Taking down the Confederate flag would involve several versions

Long before the horrendous tragic murders of nine people in a South Carolina church by someone alleged to be a white supremacist, there was a controversy over the flying of Confederate flags within the Confederacy itself, back in 1861, when the first flag of the rebel “nation” was designed.

The first national flag, historians call it, was a rectangular flag with blue in the corner and white stars representing the states of the Confederacy. There were red and white stripes to fill out the flag. Some rebel states didn’t like it because it looked too much like the American flag.

And, yes, it was called the “Stars and Bars,” though confusion reigns even today. Even on this page, the “Stars and Bars” designation has been used to refer to what was really called a “battle flag,” with crossing blue bars over red, with white stars on the blue. But that’s not the national Confederate flag.

It is that battle flag design at the center of a national argument over its removal from the Confederate monument near South Carolina’s Capitol in Columbia and from government buildings around the country. The debate is under way in North Carolina as well, though the state doesn’t fly the battle flag on its Capitol.

The battle flag also was incorporated into the “second national flag” of the Confederacy, when it was in the corner with a white background for the rest of the flag. Then there was the “third national flag,” which was adopted later in the Civil War and to which a red stripe was added. It was called “the blood-stained banner.”

Interestingly, Confederate icon Robert E. Lee didn’t encourage the continued use of the battle flag as a symbol of anything, and it wasn’t flown at his funeral.

The multiplicity of Confederate flags doesn’t matter. The battle flag long ago wore out its welcome, on monuments, on hats, on motorcycles, on anything. To Americans of color, to those who are descended from slaves, it represents violence and horror and injustice and has no place certainly on or near any government building. Period.

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Taking down the Confederate flag would involve several versions."