We cannot fly the Magnolia State Flag because it represents secession.

We cannot fly the Confederate Battle Flag or the Mississippi State Flag because it represents racism.

In all of my research over many years, I have never seen the Magnolia State Flag, the Confederate Battle Flag, the Mississippi State Flag, or any other flag associated with the Confederate States of America flown on a slave ship. They all flew the Stars and Stripes as they transported slaves from Africa to the slave traders in New England. Shouldn’t we also take this down? 

There are no innocent hands when it comes to the most heinous sin of all time — slavery. I would call it a crime, but it was not illegal in the Union prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. After this document, slavery was only illegal in the South. It did not free the slaves in the Union. I offer no one of that time absolution. There is plenty of blame for the whole country of that time to share.

We cannot rewrite history and remove the stain of slavery that was the norm for over a thousand years. We can only fight the slavery and human trafficking that is evident in our world today.
Southerners are not still fighting the War For Southern Independence, but we are still sensitive to the rape, pillage and plunder visited on the South and its people (African slaves included) during the war and during the Reconstruction that followed. Elements of that Reconstruction still exist today.

Welcome to the South.

R. Edward Bartlett

Oxford