For black Americans, he said, the flag evokes great fear and anxiety and very painful memories since it has been abused by the Ku Klux Klan and by the vigilantes and by the people who were lynching my ancestors and intimidating people . Keyes went on to say, however, that whites in the South look upon the flag and its history with pride. I know that the flag was not a symbol of slavery and oppression , he said. It was the battle flag, that was actually the symbol of the blood sacrifices of so many soldiers of the South who weren t just fighting for slavery, but for their homes and their families and their states. I understand the pride that people can take in that flag on that account .
Public symbols have multiple meanings.
Sometimes those meanings are in conflict as is the case of the Confederate battle flag. This fact was understood and clearly articulated by Keyes, the son of slaves, who urges people to understand both sets of meanings and to seek reconciliation rather than seeking to score political points . The Confederate battle flag should not fly over the state capitol of South Carolina anymore than the flag of any other state or the flag of the United Nations. This in essence is what Keyes said, and what Bush should have said instead of simply running away from the issue. If Gore were honest in his attack he would have criticize Bill Clinton, former governor of Arkansas, whose state flag, a legitimate symbol of state sovereignty, incorporates the device of the Confederate battle flag within its design as do so many other state flags of the Old Confederacy.