessee! They were both from

Georgia. Great Grandaddy, however, did go to Tennessee to enlist because he was too

young for the company in Georgia. What's more, neither of them was a Yankee! They were both Confederates. But it's true that your Great-Great Granddaddy, Major John Martin, did find his dying brother Elijah on the Battlefield. He told me all about it himself! I used to climb up on his lap and play with his long white beard!" Amazed, I asked her how this story could still be believed; for that matter, why was it ever believed? Wasn't Great-great-granddaddy alive when the Cyclorama was installed? "Of course he was! And I personally told those old grannies at the Cyclorama that they had the story wrong, and they just smiled and told me I didn't remember the story right!"

Now that I'm a professor of literature, I of course know that a myth is a story that

people believe is true. It's also usually a story that people want to believe is true. I can't

deny that the long-playing version of my ancestors as exemplars of the warring fraternal factions of North and South makes for a great story. In the painting of their

family tragedy, which appears in the current brochure one can buy at the Cyclorama, we find the following commentary under the picture: "The war between the states often pitted neighbor against neighbor, friend and family against family. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the scene above where a dying Confederate soldier's cry for water is heard by a member of the enemy troops. A Federal soldier is shown giving the fallen Rebel lad a drink. In this act of compassion we see the full impact of the

tragedy of this war for these two men, fighting for different sides, are the Martin brothers of Tennessee."

Okay. We can all subscribe to the tragic fraternal quality of the war; but the myth that the flag represents deeply felt attachment to "southern culture" is a myth of another kind, one more akin to a lie. Many current day Southerners have no deep attachment either to the flag or the Confederacy, even in South Carolina, perhaps the most conservative state in the country; recent polls there showed that the majority of the state's citizens felt it was time for the flag to be taken down from the statehouse. But a minority still pledge allegiance to a flag that apparently wasn't even that common

during the Civil War, and to a heritage that is not only "gone with the wind" but was "written" on the wind and is now being used to justify lingering racial resentment.

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A final note; when I was teaching in the African American Studies department at Harvard in the 1980s, the late, great Nathan Huggins was my chairman. He came into the office one day laughing about an article he had read about an Ole Miss black male cheerleader who had protested against the use of the Confederate flag at Ole Miss football games. Huggins, I remember, found this rich, since not only were most of the

players black; many of the students at Ole Miss were too; and finally, he said, nobody batted an eye when this same muscular black cheerleader lifted a blonde, blue-eyed and scantily clad female cheerleader up over his head, literally holding her up by the seat of her pants! To Huggins, that said a lot more about the "lost" racial cause than

any flap about the flag. Since then, of course, even Ole Miss has banned the use of the

flag at games, although the "Rebel" mascot remains, clad in a white suit, an Ole Massa

figure whose days are perhaps numbered as well, at least as long as Ole Miss fans continue to dote on their successful black athletes. Still, it was indeed that courageous black cheerleader who began the entire effort to ban the flag, and today, the Univer-

sity's student body president and student newspaper editor are African Americans. Who is to say that the removal of those flags didn't have something-at least

symbolic-to do with it? By refusing to sanction the stars and bars as a symbol of their

South, African Americans have in fact cleared the way for new, more inclusive

symbols, but more importantly, for the exciting idea that we have new ways of

memorializing our shared past, one that only now is beginning to take shape.

WORKS CITED

Faulkner, William. Intruder in the Dust. New York: Random House, 1948. Walters, Dennis A., Ken Raveill, and William R. Scaife. The Battle of Atlanta. (Official brochure of The

Cyclorama, Grant Park, Atlanta). Kansas City: Terrell Publishing, n.d. Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920. Athens: University

of Georgia Press, 1980.

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from "flags in the dust" to banners of defiance: tales of a symbol's transformations

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