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Vol. 2, No. 2: Winter 1996

The Confederate Battle Flag: A Symbol of Southern Heritage and Identity

by Clyde N. Wilson

I remember my own father and uncles returning from World War II with stories of how southerners, particularly rural and working-class ones, were denigrated and ridiculed by conscripted urbanités for their speech, manners, attitudes. There was a general cultural attack at the time on “hillbillies.” This was the beginning of their sectional consciousness I am sure, which had hardly existed before, as it was of mine. It was after this that we began to display the Confederate battle flag at times from the front porch. It was ten years before Brown v. Board of Education, and had nothing to do with the Dixiecrat movement or with football.

This article appears as an abstract above, the complete article can be accessed in Project Muse
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