Race/Related: Which Is the Real Confederate Flag?

Revealing the long-hidden history of the Stars and Bars View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Sunday, June 25, 2017 [Join Race/Related »]( [Some Confederate flag proposals were racially explicit and relegated the color black. In one example, the white bar and stars illustrated the control of whites over other races and their increasing “ascendancy.”] Some Confederate flag proposals were racially explicit and relegated the color black. In one example, the white bar and stars illustrated the control of whites over other races and their increasing “ascendancy.” Reproduced in R. P. Thian, Documentary History of the Flag and Seal (Washington: 1880) The Lost Confederate Flags The Harvard professor [Sarah Lewis]( shares her latest research with us today. She’ll be speaking more on this topic at the [Aspen Ideas Festival]( this week. How did the Confederacy come to be symbolized in the flag that roils American politics to this day? In their quest to symbolize their foundational values of freedom for whites and slavery for blacks, Confederate leaders spent two years trying out and rejecting a variety of emblems. Only in March 1863, well into the Civil War, did they finally adopt the Stars and Bars pattern that is so familiar today, after initially rejecting it four to one. This rarely discussed history emerges from the work of Raphael P. Thian (1830-1911), who was in charge of transcribing Confederate records from the seized rebel archives in Richmond, Va., after the Confederacy’s surrender. Initially, the federal government thought the documents might yield proof of complicity by Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. No such evidence emerged, and the federal government lost interest. Mr. Thian did not. I came across Mr. Thian’s work and the history two years ago in the Museum of the Confederacy (recently renamed the [American Civil War Museum]( after learning that my uncle, an African-American man, in an act of radical empathy, had joined the [Sons of the Confederate Veterans]( on the strength of his enslaved ancestor, who had been a cook and a river guide in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. [This flag model had a white field bisected by a black diagonal bar, representing slavery, to symbolize a “faith in the ‘peculiar institution,’ and be an enduring mark of our resolve to retain that institution while we exist as an independent people.”] This flag model had a white field bisected by a black diagonal bar, representing slavery, to symbolize a “faith in the ‘peculiar institution,’ and be an enduring mark of our resolve to retain that institution while we exist as an independent people.” Reproduced in R. P. Thian, Documentary History of the Flag and Seal (Washington: 1880) I thought of my uncle as I entered the museum in Richmond, which is across from the Jefferson Davis mansion, the former White House of the secessionist republic. I went with one main question: Were the Confederate symbols of white nationalism meant to endure? It felt right to force myself, as my uncle had, to get close to histories that are uncomfortable in order to state what is found there. Two weeks before my visit, Bree Newsome had scaled a flagpole in front of the statehouse and [taken down the Confederate battle flag]( in Columbia, S.C. Dylann Roof had recently [murdered nine members]( of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, posing before the flag for his [self-styled portrait](. Mr. Thian spent a half century documenting the history of the Confederate currency, flag and seal as he became chief clerk at the Army headquarters in Washington and published a compendium of the Confederate Congressional debates. His work shows the South’s global ambitions, and it traces how firmly the Confederacy understood the crucial role of visual symbols — flags, signs, even monuments — in the service of Confederate citizenship, in the present and the future. Secessionist newspaper offices from Charleston to Richmond functioned as galleries for proposed flag designs of painted silk and cotton bunting. Some attempts were racially explicit, diagraming a hierarchy of races to ennoble slavery with signs. In 1862, a Confederate flag model in the windows of The Daily Dispatch of Richmond featured three color bars — white, black and red — to symbolize whites, slaves and Native Americans. The designer — James McFadden Gaston, who would become one of the chief surgeons for the Confederate Army — put the black bar at the bottom “to indicate subjection,” red along the side to symbolize Native Americans, and white above “to denote superiority,” as he wrote in a letter to Jefferson Davis. He used a crescent of white stars “overrunning the red and black, illustrating the control of whites over the other races and their increasing ascendancy.” The racially explicit color scheme of black and white reappeared in the proposals. In that same year, another Confederate flag model hung in The Charleston Mercury newspaper’s Broad Street office showing a white field bisected by a black diagonal bar extending downward to symbolize a “faith in the ‘peculiar institution,’ and be an enduring mark of our resolve to retain that institution while we exist as an independent people.” [The adoption of the flag known as the Stars and Bars was anything but straightforward.] The adoption of the flag known as the Stars and Bars was anything but straightforward. Travis Dove for The New York Times Other rejected flag models were innovative to the point of being fantastical. “We should neither have unicorns or dragons, nor steam-engines and cotton-bales,” one reader, identified only as O.M.L., wrote in a letter to The Richmond Examiner about competing flag designs. Fantasy lost out, but white supremacy remained attractive. From Selma, Ala., came the suggestion by W.M.M. Brantly for a flag with “significant symbolism,” a blue field with a black castle surrounded by seven stars. “The black is typical of our domestic institution of negro slavery,” Mr. Brantly explained, while the “castle is also associated with baronial life and the age of chivalry.” Choosing a flag was anything but straightforward, for it would need to capture the Confederacy’s founding principles as well as suit its global imperial ambitions. I read the debates over how each flag model would affect the Confederacy’s appearance on the world stage. The historian John M. Coski reminds us that every flag design was meant to be the symbol of a “free and prosperous people,” a criterion listed by the Confederate committee on the flag and seal. Slavery also constituted a central tenet of the Confederacy, but slavery was certainly not a noble cause worldwide. Also, black was not an appropriate color according to the rules of heraldry for national insignia. None of the racially explicit flag models would work. [Raphael Thian (1830-1911) was in charge of transcribing Confederate records from the archives in Richmond, Va. He spent more than 50 years documenting the history of the Confederate currency, flag and seal.] Raphael Thian (1830-1911) was in charge of transcribing Confederate records from the archives in Richmond, Va. He spent more than 50 years documenting the history of the Confederate currency, flag and seal. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Mr. Thian’s work shows that the Confederacy rejected its first flag design to make it more distinct from the United States flag, which had inspired and therefore resembled the flags of Liberia and an early flag of the Sandwich Islands, where there were communities of free blacks. Selecting a flag led to protracted debates and frustrations. “Our country must be sadly lacking in invention and genius if it cannot produce some design for our flag in which there shall be no form whatever either stars or stripes, which our government that oppresses us has forever polluted,” stated The Richmond Examiner in March 1862. The Confederacy finally accepted the Stars and Bars in March 1863, because it had been used in battle, “consecrated by blood,” by default a symbol of conflict rather than Confederate values. What is lost by not knowing about these proposed flags? The fact that Confederates realized that principles of freedom, sovereignty and black bondage could not exist on an emblem intended to circulate on the world stage and endure. These debates over symbols show us that Confederates were conscious of facing a contradiction, one we’re still contending with today: how to communicate a political belief in both freedom for whites and slavery for blacks. The task was impossible. This moment of early white nationalism gave birth to a civic narrative with an insurmountable task — making a visual declaration of the unspeakable. [Sarah Lewis]( is an assistant professor at Harvard in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of African and African-American Studies. She is the author of “The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery” (Simon & Schuster) and a forthcoming book on race, photography and citizenship (Harvard University Press). ADVERTISEMENT We want to hear from you. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [racerelated@nytimes.com](mailto:racerelated@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). Want more Race/Related? Follow us on Instagram, where we continue the conversation about race through stunning visuals. [Instagram]( [INSTAGRAM]( Connect with us. 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