Jackson State University political scientist, Dr Leslie McLemore, said the campaign had stirred deep-seated racial resentment and hatred that would be difficult to heal. But the campaign was unlike previous ones in the South. There were few if any threats and no burning crosses, and defenders of the flag worked hard to distance their cause from both slavery and the segregationist campaigns of the 1960s. Such sanitising of the Confederacy finds little echo in the black community whose leaders insist the two issues can not be separated. The latest poll suggested one third of blacks would vote to keep the flag.
Some campaigners see signs of hope in the tone of the debate.