Rebel with a cause? Iconography and public memory in the Southern United States

Recent years have witnessed debates in the American South between traditional white Southerners and African American Southerners over whether and how symbols from the region's two defining historical events – the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement – are displayed on the region's landscape. This paper examines the most contentious of these debates, the conflict over government sanction for flying the various flags of the Confederate States of America. This article first discusses the concepts of iconography and public memory, and then the role of Confederate flags in traditional white Southern iconography. We then examine four recent attempts in the states of Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, and within the chambers of the U.S. Senate to remove government sanction for flying Confederate flags. We conclude from these debates that while icons can act as centripetal forces binding a people together, they can also emerge as centrifugal forces, further splitting apart a region's population along major cultural and racial divisions.